est (13 page)

Of the three men, Jack* was the most eager to share his experience. He was
also the most articulate, a handsome young black who had been convicted
of both rape and bank robbery.

* I've used fictional names for prisoners throughout this chapter.

"What I got out of
est
is self-control and self-awareness."
His deep brown eyes looked directly at me. "Some days my mind just can't
stop wishing I were out. So then I say, 'Why wish to be out there when
you can't? Just relax and flow with it and take it as it comes.' I go
through that maybe ten times a day to pull myself out of it. But it
works. I tell myself, 'This is all there is right now so just relax and
quit fighting because you can't do anything but worry yourself to death
trying to make it something it isn't.'"
Jack had been in Transactional Analysis in the prison and he felt that
TA was his first awareness of how he was "put together."* He also felt
it had prepared him for the
est
experience which he had been
through eight months previously. "Frankly," he said, "none of it is any
magic for me. But what works best is something I got from
est
,
and that's telling myself that this is what it is, so just let it be."

* Transactional Analysis is a system developed by the late
Dr. Eric Berne in which the personality Is arbitrarily divided
into three parts: parent, adult, and child. A shorthand, rhythmic
explanation is that the "parent" part Is concerned with what you
were taught; the "adult" with thought; the "child" with
felt. TA is a concrete system for looking at oneself. It is
widely used in therapy and business to help people clarify their
thinking and feelings, and then change their behavior.

He confessed that he had slept during the processes so he had no recollection
of them. (Recall that the trainer claims all you have to do is be at the
training -- awake or asleep -- and the rest just happens.)
While Jack and I talked the other two men listened and watched, saying
nothing. But when he began to speak about the Danger Process, their
attention picked up. It was the one process the prisoners I talked with
had consistently responded to.
"I got up on the platform," Jack began, "and looked at the rest of
the prisoners and I saw that everybody in that audience was really
scared. While I was watching one guy, especially, who wouldn't look at
nobody -- he just stared at the wall -- I thought that it couldn't be that
bad. So when I got up there I just started looking people in the eye. And
I saw that they were
scared of me
." It was an important realization
for this man who had devoted his life to compensating for his fears.
The man they called Smarty finally spoke up. He was thoughtful and chose
his words carefully. "I can conceive, now, of not doing what I used to
do, on the basis of not breaking my agreements. Both TA and
est
helped. I have a wife and three kids out there and, if not for that,
I would have gone back to my old bag, which is running drugs and making
a lot of money, but not now."
Bill, the third prisoner, attacked Smarty for his new views. "You lived
before for the accumulation of money through drugs. You going to really
change your motivations now?"
"Yes, I am." The answer was soft, honest, undefensive. Bill must have
believed him. He didn't press his point.
Instead, he offered to talk about himself. "I put in for parole and
they disapproved it. When I found out, I got pretty upset, went back to
my cell, and just sat there experiencing my upset. You know what?" He
paused for dramatic effect. "It went away!"
"I'm going back to school to get a B.A. in sociology, and maybe
become a social worker. I don't want the world. But I'd like to live
as comfortably as I can and that's what I'm going to do." He pounded
his fist for emphasis. "I just read an article called 'The Americanized
Robot' about how people are working and spinning their wheels, and we
here are just rejects. Sure, there were a lot of us who were programmed
to buck society. But not me anymore." And then, in case I hadn't heard,
he repeated, "No more."
Burt Kerish wanted to talk about his experience -- which surprised me.
The prisoners eagerly absorbed his words. There was no hint of glee
on their faces as they heard their superior expose what in other
circumstances would be considered weakness. They were with him.
"The first thing I did when I went into the training was to put my
psychologist number on it. That was probably the last time. What I do now
is simply suspend all judgment. Judgment is a voice in the back of my head
and it still goes on but I don't allow it to affect my relationships."
Burt shared that he had always been on guard against being taken in by
anybody -- car salesmen, insurance salesmen, or "slick Philadelphia cons
like Werner. Now what I do is to enjoy him and everybody else while that
little voice inside just keeps going.
"I'm eligible to retire soon," he told me. "Until I took
est
I was just going to play, which meant sailing or sitting. Now I look at
play as if it were work and there is no difference. People ask me what
the hell I do around here, in the prison, and I tell them I'm playing.
No one can tell the difference because I'm having such a good time."
I was deeply moved listening to these four men -- three on the inside
looking out, and one their mentor, with them as an equal. I had come
to the prison expecting to find grim tragedy: people who were bitter,
lost, angry. They may have been there, but they weren't among the men
I encountered.
Instead what I found were people leading caged lives with integrity.
I found people whose lives had gone wrong but who were facing where they
were at with humor, intelligence, compassion, and courage.
When it came time for me to leave, I did so reluctantly. I felt that I
had found an oasis of beauty and love in the midst of a wasteland. I had
made real contact with those I met, and we had shared some good honest
experiences. I would cherish those moments always; I got that I enjoyed
those hours in prison more than many hours when I'm "having pleasure."
We all shook hands and then, spontaneously, we hugged each other.
At the time it seemed the most natural thing to do. It was only later,
hours after I had left the prison, that the incongruity of me in the
arms of these tough, once-brutal men hit me. I found myself laughing
out loud at the recollection.
When I left the prison and heard the electronic lock click shut behind
me, I had the fleeting sense that I was being locked
out
.
The
est
involvement with prisoners is more than an interesting
one. I feel that it may have broad ramifications for all of us, from
those who park illegally and cheat on their income-tax returns to the
big-time gangsters who end up in jail.
The essence of it all is taking responsibility for your behavior. An
est
article about the prison training says, "Being in prison
doesn't seem to be such a terrible punishment for people after they
have taken responsibility for their lives. Being responsible may be the
key to making prisons work. As Ted [Ted Long, an
est
trainer]
pointed out in the training, 'If you guys find out that you dig it here,
they might have to close this place.'"
Take that outside prison walls and what you get is: Being responsible
may be the key to making society work. And if everyone finds out they
dig being wherever they are, fulfilling their responsibilities in their
offices and schools and homes, then society's punitive measures might
become obsolete.
Werner tells the story of his experience training a ghetto chief: *

* East West Journal (September, 1974).

