John has given Pauline a poem sloppily handwritten on six pages of 8 1/2 by 11 white paper.

Pauline: Hmmm. It’s an interesting idea, John.

John: What idea is that?

Pauline: The idea of boys, men being projectors or projections themselves.

John: Well, is it an idea or is it a fact?

Pauline: Well, it’s certainly a way of looking at some of the things that happen in the world. And it’s interesting when you talk about curiosity and ... I don’t know. It’s an idea for me it’s an idea worth exploring.

John: Well the reason I hit upon that question was that a lot of people will dismiss an observation and say “Well, it’s an idea.”

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: But I say it’s a fact. In other words, the difference between an idea and a fact. Don’t you agree to that?

Pauline: Oh yeah. And that’s why I’d call it an idea because for me it’s something that’s worth exploring but isn’t demonstrated to me.

John: Well, it’s a fact that a lot of boys take bb guns and go out and shoot birds, isn’t that a fact?

Pauline: Umm hmm.

John: And it’s also a fact that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy. Isn’t that a fact?

Pauline: Yeah, that’s a fact. But not all boys do that.

(There is a long pause, because John doesn’t have a quick answer to that remark. Nineteen seconds John and Pauline sit in silence, about eight feet apart. This is not a love match.)

John: Is that relevant though to what we’re talking about?

Pauline: Well, the reason I don’t want to put it into the realm of fact is that there are just as we see these things evident in the world we also see other things evident in the world.

(Wow! How’s that for a dodge?)

John: Well the idea that you were commenting on is the idea that a boy is a projector.

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: That was the idea that struck you.

Pauline: Umm hmm. yeah.

John: And it’s relevant to ask that in what way a boy is different from a girl considering in terms of projectile and projection. In other words it’s important to make distinctions, to be clearer in our thought.

Pauline: Well how do you...?

John: Would you consider that a clear piece of writing? Does that piece of writing have clarity? Would you say?

Pauline: Well, it makes the point that you want to make. My only difficulty with it is that it’s part of the boy’s personhood in the lives of some boys.

John: What are you referring to when you say that?

Pauline: Well the shooting birds and using guns and using poison, and so forth, uhh

John: But that’s not the whole gist of the article.

Pauline: yeah. If that’s what the gist of the article is, then the article could be expanded, fleshed out a bit.

John: Think of the different ways that men have been projective.

Pauline: umm hmmm. Yeah, you’ve made...

John: Do I go into that at all?

Pauline: Yeah, you do.

John: Like Thomas Edison, he projected an idea.

Pauline: Ummm hmmm.

You’ve probably heard the idea that he projected when he said, “There’s a better way to do it... Find it.”

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: That’s a projection, isn’t it?

Pauline: Ummm hmmm.

John: Isn’t speech a projection?

Pauline: Ummm hmmm.

John: And historically speaking, in our society, who usually has taken the floor? Which sex has usually done most of the talking? Can you tell me?

Pauline: Well, yeah. I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this. Say more, will you?

John: Well, in your grandfather’s generation. Do you remember your grandfather?

Pauline: Ummm hmmm.

John: And his generation. If you read about the mentality... The politicians were mainly men, weren’t they? And they gave speeches?

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: And isn’t giving a speech a projective activity?

Yeah. Umm hmmm.

John: So that’s what I’m saying. The man, the boy has an instinct to project, or a need, an urge. After all, it’s the boy that grows up to be a man that projects the sperm. Isn’t that so?

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: And the historically speaking the men have been called upon to project the national image you know, in times of war, to defend a country? And that’s the projectile activity, isn’t it? You know shooting bullets is projective...

Pauline: Heh heh heh (Pauline is laughing).. yeah.

John: See to me it’s pretty clear.

Pauline: Ummm hmmm.

John: If you I think if we consider history, we want to make history factual, don’t we? Historians try to be factual?

Pauline: Well, I’m not sure about that. But I think that would be the ideal, certainly.

John: Well, when children go to school and study history, the idea is that the history is factual.

