ATP Transpersonal Approaches

"Transpersonal Approaches to Working with High-Risk Adolescents"

Association of Transpersonal Psychology 1996 Annual Conference

Pathways to Change: Nourishing Soul in Society

Asilomar, California

One of the basic problems confronting adolescent boys in our society is the lack of established and accepted ritual and rites of passage to help propel them into manhood. Our goal of 'civilizing' ourselves in the name of progress, has only served to separate us from methods used for millennia to take a young boy and transform him into a man. To distance ourselves from those we unconsciously fear, we judge and label them. After we have put whomever does not fit our acceptable mold into categories like Third World, primitive, pagan, Stone Age, backwards, etc., what's left is what we then begin to call and treat as normal.

Although America, at the forefront of Western thinking, has certainly accomplished some positive aspects, many advancements have typically come at the expense of other necessary components. The drive to move away from our more indigenous past, and the cultural guilt related to the exploitation of those cultures, has left us as a country without ritual or acknowledged rites of passage for our teenagers.

David Oldfield, creator of the Journey that we'll experience a little later, says that "...rites of passage are the opposite of an insurance mentality, which is trying to minimize and/or eliminate risk." He points out that the period of adolescence is a "necessary crises" that must be dealt with. Most of us agree or understand how much of what we learn is from our mistakes. Our mistake as a culture has been in trying to eliminate any trial by ordeal for our children. In our attempt to civilize ourselves, we have become overly risk conscious, attempting to eliminate danger and risk from our society. We actually try to insure ourselves against mistakes and accidents (such as mandatory helmet laws, earthquakes and floods) , and thus have created a system highly influenced by the insurance industry and it's inherent fear of ever having to pay off. That soon becomes a vicious cycle. Our system has shifted from acute to chronic fear, and created an existential crisis as we strive to eliminate risk and danger from our lives.

So how does this all affect our adolescents? For many of us, Angie Arrien's cross-cultural work has made us look at the world and ourselves from a broader perspective. I've learned the average age for initiation or rite of passage in most indigenous cultures seems to be about 14 years old. Ironically, that's about the average age of most boys who find their way to me in counseling.

And without exception, I believe, it's the men who always initiate the boys. That dynamic alone creates some interesting problems in working with high-risk boys. First, with 90% of all single parents being women, there is usually no male around to help with the transition period. I've worked with numerous single mothers pulling their hair out over their boys. Most feel inept or failures as parents, but what they often fail to realize is that it is always the male in society who initiates the boys. Mothers cannot make a boy into a man. Indeed, many older cultures include a symbolic or literal breaking away from the mother as part of the initiation. Many cultures have fathers in limited parenting roles until the time of adolescence, when they become more active.

Secondly, after generations of uninitiated men in our culture, who is prepared or qualified to assume that role as initiator? As I'll discuss a little later, most men I know of and particularly those coming out of more chaotic histories have vague, limited or too often mistaken concepts of healthy masculinity and manhood. I believe also this is why we're seeing more incidences of American adolescent behavior in other cultures recently as they, too, sway from their more traditional approaches. After reading numerous accounts of young teens preparing for and enduring difficult risks and trials, I began to look at our own adolescents a little closer.

I realized how emotionally immature and unprepared they are compared to their indigenous cousins. Almost every teenage boy I talked with had no clue that adolescence is essentially the process of moving from boyhood to manhood. Although certain ethnic or cultural groups have their own initiations, the American culture does not. And those initiations perceived as too dangerous for civilized people, such as Native American Sundance or vision quests, were discouraged if not outlawed. Or we take a traditional initiation and commercialize it. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact tribe, but did you know that bungee jumping has been a rite of passage for boys for millennia? Initiates must climb a tall tree, tie a vine around their ankle and jump. Reaching the end of the tether too high above the ground doesn't count, and obviously coming too close to the ground has it's own serious consequences.

I saw that the older cultures prepared their children for their impending initiation; boys often knew what they were destined to do, or at least when. They are raised knowing the seriousness of the process, and the ramifications if they fail. For example, David Gilmore points out that "In East Africa young boys... are taken away from their mothers and subjected at the outset of adolescence to bloody circumcision rites by which they become true men. They must submit without so much as flinching under the agony of the knife. If a boy cries out while his flesh is being cut, if he so much as blinks of an eye or turns his head, he is shamed for life as unworthy of manhood, and his entire lineage is shamed as a nursery of weaklings." Gilmore's book Manhood in the Making gives many wonderful, descriptive examples of initiation from all over the world.

