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Philosophical Counseler Helps Clients With "Problems of Living"Is philosophy a tool that can help people cope with real-world problems? Ross Reed thinks so. Reed, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, counsels people who come to him with personal problems. "The idea of philosophy helping people -- most people think that's a laughable proposition. But I don't think it's funny," says Reed. "I think that philosophy began with the Greeks by being therapeutic, and it's been therapeutic for me and many people I've known." Philosophical counseling began as a movement in the early 1980s in Germany, with the central tenet that modern psychology doesn't solve moral or existential issues --what philosophers call "problems of living." The profession is still growing and virtually unregulated in the U.S., but the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA) is attempting to certify members. Founding president Lou Marinoff says his group has certified just 19 counselors in the U.S., but Reed is currently not one of the them because he has not paid his dues recently. Originally from Pennsylvania, Reed worked in mental-health facilities while in graduate school at Baylor University in Texas and at Loyola University in Chicago. For more than 10 years he taught part-time at four institutions in the Chicago area, where he began to apply what he was teaching. "[Students] might come down to my office and say, 'Do you think I should have an abortion?' I came to realize that with most of those important questions, it's really hard for anyone to find a place to go to discuss it. I mean, you could go to a priest or a rabbi, but you pretty much know what the answer's going to be." Unable to find a full-time teaching position in the competitive job market for humanities Ph.D.'s, Reed followed his girlfriend to Memphis when she took a job at Rhodes College. His business got started last June, and he says that in the last year he has seen more than 20 clients out of his home near the University of Memphis. He charges up to $60 per hour on a sliding scale. Clients come to Reed with a variety of problems. When an evangelical Christian came to him complaining of visions of angry "satanic angels," Reed says that he drew heavily on ideas from David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion to help him. "He finally admitted he was angry at God," says Reed. "And for a while we talked about what that would mean, and what his concept of God is, and whether or not it would be legitimate to get angry at God if you envision God in that way." The man's hallucinations eventually subsided, Reed says. Clients with various sorts of addiction visit Reed, and he shows a reporter his doctoral dissertation, which he has given out as assigned reading to a man with an unspecified addiction. It's an existential theory of addiction, a small blue volume titled"Love" and Addiction: The Ontological Phenomenology of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Many might say that the hallucinations and addictions of these clients are purely psychological problems with roots in brain chemistry, but Reed says that's not necessarily so. He points out that behaviors such as compulsive gambling, which involve no substances, are now sometimes labeled addictive. The important question is why the person wishes to destroy his consciousness, Reed says. What's more, Reed says that the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that delusions sometimes result from a desire to avoid dealing with concrete ethical problems. This turned out to be the the case of the second man described above, he says. The APPA's code of ethics requires that philosophical counselors not attempt to treat people whose problems are beyond their expertise. This is a point that worries critics of philosophical counseling. Arthur Houts, a professor of psychology at the University of Memphis, studied philosophy as both an undergraduate and graduate. He's concerned that those who seek help from alternative sources don't realize that for many illnesses, psychologists have gained empirical knowledge of what treatment works. Houts particularly objects to the suggestion of Lou Marinoff's new book Plato, Not Prozac. "The idea that Plato is a substitute for bona fide treatment for real depression is stupid and dangerous," he says. "It's harmful for people." However, Houts says that if anyone is uncomfortable with organized religion, tutorial work with a philosopher could help him or her solve the moral and ethical problems that religion solves for most. "To me that's part of education," he says. "It's not a substitute for real therapy for real problems." According to Reed, most of his clients already see a psychiatrist and many of them are on medication. "I would never say that any one approach is sufficient," he says, and adds that he would never tell people to stop taking their medication. But he still questions the effectiveness of the medicated approach. "How much understanding does it give you to take a pill?" asks Reed. "You might feel a lot better. But what I've heard many psychiatrists say is that you take medication to take the edge off your pain so you can deal with the real issues." -- Daniel Connolly Volunteer Agency Provides HotlineHands on Memphis launched a new hotline number (818-5VOL) July 15th that allows Memphians easy access to information about a variety of volunteer opportunities and projects. "Our goal is to have as many options as possible. We just want to get people involved in community service," says Kathryn McCannell, the program director for Hands on Memphis. The hotline will have several options callers can choose: a list of current Hands on Memphis-sponsored projects, information on volunteer orientation sessions, and information for other nonprofits on getting their events listed, among others. The hotline's calendar of upcoming volunteer opportunities, "Week at a Glance," will be updated each Monday morning. Liz Schaeffer, a representative from cosponsor Sprint PCS, says that the hotline will make it easier for busy people to find volunteering opportunities. "A lot of times you have to find a contact first, " she says. "It's a lot of work." The hotline will also include a Community Grapevine section to promote nonprofits' needs that don't fit well under the Hands on Memphis banner. "We look for a certain style for the ones we plan," says McCannell. McCannell explains that volunteer opportunities such as secretarial and clerical work will be listed in the Community Grapevine rather than the "Week at a Glance." "Our main feature will be team projects." she says. Hands on Memphis works with more than 90 other agencies in the city such as Girls Inc., Theatre Memphis, Loving Arms, the Center City Commission, and Habitat for Humanity. --Mary Cashiola Man Pleads Innocent, Demands Jail TimeA former deputy