In the early 1960s, the leaders of the American civil rights movement, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), would often meet in the basement of its Atlanta headquarters. Headed by Martin Luther King, the SCLC was trying to implement the nonviolent resistance philosophy he had acquired from Gandhi, while at the same time making progress against racism. James Bevel, one of the young SCLC organizers, often pushed King and the senior leaders toward more confrontation; they kept trying to do so within the confines of nonviolent activity. After years, Bevel finally seemed to come to peace with King's approach, and realized what he was trying to do: I understand now, Bevel said in one of those basement meetings: our movement is not just a political program, with political goals; the movement is a kind of psychiatry for America, trying to cure it of the disease of racism; the cure has to be so applied that it does not kill the patient.
This was a prescient insight: King's nonviolent movement was a cure for racism (though like all treatments, it has healed, rather than cured, leaving scars and some residual symptoms). It was a political psychiatry. But perhaps we can turn Bevel's wisdom around: if nonviolent resistance is psychiatry for society, perhaps psychiatry itself is, or should be, a kind of nonviolent resistance. Research now shows that patients with mental illnesses do worse if there is a lot of argument and verbal fighting in their households. This is called “expressed emotion,” the extent to which families are yelling and conflicting with each other in an aggressive manner.
It is in the nature of psychiatric conditions that people become irritable or down or hyper and otherwise difficult to tolerate; the most natural response by family members is to respond in kind. But perhaps we can recall the personal relevance of that nonviolent resistance philosophy that also served in the world of politics. If given the option of fighting or retreating, it is often best to retreat, at least temporarily.
Nonviolent methods of interactions with others, methods which have proven effective in society at large, and which should be just as effective in society at small: in families, and in the interpersonal relations of our private lives. The concept of loving your enemies is the crux of the nonviolent approach. Now the patient is not the enemy of the family, so this should be even easier: the key is to know that any adversary in life, anyone who conflicts with me, is someone I should love. My natural reaction is to fight: if someone is aggressive with me, and yells at me, I want to fight back. In our society, we usually fight back verbally, rather than physically, but violent words are little better than violent fists. Verbal violence is little better than physical violence. “High expressed emotion” means verbal violence.
There are three options (whether in politics or in families): violent resistance, nonviolent resistance, and acquiescence. Resistance of any kind is preferable to acquiescence, which in the case of mental illness is simply a form of enabling: If the family simply gives up on trying to get help for the patient, or accepts the patient’s wrong opinions, then the family is harming the patient. But violent resistance usually fails to achieve its goals. Acquiesence is enabling, violent resistance worsens the illness; only nonviolent resistance based on loving goodwill can help patients.
What is the nonviolent resistance option? One beings by loving the patient: this means always searching for what is right and acceptable in what the patient believes or says. Loving your enemies, as Dr. King points out, is not about actually being in love with the other person (the Greeks called this “Eros”), nor is it about even liking that person (the Greeks called this “Philia”): it is about having goodwill toward that person (the Greeks called this “Agape”). Despite hate, anger, harm, and spite – the reaction should be one of goodwill, of seeking to appreciate the good aspects of that person, and of trying to see those things from that other person’s point of view that might be valid. Dr. King says that this kind of good will is redemptive: simply by treating the other person in that manner, they can come to change their behavior and beliefs. Recall though that one is still engaging in resistance; this good will does not imply acqueisence. One can still disagree with the other person, one can point out why and what aspects of their beliefs or behaviors are wrong, but at the same time one agrees with whatever can be agreed upon, and one never develops any personal hatred toward that other person. One loves the sinner while hating the sin, as Dr. King put it.
We are all human beings: we get angry and anxious and respond instinctively to anger with anger. But the point of the nonviolent method is not that it is natural or easy: It is exactly the opposite – difficult, drawn out, and the result of long effort and practice.