The boys I was questioning all seemed to believe they would become men at certain ages, when certain rights were bestowed on them. I realized our society has slowly created a system more suited for bestowing arbitrary legal rights to an adult, rather than simply creating men and women. Adolescence in traditional cultures is short-lived. They've learned that adolescence is trying for the youth as well as the adults, so they created quick transitions. Most rites of passage last a few days, or perhaps weeks, with the longest I know of being the walkabout in Australia. Once a boy completes his initiation, he immediately receives the rewards and responsibilities of manhood. Adolescence in our culture now lasts from about 12 to 18 or even longer since many legal rights are withheld until age 21. And there's no criteria for distinguishing between those ready or not; at 21, every person gets the same rights regardless of their emotional level. Many boys I've worked with explained that they were trying to get it over with as fast as possible, but that everything the adults did was to slow them down. Thus, true manhood might take even longer, perhaps decades before a male might find a way to complete whatever transition he needs to be comfortable with being a man. Too often in this culture we are failing to see there is a difference between becoming a man and becoming an adult.

As I took my questions to the men I knew and worked with, this understanding was constantly reinforced for me. For about a year, I asked every man I knew the question "When did you become a man?" With only one exception, none of them could name a specific time or circumstance. Indeed, most showed concern as to whether they were really "there" or not. The one exception was a man who was simply walking by and overheard the conversation. He remarked in passing that he became a man after completing Navy SEAL training. We can certainly all guess at the risk and danger in that. The sad part is he must have been in his early 20's before he made that internal shift.

When I first began working with high-risk boys, it was for a company appropriately named Rite of Passage, which I'll refer to as ROP so as not to confuse it specifically with other general rites of passage. ROP was a remote camp in the Nevada desert. We had gang kids and incorrigibles from many difficult California cities such as Oakland, Stockton, San Bernardino and San Diego. ROP was the last stop for most of them before long stints in the Youth Authority behind bars.

Almost all the boys had long histories of placement failures and running away; running away literally and figuratively as a coping mechanism. The athletic treatment modality was to help give them goals and purpose, to make their bodies feel better in the hope their heads would follow suit, and was structured so that when they completed one phase of the program, they would move up to a better, easier one. The therapeutic model was basically Skinnerian behaviorism, counting on repeated consequences to change a lifetime of poor behavior.

Thus, small infractions were typically dealt with by assigning a number of push-ups. Typically a boy would argue his consequence, leading to further consequences and problems. Agreeing that consequences were important, but trying to be creative in our approach, a friend and I developed a variation. Every morning a boy was chosen who had done a number of successful activities such as making his bunk, helping staff, etc. He would then get to choose his favorite sports star. Whatever jersey number that star wore was the amount of pushups for minor violations. We quickly noticed a decrease in denial and arguing, fewer physical restraints, more humor as they complied with the consequences, and an overall increase in their enthusiasm to help structure their daily environment.

Typically, once I found success at something an adult in control always seemed to have to tell me not to do it. I had livid arguments with the clinical director who demanded absolute consistency. As he stormed out threatening me with termination, he said he didn't mind creativity, as long as it was structured. I've pondered the concept of structured creativity quite often since then.

Some of us felt the boys needed a true rite of passage to mark their graduation from the remote camp. We began taking walks to hike the local, highest mountain, for it was about all we had to work with. The first few walks were in winter; bitter cold in the Nevada desert. On my first outing with three boys, the water in our canteen froze during our hike. Of course, most boys complained loudly and bitterly about the whole ordeal. Many inner-city youth were actually afraid of literally falling off the mountain. But without fail, when we arrived back in camp, tired, hungry, full of blisters and sore bones, they were proud and elated. They were the heroes of the day, and acted like they had faced their biggest challenge. Many claimed it was more frightening than gang fights or drug deals, because they were familiar with those. I started seeing how the "unknown" is a large factor in rites of passage and initiation.

