Growing up without crying !

Most people interested in behaviour sciences would have  read the book The Road Less Travelled  or heard about Dr. Scott Peck, the author of the book. 

The authentic biography of Dr. Peck by Arthur Jones is a book full of valid explanations about the way Dr. Peck behaved, communicated, cared for patients and created an integrated approach in psychotherapy.

From the age of eight years Dr. Peck seemed to have stopped crying for about thirty years. While in a new school, he was required to take the dictation of the story of Brutus, which the teacher was reading out to the students about the spider and Brutus. Instead of writing down what the teacher was dictating, he was taken up by the challenge and the moral of the story. It was distracting for him to write because the story consumed his full attention. His class mates sitting next to him teased him for ‘not being able’ to write and the teacher too scolded him for that. Dr. peck cried and went home crying for which he got ridiculed by other children at the school.  He was scolded at home. That gave him a message that ‘boys ought not to cry’! 

He grew up through most trying experiences in life not crying, even when he felt sad enough to cry. It was when he was thirty seven years of age he was able to be free himself from this ‘obsession’ not to cry! 

The biography throws much light into the life of this psychiatrist, who captured the attention of millions of readers through his book The Road less travelled (seven million). It is a book of struggles, set backs, drivenness, discoveries, innovative approaches in psychotherapy and spirituality, turning adverse circumstances into opportunities, etc. Dr. Scott Peck enjoyed being in the centre stage for about two decades as a thinker, writer, orator and leader who influenced the practice of Psychiatry globally. His latter years became more demanding on him with decline in health due to Parkinson’s disease and some obsessive patterns which reduced his effectiveness.  

It is a biography that helps us to understand how childhood environment has a critical influence in the evolution of the adult behaviour!   

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)