Year of Saint Joseph | March 13-14, 2021: 4th Sunday of Lent | 75th Anniversary Year
Insightful book Whatever Became of Sin
“Karl Menninger in his insightful book Whatever Became of Sin? illustrates the deep value of love in the healing process of mentally ill patients. One day in his famed hospital, the Menninger Institute in Topeka, Kansas, he carried out an experiment. Calling the entire staff from all levels of service (from doctors and nurses to cooks and janitors), he told them of his conviction that the time spent in the mental hospital could be significantly reduced. How? Simply by going about one’s duties with a great deal of genuine love and joyful caring and gentle affirmation. This loving attitude was to be exercised by all, even the employees cleaning the rooms and changing the light bulbs. To the surprise and satisfaction of the entire staff, the time patients were hospitalised was significantly reduced.
It is also reported that Dr Menninger asked his resident students to identify the most important part of the treatment process of mental patients. Some said it was the relationship between the therapist and the patient; others thought it was a list of recommendations; still others spoke of the necessity of contact with the families after a patient was discharged; a group thought it was the prescription of drugs. However, Menninger did not accept any of these suggestions; for him the first and foremost task of any healer or therapist was to listen. “After decades of work as a psychiatrist, Menninger believed that the experience of not being listened to made people unwell, and the experience of being listened to made them well again. The experience of stillness in the presence of another person gave them a sense of their God-given purpose in life... Listening to someone may not seem like much, but its effects are very healing. Everyone yearns to be heard.”
The author himself recalls a personal experience. In the many counselling classes he attended, he frequently heard the expression to listen with the third ear. The professor (a psychiatrist) was emphasizing the importance of attentive listening that can hear what is not being said. The secret to this listening is observation: observation of body language, choice of words, tone of voice, facial expressions. To be able to intuit problems is satisfying both for the therapist and for the client. The same dynamics are in play when an adult is truly present and listening to a troubled youth.”
P. Avallone SDB, Keys to the Hearts of Youth, Salesiana, New Rochelle, ‘99, pp 91-92.
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