Sadly, someone else in administration felt walking in the snow and cold was too dangerous and could cause legal problems and liabilities, so the winter treks were cancelled until better weather. In the summer, the heat and rattle snakes brought up the same concerns, and those hikes subsequently cancelled. Administration asked us if we could find some sort of rite of passage ceremony that wasn't so risky. I could see the handwriting on the wall when I realized that even in a place as volatile as ROP, after three months, staff almost never quit because of the boys. It was an adult situation that prompted most to leave prematurely.

According to Malidoma Somé, this risk is an integral component for rite of passage and personal transformation. Without it, there can be no growth. David Oldfield explains the process further by offering that in rites of passage, there are two paths or directions one can follow. The first path is an "outward mastery" of something to prove oneself. This path is usually taken by the masculine. The second direction is an "inner awakening" and is more often done by the feminine. He also points out that during adolescence in other more indigenous cultures, they are told heroic tales to show them the path.

If we take risk and therefore rite of passage out of our culture, is there any doubt this will affect our teens, no matter how civilized we may appear or what we try to distract them with. Even the term "high risk" has a negative connotation in our society, something to be wary of and changed if at all possible. Ironically, my experience tells me that most high risk youth are the ones pursuing and needing a rite of passage most. Adolescent boys are inherently drawn to risk, evidenced in earlier generations for example by fast cars and drag racing. Having grown up in the age of muscle cars, I remember being concerned and disappointed when the trend shifted to smaller, slower cars. Common in this generation is the wielding of a gun, dangerous drugs and an example I heard of the other day called elevator surfing in which youth ride ascending and descending elevators. This risky surfing is also common in cities with trains to jump on.

For example, after Malidoma Somé of Africa had tired of his religious upbringing in the white world, he went back to his original tribe at about age 19. There he was confronted by nonacceptance, accused by some as having been initiated by the white culture and therefore unsavable, and for a year he tried to gain approval by his village. He soon realized that he needed to fulfill the normal six week rite of passage that 13 and 14 year old boys were required to do to achieve adult and manhood status. The test was difficult and dangerous, but to not to complete this ritual in his tribe made one a nonperson, a child forever. Upon completion, he was met and embraced by his entire village, and welcomed back into the tribe wholeheartedly. This acceptance by one's community is the second integral component in a rite of passage.

Community acceptance is quite often the part that is overlooked in the rite of passage process. For that system to work, two things must happen. First, the person must feel changed, transformed, transcended, if you will, feeling good that he accomplished whatever was expected and required of him. But just as importantly, his actions have to be accepted and honored by his community or society. This missing piece shows up consistently in our culture now.

For example, in another day and age, much of out teenage gang problems would simply be called raiding parties. These "high risk" youth are driven to risk and test themselves, and have come up with their own rites of passage with elaborate rituals and ceremony to accompany them. Interestingly, the vast majority of hard core gang kids I have known are much more adamant about their achieved or perceived manhood than other youth without such a trying history. I asked most "normal" adolescent boys if they were men, and most said no, or they didn't think so, or some other ambivalent answer. When I asked most serious gang members if they were a man, they invariably responded in the affirmative and with much conviction. Many of them had already completed the first component of the rite of passage, having survived the risk and challenge of an initiation and/or they performed some feat and thus felt transformed. Their final component and closure for that process will never come because their society, our culture, does not accept or validate what they've done, so thus they fragment into smaller subcultures that do.

This brings to mind another failed attempt in our recent history. Many Viet Nam veterans risked and survived many ordeals that helped them personally transcend into adulthood and manhood. For the first time, much of our culture was not approving of the war. Our government was embarrassed and ambivalent, and thus did not welcome the soldiers home. They, too, were denied the second critical component of their community's acceptance, and the effect on them is still being evidenced by their astronomically high rates of homelessness, suicide, and other emotional problems not so apparent in veterans of other wars.

We're now faced with several generations of these men, former boys who were never initiated into manhood, and thus they will most certainly have a difficult time ever teaching that to someone else. At best, many have issues regarding the uncertainty of their manhood and masculinity, and are often reluctant or unable to pass that along to the next generation. Their tentative and fragile grip on their own manhood is threatened with the perception of having to give that away to their sons rather than sharing it. Certainly this fear and frustration must have something to do with the incredible anger and abuse men in our country are currently capable of, the misguided attempts to prove their manhood by destruction of animals and the environment, the increasing divorce rate, and the increasing violence and anger among our youth.

