Letters to the Editor

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Dear Sirs: 

What ever shadow of doubt may have been cast on one’s loyalty to the Mormon Church through association with Dialogue (especially during the early years) has certainly been dispelled by some recent events. Some readers and supporters of Dialogue may be happy to know that the new president of Brigham Young University, the new Church Historian, and the latter’s two new assistants have all been identified to a greater or lesser extent with Dialogue for years. 

I am only sorry this spirit of toleration and understanding did not come earlier. A good friend of mine turned down an offer to serve on Dialogue’s Board of Editors, because a mutual friend at B.Y.U. warned him it would hurt his chances in the Church. 

Sincerely, 
Stanley B. Kimball 
Professor ot History 
Southern Illinois University 

***

Dear, Are you asleep? 

Not quite. 

Did you read the Round Table Review in this last Dialogue ? 

No. 

They’re reviewing Cleon Skousen’s book, The Naked Capitalist. 

You mean The Naked Communist. 

No, The Naked Capitalist. 

C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-T. 

It’s Communist, C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-T, he wrote that book a long time ago. 

No, it’s a new book called The Naked Capitalist. He says there’s a conspiracy by the rich banker types to control the world. 

You must have things mixed up. Our Cleon Skousen wouldn’t write a book with that thesis or title. That’s like Lowell Bennion suggesting that sweet reasonableness is a vice. It just wouldn’t happen. 

Well, Skousen wrote it and Midgley’s reviewing it. 

I suppose you’ll tell me that Midgley came out for the rich guys. 

Yes, that’s exactly what he did. How did you guess? He supported the rich people and the status quo. 

Look dear, it’s getting late. Perhaps we can talk about this in the morning. Midgley is an old U. of U. debator, a confirmed liberal. Liberals want to wrench the power from the rich and give it to the poor and powerless. 

That’s Skousen’s program. According to Midgley, Skousen wants to: (1) angrily arouse people to the point where they will seize control of a political party, (2) take over the government, (3) use its power to eliminate the wealthy, (4) dismantle credit and money power, and (5) disperse POWER TO THE PEOPLE. 

That’s Skousen’s program? Our Skousen, the arch crime fighter, super American, darling of the John Birch Society, former FBI agent? That’s the program of a radical populist left winger type, but not Cleon Skousen. There aren’t twenty-five active LDSers in the whole church, who are that radical. 

Well, there are now. According to Midgley there’s a flock of true believers following Skousen at the B.Y.U. and Midgley calls them right wingers not left wingers. 

Let me get this straight. Skousen’s a populist, his followers are right wing conservatives who are pursuing a radical left program and Midgley, the liberal, is defending the capi talist system and the rich guys. 

Yes, that’s pretty close. 

The end must be near, do we have our two year supply of food? 

You’re avoiding the issue. Whom do you choose? 

What are my choices? 

Skousen and the poor people or Midgley and the rich guys. 

I’ll take Midgley and the poor people. Chicken. 

R. Garry Shirts 
Del Mar, California

***

PLEASE BRING SOME BOXES HOME 

Repeated moving’s sad enough 

Yet why I really cry 

Is thought of having, once again, 

To pack my year’s supply. 

Gwen A. Sandberg 

***

Dear Sirs: 

In these days of predictable decisions being handed down by that institution known as the “Nixon Court,” the Honorable Justice Mr. William O. Douglas has been increasingly burdened with the task of writing dissenting opinions which decry the erosion of our constitutional freedoms. At times he has also utilized concurring opinions to inveigh against past and present injustices. Mr. Justice Douglas’ commitment to the freedoms our founding fathers sought to protect, and to the preservation of true liberty is well evidenced in this extract of his “dissenting in part” while concurring on the recent Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder. This case dealt with the right of Amish farmers to educate their children according to the dictates of their religious belief (affirmed), rather than according to educational practices determined by the secular state. Latter-day Saints will be gratified to see that Mr. Justice Douglas looks toward an after-the-fact vindication of our ancestors and their attempts at preserving a vital constitutional freedom. It is interesting to compare this decision in its entirety with Sam Taylor’s essay “The Little Man Who Isn’t There” in Dialogue , 6 (Autumn-Winter, 1971). Here is but an excerpt from the decision. 

The Court rightly rejects the notion that actions, even though religiously grounded, are outside the protection of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. In so ruling, the Court departs from the teaching of Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 164, where it was said concerning the reach of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, “Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.” In that case it was conceded that polygamy was a part of the religion of the Mormons. Yet the Court said, “It matters not that his belief (in polygamy) was a part of his professed religion; it was still belief and only belief.” Id., at 167. 