"About halfway through the training, Arthur [the chief] stood up and said,
'You know, Werner, I just realized something. You are going to take all my
stuff away from me. And if I go back to the ghetto, and I don't have my
stuff, I'm liable to get killed. I don't know whether I belong here or
not.' Anyway, Arthur took the whole training. . . . The point of the
story was, by becoming detached . . . by becoming unattached to his
survival mechanism, he became the
cause
of his behavior instead
of the
effect
of his behavior."
What, if any, long-term effect does the training have on the prisoners
who took it? Burt Kerish, as quoted by an
est
staff writer, says:
"Most of the inmates who took that first training have been released,
and I don't mean to say it was because of the training. I don't really
know. Some of them got out because their sentences were up. Others
were able to tell the parole board clearly that they were ready to
be responsible."
The
About est
brochure quotes a letter sent to
est
by
Frank Kenton, the recently retired warden of Lompoc: "There has been
nothing but praise about the program from those involved and any inmates
and staff who have heard about it. Seldom has such a program received
such acceptance. We thank you for presenting it here at Lompoc, and
the benefits are certainly reflected in the attitudes and many positive
responses that have come to our staff's attention."
Most telling, although inconclusive, is the evaluation done by Dr. Scott
Moss in July, 1974, which he has kindly permitted me to share. His report
was based on twenty-minute interviews with five people in each of three
groups chosen at random: those who completed the training; those who began
but did not complete it; and those who did not sign up or participate
in any manner. He chose the first ten from among the 160 inmates who
signed up. (Of those, fifty-three completed the first training.)
Dr. Moss's informal conclusions were that the group which finished
the training saw life in prison as more valuable and meaningful than
the other two groups. He noted that "a subjective impression was that
the [subjects in Group I] were more intelligent, open and generally
able to express themselves. This could have influenced the semantic
differential ratings; i.e., which came first, the
est
experience
or the personality traits?" (In a subsequent report, he wrote: "Group
I did not turn out to be more intelligent than the other two groups
. . . they were somewhat better educated, more verbally expressive,
tended to be in a greater number of inmate organizations, suffered less
major reprimands, and showed greater self-control.")
Dr. Moss observed that those subjects who completed the
est
training were apparently more relaxed, more insightful, and more able
to express themselves than those who had had no contact. He quotes them
in his report:

I'm doing things the same as I was, but at least I know what I'm
doing now... est is the solution to problems I've had for a
long time. . . . It gives you a direction to solve problems. It helps
me get along. . . . I found out things that help me that I should
have known myself. est helps us see them better. . . . It's
hard to put into words, but I feel easier about myself; who I am;
why I do things. . . . I can really evaluate honestly why I do
things I do. . . . I seem to have a better perception of myself and
my surroundings. . . . I can't explain it; I'm just accepting things
as they are.

Dr. Moss notes, in passing, the "mystique connected with
est
"
and that "no one seems to know why they [the prisoners] feel so strongly
about it or how changes have occurred." He speculates that it might be
the trainers' charisma.
In conclusion he says, "Regardless of the reasons, it is evident that
est
is a beneficial experience for those inmates who completed it."
The quote I like best comes from a recent prison grad: "I am now the
guru of my whole unit. I got sixty guys following me around asking me
questions about the way things are. They say to me, 'Hey, September,
say it again what you said before,' and I say it again, and they say,
'Yeah, right on!'"
Jason

Jason is twenty-one, tall, lanky, with gentle blue eyes. I knew,
through his parents, that he had been deeply depressed and that in the
three years since he finished high school he had done little besides
sleep and smoke grass. He recently got a job working with a golfer.

Going to
est
was really scary for me. When they kept telling me
I was going to change my whole life I was scared of that. I thought they
might do it.
They kept telling us that the room was a safe place but I didn't feel
so safe there. I hated a lot of the people. I didn't want to go back
the second day. Someone told me about a girl who had told him that she
had cried the whole first night. That made me feel better, so I went back.
The only part I enjoyed was where everyone has to make a fool of themselves.
I really liked seeing all those people who I was afraid of being fools.
The first month after the training I was in a panic, like I was being
pushed into a corner. I thought I was going nuts. I went over and over
what the trainer had said and my mind was throwing it up. Some nights I
would go out behind the garage and sob. I couldn't understand why. After a
month it stopped. I started thinking about what was really going on with
me and the fear stopped. I stopped biting my nails and started playing
the guitar. I began to get that I'm responsible for what happens to me.
I'm not a good salesman for
est
. But I started thinking intensely
about what I wanted to do with my life. And I got a job. I'm learning all
I can and I'm starting to take pride in doing a good job. I even started
making my bed and keeping my room neat. I like the Idea of cleanliness,
which I never did before. My room was a mess. Now I'm thinking, "What can
I do next to be better?"
My relationship with my family is a lot closer. I've always liked my
father a lot but my mother and I didn't get along. Now it's great. I
have a really nice family.
I used to blame everybody. Like I used to tell my mother, "You owe me
something. You brought me into this world."
I get depressed for a couple of hours now and then and I move on to
something else.