Pauline: That’s what we’re told.

John: Well what do you say, Pauline? What is your projection of the world? What do you project?

Pauline: Well, I, you know that’s I I I haven’t thought of it in those terms. You’re talking about history and what’s been projected as fact. Well I think a fact is a thing we learned first off, is “in fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Well, that’s a fact. And that’s verifiable.

John: Well isn’t that a projective act?

Pauline: Yeah.

John: What Columbus did? How many other men were doing that kind of projective activity? Columbus was doing that. There were lots of adventuresome men who were roaming about, maybe not to the extent that Columbus did.

Pauline: Ummm hmmm.

John: But the children of today still have the innate instructions to project. The boys and girls do, and the boys tend to be more physical and more projective than the girls. That’s been the historical tendency. The men have tended to be more projecting out into the unknown and been expected to go out and work to support the woman who has stayed home and cared for the children. Do you think that’s a fact?

John: It’s not politically correct to say that, but isn’t it a fact historically speaking that the women have been more at home, caring for the children?

Pauline: It depends upon what history you’re talking about. You know I took Anthropology and the thing that I learned there is that in some cultures it’s the opposite. The women were no matter what else was going on, the women went out and gathered food, and...

John: Most of those cultures have all been inseminated by Euro-American culture which is very strongly projective.

Pauline: Ummm hmmm. Yeah.

John: You see, that illustrates my point.

Pauline: I guess the problem for me is I’m not quite sure what the point is.

John: The point of what?

Pauline: You say that what illustrates your point is that the culture that existed in the hunter-gather situation was projected upon by the western cultures and I’m not quite sure whether your point is that men are genetically projectors and women are genetically something else, I’m not quite sure, John. What I said before is I don’t know where you’re going with this...

John: Where does the poem go? That you read....

Pauline: Welll he he he.

John: What impact did it have? Did the poem have any impact?

Pauline: Well, that’s what I say. It left me a little bit ... a little bit confused about the point you were making.

John: In other words, in the poem I failed to project very well.....

Pauline: Well, maybe you did and I just didn’t get it.

John: But why do you expect me to project?

Pauline: Uhhh, why do I expect you to project? Well I expect if you want me to have an impression, that you’re going to lay out what that is... what that’s about.

John: So I’m expected to impress you?

Pauline: Well, if you want me to know what you’re talking about, then somehow or other either I need to do some more thinking about it or maybe you can clear it up for me.

John: Well, you’re expecting me to project, and yet you’re questioning the idea that I’m supposed to be a projector....

Pauline: No....

John: That leaves me confused.....

Pauline: He he he... John...

John: That leaves me feeling that I’m in a double bind.

Pauline: He he he....No all I’m expecting of you is when I don’t quite understand where you’re going with this, uhhh if you want me to understand it, it’s up to you to make that clear. Or to at least say “Here’s where you’re missing the point.”

John: Well, evidently there’s something left out of that piece of writing. What’s the name of that piece of writing?

Pauline: “After the thunder’s roll, many raindrops fall."

John: Does that title make any sense?

Pauline: Symbolically, it, it it it ties in with the last part of it, but as I said before I’m not sure what the whole tie-up is.

John: In other words, the writing isn’t clear.

Pauline: Well, it may be clear and I may not be clear.

John: Well, do you feel the writing is clear or not?

Pauline: I understand each sentence. That’s clear enough. But it... I feel... uhh... I don’t get a sense of its being a finished thing. There’s something missing for me.

John: Is that good or is that bad?

Pauline: It’s neither. It’s just an observation. You know. Maybe I need to read it some more. Maybe I need to think about it some more.

John: Do you think it’s worth pursuing.

Pauline: Welll.

John: Do you think it’s a topic worth pursuing?

Pauline: Well, if it’s important to you I think it’s worth pursuing.

John: What about the boy who is mistreated?

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: You haven’t mentioned that. Isn’t that mistreatment important to the boy who’s been mistreated? (There’s a long pause.) Isn’t that what the poem is about.