Action, which the Court deemed to be antisocial, could be punished even though it was grounded on deeply held and sincere religious convictions. What we do today, at least in this respect, opens the way to give organized religion a broader base than it has ever enjoyed; and it even promises that in time Reynolds will be overruled. 

Respectfully submitted, 
George Reynolds, Lsq. 

***

Dear Sirs: 

In my article “The Coming of the Manifesto,” page 15, I state, “By July 26, 1 887 President John Taylor was dead. In the last year of his life, while still on the ‘underground,’ he married at least six additional wives in a further attempt to keep the law of God.” This statement is not true. I find that in the last year he married only one additional wife, Josephine Elizabeth Rouech. He was sealed to her December 19, 1886. The research of Reymond Taylor discloses that President Taylor had at least fifteen wives (usually he is credited with only seven), yet he married only Sister Rouech the last year of his life. Will you please publish this correction. 

Sincerely, 

Kenneth W. Godfrey 
L.D.S. Institute of Religion 
Ogden, Utah 

***

Dear Sirs: 

Congratulations for publishing Leland Fetzer’s article on DeVoto and the three DeVoto letters edited by Wallace Stegner. As a long time DeVoto fan and as one who feels he has been unjustly maligned by Mormons, I was pleased to see this new look at him. DeVoto was obviously a complex person, and this complexity was certainly reflected in his attitude toward the Mormons. If he had strong feelings against the Mormons it is also true that he had deep feelings for them. Hopefully these articles will cause Mormons to return to his writings with more objectivity. As Fetzer points out, it is difficult to imagine a more moving portrait of Mormon pioneer life than DeVoto’s “The Life of Jonathan Dyer.” 

Sincerely, 
Elfrida Ferkalec 
El Cajon, California

***

Does Marriage Make a Psychotherapist?

In spite of all my respect for Dr. Cline I could hardly agree with his opinions published in the Spring 1971 issue of Dialogue. I agree that marriage is very important and may help us to overcome many problems, but the profession of a psychotherapist and a counselor cannot be restricted just to married people. Regardless of whether Dr. Cline believes that psychotherapists of today are priests of the future, psychology and psychotherapy are still professions and have to be based much more upon technical knowledge and trained insight than upon subjective experiences with marriage. Dr. Cline’s opinion would exclude all single people, divorced and widowed experts as “maladapted ones” from the area of psychology, and furthermore, his “common sense psychology” may lead to another extreme: what about reversing his idea and saying that a happy marriage and a well settled personality are more important than technical preparation and study? How much time back in history would this push us? Such restrictions and questionable proposals would be hardly acceptable to any State Legislature. 

I think that Dr. Cline’s opinion about psychotherapists, counselors, or even bishops, has been motivated or at least influenced by the idea that only those who are optimistic, happily married, and well-adjusted can help people with emotional problems. I do not think there is any research which might support such a hypothesis. On the other side, it was the famous Alfred Adler who said that only those people who know the problems of being in mud can help others who still are stuck in it. People who have overcome their depression or anxiety know probably better how to handle these problems in others than happy, easy-going optimists. 

In my own experience, a stubborn, self satisfied local authority in the Church who has no patience for suffering people with emotional problems and who believes that emotional problems and a weak testimony are synonymous, is usually a well-adjusted optimist with a happy marriage. The experts leave much place in their books for psychotherapists who occasionally may need the help from other psychotherapists and still are not maladjusted and need not be ashamed of it (Wallen, Schafer). This was so well indicated by R. D. Hunt and K. H. Blacker in Dialogue (Winter 1968). I believe that technical knowledge, capacity, and human feelings in a psychotherapist are more important for his patient than his marriage. I would not like to have any hard feelings with Dr. Cline, but I can assure him that today’s authors who proclaim a development “toward the sex without love” may be more dangerous to Christianity than the poor single psychotherapists – and many of these bold authors are well -settled in marriage, have children, and may be supposed as very well adapted people. 