So the goal then becomes to find new ways to work with adolescents, and to help create ritual and rite of passage for these boys. Many aspects needed for rites of passage and ritual can be found within the transpersonal realm. Even at ROP, before I had even heard the term transpersonal, I was telling stories, working with dreams, trying to help the boys find their deeper, inner selves. While I was doing graduate work at ITP, I enjoyed the storytelling, dancing, artwork, drumming, mask making, creative expression, etc. Often, I felt like a kid. It became clear quickly that children and youth are prime candidates for this type of work. The adult movement within the transpersonal field has gone back to basics in searching for ways and means of personal growth and transformation for itself. These basics are inherent and common to children, and work extremely well with them. A friend of mine, Stephanie Burns, wrote a wonderful article on transpersonal work with children entitled What About the Kids?" in the 1995 May/June issue of Common Boundary. At the end of that article is a list of periodicals, books and institutions for transpersonal resources.

It's not really too difficult to create some rites of passage for adolescent boys. Organizations such as Outward Bound have been doing that for years. The recent growth in ropes courses, bungee jumping, rafting trips, and even David Oldfield's guided imagery offers ways for boys to be tested and challenged to grow. But it's at this point the system begins to break down again, for our society seems overall to be tolerant or ambivalent at best of what the adults perceive as dubious expenditures of money. I believe this is where our patriarchal shadow rears it's head in it's resistance to endorse or support treatment that appears to be only fun at first glance. It is truly our responsibility as adults to "welcome home" our boys, and to be pleased at what they've experienced. Many times I've witnessed great growth in a boy only to see it stripped away a few days later by a parent or an adult system that continues to treat him like a child.

Many other people in the adolescent field engaged in these experiential activities are seeing the same thing. What the boys achieve has to be reinforced at home, so to speak. And at a deeper level, often something seems missing in a boy's growth, even after a wonderful outdoor experience. This is truly the transpersonal level, the spiritual level where all true change and healing comes from. People I work with are now trying to add more spiritual components to their existing experiential ones. I'll spend more time on this in a few minutes.

The second drawback at this point is the lack of ritual overall in our culture and specifically for this population of boys. Oldfield's study of rite of passage and ritual for two decades has led him to what I feel is the third component in this system: there is or should always be an artistic expression attached to the rite of passage. This is the way for the boy who has just transformed himself into a man to share what he experienced, to give it form, and this is where I feel transpersonal work really comes into it's own.

At this point the boy needs to creatively express his journey. This would include drumming and making music, storytelling, dancing and singing, sculpting and/or mask making. Any artistic medium could and should be used. This serves to validate and honor the experience, and to give it life by giving substance to it. A very important component of the artistic expression is the sharing of it with one's community.

This is the part that leads to creating ritual and personal or cultural mythologies. Malidoma Somé points out that ritual is really just an honoring of Spirit. The actual components of most rituals are symbolic. Joseph Campbell pointed out about twelve years ago that "things are changing too fast to be mythologized." Similarly, ritual is something that needs to be organically grown and evolved over a period of time. Ritual's strength is in it's depth, quality and symbolic meaning. Campbell's point is that we are moving faster than the rituals and myths can evolve and materialize within our system. This leads to what I have heard called 'synthetic ritual.'

Synthetic ritual would be the purposeful fabrication of a ritual, one that was planned and had certain intention behind it's creation rather than more of an evolving nature. For me, originally I felt this invented ceremony was lacking depth and long term symbolism. An experience last year, though, showed me that they do indeed have value, and that I was usually projecting my own culturally based discomfort with ritual on the circumstances

I was part of a small men's workshop last fall which included about 15 gentlemen from in and about the Tahoe area. The agenda was loose and designed to be organic. Typically, we found all of the men confused about many aspects of masculinity and particularly of initiation into manhood. The group decided to create a ceremony in which we 15 would all initiate each other. Similar to what I mentioned a few minutes ago regarding community acceptance, we sensed our immediate circles and groups of people would not deeply embrace this event, so we would act as a community of 15 for ourselves

It was relatively simple: a trust fall into the arms of waiting men. Before the trust fall, a purple piece of yarn tied around the waist was cut, symbolically standing for anything each man felt the need to let go of, part with, or cut himself loose from. After the trust fall, the men held the man in question high up over our heads, symbolizing support. Once on the ground, our 65-year-old elder looked him in the eye and verbally welcomed him to manhood. All the other participants hugged and congratulated each man in turn, until everyone in the group was done.