Pauline: Well, I’m not sure. It may be about that, and I didn’t see it that way.

John: Well the fact is. It’s not a finished copy. It’s hard to read. Did you find the writing hard to read?

Pauline: Well I found it

John: It’s hand-written writing and some of the words are crossed out. And some of the words you probably couldn’t read. Is that correct?

Pauline: Well, that may be true... yeah.

John: So it’s not really a good presentation of the product.

Pauline: That... that... that ... that may have something to do with it. Yeah.

John: And so in a way it’s not fair to the poet to present a poem that’s not easy for a reader to read. Is that correct?

Pauline: Welll.. Yeah. That makes sense. There have been places where I needed to stop and wonder about the wording. I think, you know. There are things here that make a lot of sense. And yet I’m not quite sure.

John: Would it be a good topic for a seminar? You know a three hour seminar for people who wanted to learn more about, say, Asperger’s syndrome or autism? Would it be a starting point?

Pauline: It might be a starting point. It might be a starting point. Yeah. You’d get a lot of discussion. Because what you seem to be saying and yet you know I’m not sure that that’s what you’re saying is that it’s genetic in men to be violent and to be

John: Well the emphasis was on projection. The violence is something that’s not as basic as the need for projections.

Pauline: Ummm hmmmm. Well I think it’s. I think it’s....

John: The key is to help a boy to integrate the non-violent, the creative with the energy of his maleness.

Pauline: Umm hmmm. I think that. I think that is an important statement. Yeah.

John: And so rather than coming in here with some malicious intent, you know, and shooting the psychotherapist, I come in and present poetry to the psychotherapist. Isn’t that better than if I come in with a gun and shoot you?

Pauline: Yeah.. He he he. I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt like shooting me from time to time. He he he. Yeah.

John: Well, does that help you understand?

Pauline: Yeah it does.

John: Because a man might come in here and not shoot you but he might take some of the things off your shelf. You know what I mean? Have you ever missed stuff that people come in and take something. Have you ever had something missing?

Pauline: Oh, sometimes when children have been here.

John: Well, usually for a man, that’s not enough of getting even. Do you know what I mean?

Pauline: Yeah. Yeah.

John: ‘Cause when a person’s mistreated, whether it’s a boy or a girl, sex doesn’t really matter, all that much if someone feels mistreated sometimes they have to take some of that out on the world, you know, somebody else.

Pauline: Yeah. Yeah.

John: But swinging around to the fact. I think it’s a fact that you’re more likely to see boys out with bb guns shooting birds than you’re likely to see girls out with bb guns shooting birds. I think that’s a fact. Would you agree to that?

Pauline: Well, in our culture, I imagine that’s true.

John: Well I am basically talking about our culture, the American, European-American culture.

Pauline: Yeah.

John: Because I think it’s a fact in most of the Third World nations today, the young people are trying to think and act and feel like Westerners. I’ve heard that on the radio and on the talk shows. They’ve mentioned that. Even in Iran, I heard just the other day that in Iran and in Iraq the youngsters aren’t interested in the old stuff. They want to get into the Western American culture.

Pauline: Yeah. I think that’s true.

John: And the old people aren’t that way. The young ones I’m talking about ten, twenty year old people.

Pauline: I think that’s true.

John: So the Western culture has penetrated and continues to penetrate. And the Western culture is a patriarchal culture, isn’t it?

Pauline: Umm hmmm.

John: Isn’t the Judeo-Christian culture a patriarchal culture what do they call it, a patriarchal culture? Does that reinforce my point?

Pauline: Well. I... Uh. I I I hear that point and that makes, that comes through very clearly. Uh.

John: Well it comes through historically, doesn’t it?

Pauline: I guess I don’t see .... I don’t see a mechanism for transformation... I don’t know.

John: The mechanism for transformation. Well, why don’t we talk about that next time.

Pauline: In fact, if it’s physiology, well, then how can that change?

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