Dr. George E. Vesely 
Salt Lake City, Utah 

***

Dear sirs: 

I would like to discuss three implications of Victor Cline’s note (Spring, 1971) on infidelity as an occupational hazard of the counseling professions. His introductory comments suggest that sexual relations with a psychotherapist are both commonplace and professionally acceptable. Sexual union does happen, but it is not all that common. Many experienced therapists have anecdotal information of seductions, but the incidence of such affairs is difficult to determine. Masters and Johnson do not specify the “sizeable number” of patients seduced by prior therapists. And their patients come from a select population that is not demonstratively representative of patients in psychotherapy. Recent news (usually ill-informed) about nude therapy groups and publicity of the Southern Californian fringe do suggest that sex is now the predominant activity as well as the topic of all forms of therapy. Notwithstanding such press, the prospect of a sexual relationship with a psychotherapist is a fantasy that remains – in the overwhelming number of cases – a fantasy. Responsible psychotherapists view sexual activity with a patient as a breach of an implicit contract and decidedly untherapeutic. Persons considering psychotherapy already have more than their share of confusion and trouble. I hope that the prospect of seduction would not dissuade anyone from utilizing professional help he would otherwise seek out. 

Cline implies that his awareness of romantic feelings arising in therapy was a surprising discovery for which his training gave him no preparation. Unfamiliarity with “transference” and “counter-transference” is the exception in any recognized training program based upon a psycho-dynamic understanding of personality. More than a half-century ago Sigmund Freud, a stern moralist in his own right, was advising his colleagues that the romantic attraction of female patients was to be interpreted and not reciprocated. He wrote: “The experiment of letting oneself go a little way in tender feelings for the patient is not altogether without danger. Our control over ourselves is not so complete that we may not suddenly one day go further than we had intended. . . . Analytic technique requires of the physician that he should deny to the patient who is craving for love the satisfaction she demands. The treatment must be carried out in abstinence/’ 

Cline’s concept of “vulnerability” suggests that otherwise moral and knowledgeable individuals may be irresistibly drawn into sexual union when involved in a close relationship. I would hope that such a notion would not keep Bishops and other Church counselors from allowing close relationships and the tender feelings that can arise from emotional closeness. Strong positive feelings often accompany the revelation of religious convictions and doubts, marital hopes and difficulties, and personal aspirations and failings. Such personal revelations allow development of intimacy which is not equivalent to the erotic sensations of sexuality. Sexuality may arise from intimacy, as in courting, and ideally fuses with intimacy in marriage. But feelings of intimacy need not lead to sexual expression, and can be differentiated from eroticism by individuals who have allowed themselves to experience both feelings. Indeed, awareness of such feelings allows more conscious control of them. The repression of such feelings (an intrapsychic process not to be confused with suppression of action on such feelings) may ironically make one more “susceptible” to being “trapped by an intense passion.” Church counselors may be better advised to acknowledge their feelings and to learn to differentiate them rather than to attempt to deny them. This suggestion might appear dangerous to persons who equate the idle thought with the damning deed and who wish to avoid even the thought of evil. However to discourage the Church counselor from emotional involvement with those who seek his advice and spiritual help would be to rob his flock of his expression of concern. A mother does not withhold maternal love from her baby because of the spector of incest. Owen E. Clark 

Madigan General Hospital 
Tacoma, Washington 

Professor Cline responds 

I agree in principle with nearly all of Dr. Vesely’s comments and appreciate his stating the issues more succinctly than I did in my reflections in “Mormons and Infidelity.” How ever, a satisfying marriage in which the therapist’s human needs for love and affection are met and reciprocated do, I still believe, give him greater emotional and human re sources to meet the needs of his patients. A disasterous or destructive marriage can make the therapist, bishop, or anyone else more vulnerable and susceptible to an involvement with a third party. A single person as therapist, divorced mother, or spinster, etc. can certainly make a healthy, pathological or almost any other kind of adjustment according to his/her particular life style and personal situation. 

With regards to Owen Clark’s comments I would in general say, “right on,” though I would hasten to reassure him that I would also agree that a therapist’s romantic and/or sexual involvement with a patient would indeed be contrary to the professional ethics of all of the helping professions. I have yet to hear of any of these professions in recent years disciplining their members for engaging in such activities or practices. I would hope that my cautionary remarks to therapists as well as bishops, counselors, attorneys, physicians, and Mormons generally, who are involved in helping others, will not dampen or lessen their commitment and concern in being Good Samaritans, giving a helping hand or counseling their fellow man. However, the general gist of my commentary – that too many Mormons including skilled profession als, do get involved in illicit and adulterous relations which had their origins in an attempt to help, counsel, console and comfort a member of the opposite sex – still stands. The point being that under certain conditions most of us are vulnerable and susceptible to the transference and countertransference phenomona. Having a healthy marriage and I or other satisfying human relationships helps protect us from these types of vulnerabilities.