As part of the second day's work, we brought in six teenaged boys from a local group home and wove them into the circle. The men talked of what they thought manhood was about, then the boys were encouraged to give their input. One boy's father was in the group, adding a deeper dimension to their previously estranged relationship. The other boys were typically fatherless in one fashion or another.

The boys were also highly intrigued to hear of the manhood ceremony from the previous day, and chose, some reluctantly, to participate themselves. So we re-created the ceremony, trying to alter it more for the boys' sake. We separated and isolated them to bring in the "unknown" and create anxiety. Blindfolded, we walked them out through a gauntlet of drums the men were playing. They were led to the rocks overlooking the lake and prepared for their own trust fall. Again, they fell into the arms of waiting men. The elder then told them they were a man, and each grown man hugged the boy. Then, that new man was incorporated into the larger circle of older men, and would participate in the initiation of the next teen.

I was struck by how powerful this synthetic ritual was, and how most men and boys there craved it. I also understood how any ritual, no matter how long or well established, had to start somewhere. Should this weekend and accompanying ceremonies happen again, the ritual will continue to evolve and grab a more permanent foothold.

We too often forget or dismiss that all humans, even civilized Americans, participate in ritual whether aware of it or not. It shows in our pre-game activities prior to sports events, in certain fashions for different incidents such as ballet or Grateful Dead concerts. It manifests in how we say goodbye to an old house or car or sweater, or in how we participate in our holidays. Many studies have tracked a decline in attendance for Catholic mass from the time they stopped delivering them in Latin. Even though most of us did not know what was being said, we were enamored by the symbolism of the more ancient language.

Adolescent boys find rituals in Dungeons and Dragons®, or perhaps in how they take their drugs or initiate each other into gangs or clubs. Many men in this country are drawing off of our indigenous example of ritual by adopting many of the Native American practices such as drumming circles or sweat lodges. My sense is that these borrowed rituals are a base to start from, and the men's movement will continue to evolve and develop new rituals from these types of starting places. Given time without too much outside change as Campbell mentioned earlier, those rituals might indeed develop into something very personal, long lasting and appropriate for that group.

Kids crave this ritual and initiation, and I feel many are also looking outside their own families for what they perceive as culture. Most gang kids I ever talked with said they chose the gang for it's support and acceptance. This also explains how they are filling the void caused by our high divorce rates. But I also wondered about the many anglo boys I knew who had adopted the accents, jargon or mannerisms of their African-American or Hispanic friends. When being white sadly still gets you more privileges and acceptance in this society, why would they choose to emulate the more impoverished and persecuted cultures? It's considered worth it for the sense of belonging.

Sadly and ironically it has been the adults that have caused ritual's decline. In agreement with Joseph Campbell, Michael Ventura points out that "we have an infinitely more complex, fragmented world to pass on to our young--a world that can't, in fact be 'passed on' because it's still in the process of inventing itself, furiously, mercilessly, every day, every hour."

This brings me to a model I created after since working with the children at the International Transpersonal Association's Youth Conference in Ireland. This model combines Joseph Campbell's cyclical concept of the Hero's Journey with descriptions of each of the five stages from Roger Walsh. My personal belief and concept is that this model is three dimensional and operates at different levels of consciousness, leaving each person at different stages of the Hero's Journey at different times. This helps creat multi-dimensionality and is truly working beyond the personal at the transpersonal realm.

For example, starting at the top of the model, the top ring would signify where one is right now in their overall journey. Each subsequent and lower level shows where someone might be with other more specific aspects of their lives such as in drumming, writing personal mythologies and doing dream work. At any given time, we are starting a new Call to Adventure, while some other parts of us are nearer Return & Contribution or somewhere in between.

This seems a very appropriate model for working with high risk boys. The idea is to constantly have them working multi-dimensionally within themselves. This allows a broad range of experience and allows them to play all of the roles from student to teacher. An example of this would be to have a boy begin a new adventure, say mask making, and then eventually to have him teach it to others. It's this Return & Contribution part that is often overlooked in working with adolescents as we adults get stuck in always teaching to them. I believe this not only helps build self esteem and self concept, but expands their deeper levels of consciousness and awareness.

If any of you were at the ITA Conference in Santa Clara last year, you probably got to witness the incredible experience six teenaged group home boys had through the Youth Conference. Beside the fact we did breathwork, guided imagery, mask making and other transpersonal approaches with them, we also kept bringing them back to including or helping the younger children, or talking with adults. Sometimes they were the students, sometimes the teachers, and often somewhere inbetween. The biggest key to our success at ITA was the involvement and acceptance from the other attendees, adults with open minds and hearts who looked past the boys' stereotypes and case histories to the beings and souls inhabiting those young bodies. This cemented for me the need for community acceptance in this process. For me, the changes these boys experienced seemed deeper and longer lasting than those of most boys in more traditional settings.

Following this train of thought, David Oldfield's mythological guided imagery in The Journey is a perfect way to work with this model of multi-dimensionality. It takes advantage of the youth's natural gift of imagination, love of the mythical flavor of things and allows them to create their own personal myth, to accept a call to adventure into their deeper levels and gives them the ability to overcome and learn from that experience. Like all classic hero's journeys, they must bring something back from the imaginary world to "the world of action," hopefully gaining some self esteem or growth of self concept to help them through this reality.

Many look at teen alcohol and drug abuse as risk taking behavior, and in a way they are. But on a larger scope Oldfield sees drugs as a "refusal of the call to adventure," an unwillingness to accept the challenge of everyday life.

Other transpersonal type approaches work well for allowing boys to test themselves and face their inner fears. Until our society recreates true initiations that include risk, teens will have to go inside themselves to do battle, so to speak. A 13-year-old boy once excitedly told me that he "got it", that to become a man he had to slay a dragon and rescue a fair maiden. I said yes, that's generally the way it's been done. Then he asked me what was he supposed to do in Lake Tahoe in 1994 when there were no dragons left.

We've had good success with Holotropic Breathwork. The boys are often initially afraid, but generally rise to the challenge. The boys who choose not to participate usually have a fear of failure and looking stupid. Many high-risk boys actually have a long history of failure and are afraid to attempt something new. But they also love the altered states aspect of that treatment model.

The same group home I mentioned a few minutes ago has their own sweat lodge now, and the boys are becoming more and more adamant about regular sweats. I've noticed that when many boys first do a sweat lodge, they fail to stay for the entire time. These are generally boys with a history of running, both figuratively and literally. When the going gets tough, they tend to leave. But most eventually rise to the challenge and become deeply committed to that process.

Sweats also work extremely well for girls who are victims of sexual abuse, largely because of it's purifying and cleansing dynamics.

I've had great success with guided imagery, hypnosis and visualization with teens. Again, they tend to enjoy the natural high and non-ordinary state of consciousness. One has to factor their emotional developmental stages, though, for if they are too young and unable to abstract yet, they will often take your imagery suggestions literally and fail to create their own. I've also noticed how many teens are concerned with doing it right somehow, a sad testimony to me of the right-or-wrong indoctrination they too often get in school. I've also had recurring problems with teens refusing to close their eyes for such exercises. While I believe one never has to close his or her eyes, I believe, like most people, that it helps eliminate distractions. I kept looking into the class or group to see students staring at me while I tried to weave some imagery. Some finally enlightened me by saying they had been taught too well to look at the teacher all the time, and were afraid of getting in trouble.

Dreamwork and storytelling are also wonderful ways of working with high risk youth. Typically, though, their emotional development is lower than their chronological age, and thus these approaches appeal to their younger selves. Drumming often intrigues boys, once again after they get over their fear of doing it wrong. The group home I've mentioned often joins community drumming circles and invites local drummers into the group home.

It used to surprise me how much resistance I ran into by asking them to open their imaginations. Some roadblocks I have stumbled into, again mostly with American boys, is their unwillingness to involve themselves in these imaginative approaches. Many high-risk boys typically have low self-esteem and self-concepts. With little else in their lives to hold onto, what's often left is a twisted sense of pride and fear of humiliation and failure. Too often in their lives adults invalidate their dreams and their imaginations. They're told "that's only in your imagination", or "it was just a dream," and learn to invalidate their experience or messages. I believe many kids interpret this purging of "unreal" experiences as one of the ways to become an adult, which is to quit imagining and "get real" or "grow up." David Oldfield points out three techniques for invalidating and destroying imagination: judgment, criticism and analysis. I sense this is really the adult's shadow popping up, their resentment and fear that they cannot or will no longer act as a child. I believe they are deeply angry at those who made them give up their child in lieu of becoming a full time adult, and thus project that back onto the next generation.

And finally, the biggest stumbling block I've run into regarding using these approaches with high-risk youth is the 'system', the probation officers, principals and administrators who won't relax their control issues on these kids. There's a term called enantiodromia, which is a paradox where a system eventually becomes useless and actually works against itself. A perfect example of this, I feel, is our educational system with it's ever increasing dropout rates, declining SAT scores, etc. John Taylor Gatto was voted New York City teacher of the year a while back, and then New York State teacher of the year. The first thing he did was resign, because although his successes with kids were phenomenal, he admitted most of them were illegal within the system. Now that he would be famous and everyone would be watching him, they'd probably make him stop what it was that worked so well.

Another example is our penal system, if that can ever be regarded as having been successful at one time. Typically the patriarchy wants to control, so not much energy goes into prevention. Once again, my cross-cultural studies showed me something new. Most indigenous peoples, still the longest living groups of humans on the planet, never had a prison system. Have you ever heard of Aborigines, South Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, African or South American natives or Eskimos locking people up? Although there have certainly been some direct consequences for inappropriate behavior, often the punishment was left up to Spirit to dish out, not to individual people. For me, our prison system is a reflection of that control mentality, and the lack in faith that Spirit will take care of things.

Typically I get asked into the middle schools to work with boys who are failing all their classes, doing drugs, skipping school, fighting, arguing with teachers, etc. They often seem to think I'm going to seriously impact these boys on one hour a week. Although many of these boys have missed large chunks of school and have straight F's, the school demands they be present in class and not waste too much time going to groups.

I challenged our middle school a few years ago to let me have more free rein with the boys in question. Classic approaches to group work all had poor track records as many of us have experienced. Give me the same boys three times a week, let me do individual follow-ups, observe them in class. The school refused. They even refused to remind the boys that group was the next day, or to call them in their respective classes and tell them it was time for group. This had to be a shadow piece because it made no sense.

A new school counselor was hired who helped make a huge difference. We screened boys with no fathers, histories of suspensions and/or expulsions, fighting, difficulty with teachers, poor attendance, drug and alcohol problems, etc. He made sure the boys were reminded of group and actually went to class to get them. In my experience, the following was phenomenal. With weekly meetings including many of the transpersonal approaches mentioned thus far, some rock climbing and ropes courses, drumming, all but one boy stayed in the group for the entire school year. Not one boy was suspended and only one did not bring his grades back up into the passing range.

Thus it falls onto the adults and parents of the world to create a system to help adolescent boys and girls find appropriate ways with meaning to become men and women. I spoke about gangs at a luncheon of community and business leaders a while back. As I presented some of this new thinking, I saw only about three heads quietly nodding in approval. One man finally asked me what the cure for gang problems was. I told him the cure would be from the adults, that we had created the system that spawned gangs, and it was up to us to change that. This went over like a lead balloon. They wanted to blame the children, blame the dysfunctional families, and could not fathom that perhaps this great American dream we are all supposed to be living has some fallout we need to deal with.

Another time I was involved in the local gang task force. A community meeting for parents was being planned. The chief of police and high school principal were going to tell concerned parents everything they needed to know about gangs. I suggested first, then demanded that some teens be part of the presentation group. After all, if we are talking about a certain population, doesn't it make sense to have them represented? This, too, was discounted and explained away to me that the adults were the experts on kids, and what could kids possibly tell them? These two gentlemen had not done direct service with kids in years, and I sensed that the great patriarchcal shadow had showed up again.

I've noticed through the years that generally in the field of social services or any of the other so called touchy-feely professions, women usually greatly outnumber the men in attendance. I realized the gang task force was all men with only one woman attending, who eventually made the fatal mistake of agreeing with me. Neither of us were invited to further meetings. I believe this reflects the patriarchal need to control, to step in and do something, and it's unwillingness to admit that it's systems and approaches are antiquated/

Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia, a beautiful book about adolescent girls, contends that "what we have is a dysfunctional culture." The quest then becomes to build a bridge for adolescents and high-risk youth, to encourage them to cross it even though it seems risky and dangerous, and to embrace them once they reach the other side.

For more information, contact Bret.

Last Updated December 20, 2008