jailer, frustrated at the slow process of the judicial system, asked a criminal court judge on Monday to give him "protest time" in jail until his drug charges can be heard by a jury of his peers. Forty-five-year-old Earley Story was arrested in January 1997 on allegations that he sold marijuana to an undercover detective working for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. Story was promptly fired from the Shelby County Jail. When he appeared before Criminal Court Judge John Colton on Monday, Story remained standing after everyone else in the courtroom was instructed to be seated. Story then walked up to the judge and handed him a three-page, handwritten letter. "I can't seem to get a fair trial to prove my innocence," Story writes. "If I can't have my trial this date, 7-19-99, I want to be locked up until I get some justice." Colton says he didn't read Story's note, and called the ex-jailer's behavior out of control. "He came in and started yelling and screaming," says the judge, "and we have a courtroom for carrying on business, so we can't allow that." Colton obliged the defendant -- sort of. He put an uncuffed Story in the detaining area behind the courtroom for an hour. Then he released him and gave him a new trial date. Story insists on his innocence, citing, among other things, General Sessions Judge Ann Pugh's April 1997 decision to throw out his case for lack of evidence. After the general sessions hearing, however, the District Attorney's office came back with a criminal indictment against the ex-jailer. Believing that his first two defense attorneys weren't working hard enough for him, Story has recently had a public defender appointed for him. "It's a case of him against the world," says Colton, summing up Story's attitude. -- Phil Campbell Oldham Must DROP In 2001There are a lot of variables involved, but if interim director William Oldham survives the next mayoral election and is made the permanent director of the Memphis Police Department, he would only be able to stay until the spring of 2001. Last year, Oldham joined the city's DROP pension plan. DROP stands for Deferred Retirement Option Plan. Because he's on the three-year DROP, he may have no choice but to exit the department in 21 months. The DROP is optional, but it means more money for those who get involved. The plan works like this: Once a city employee has worked for 25 years, the officially allowed retirement age, he or she is eligible for DROP. Employees can sign up for one, two, or three years. During that period, they continue to work for the city, but their pension is diverted into an account to collect interest, as if they retired the day they reached the 25-year mark. Interest from the pension payments accrues quarterly. When the employee reaches the end of DROP, he or she must retire, according to city finance administrators. They collect the lump-sum interest from the pension payments, and they start receiving their regular pension payments directly. By the time Oldham retires, he will garner $50,761.68 annually, according to the city finance department. That doesn't include his DROP investments and dividends. Of course, none of this will matter if Herenton isn't reelected or doesn't choose Oldham as his permanent director. A new mayor is likely to find his or her own appointee. -- Phil Campbell Elmwood Cemetery, Recycler Clash Over Property The Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board has recommended against allowing a scrap-metal recycling facility to operate next door to historic Elmwood Cemetery. Kevin Lawrence, who owns the Memphis Recycling Center at 735 Crump, wants to move his operation to a 16-acre site at the corner of Dudley and Sledge, just east of the Elmwood entrance. In contrast to his current 1-acre site, which is a drop-off center for recyclables, the new location would also handle commercial jobs such as crushing junked cars. "It could eventually employ 40 or more people, hired from the neighborhood," says Lawrence, adding that his business would be an asset to the economically depressed South Memphis area. Once occupied by the DeSoto Hardwood Plant, the site has been abandoned since 1986, though it's still owned by the Burrus Company of Roanoke, Virginia. "To make the argument that the site is better off the way it is would be ridiculous," says Lawrence. "The property is in horrible condition. Part of the buildings on Sledge have fallen down and are out in the street." The Land Use Control Board, however, did not agree that Lawrence's operation would be an improvement. "They were in complete disfavor of the application," says Paul Luker, senior planner with the city's Office of Planning and Development. But only the Memphis City Council has the power to rule on the proposal. The LUCB has compiled a list of 11 conditions that it recommends should be attached to the special-use permit, if the council decides to approve it anyway. Among these stipulations are an 8-foot fence to screen the site from public view, improvements to adjacent streets, and a prohibition against storing scrap metal and equipment outdoors. Lawrence complains that it is impossible for any recycler to comply with the latter restriction and that there's no logic behind it, since the site is zoned for heavy industrial use and there are already other recyclers in the area (who are allowed to store their materials outside). But the LUCB, in its recommendation, said that Lawrence's planned facility would be more suited to an industrial park such as Presidents Island. "They felt it was an inappropriate use for this area," says Luker. "A recycling center basically looks like a junkyard. The Memphis Housing Authority is opposed to it because they're about to spend a great deal of money refurbishing Lamar Terrace [a public housing complex on Crump near I-55], and this would be counterproductive." No residential areas actually share boundaries with the site, but Lawrence says his proposal is supported by those living in the nearby Dudley-East neighborhood, who stand to earn extra cash by bringing in recyclables to his business. One neighbor, though, is adamantly opposed to Lawrence's plan. "We're all for recycling. We just don't want it next to us," says Frances Catmur, administrator of Elmwood Cemetery. "Our experience with recycling companies in general has been very negative. There's a paper-recycling company [on Dudley], and they're just awful, frankly. East Street Automotive [which recycles car bodies] is also terrible. "There will be tremendous noise pollution," she continues. "The traffic will be horrible. We don't hold funerals just at certain hours. Every other company can move somewhere else. We have nowhere else to go. We consider ourselves advocates for the dead who cannot speak for themselves." Besides, the cemetery is competing with Lawrence to acquire the same property. "Last December, Elmwood wrote a letter to Burrus asking if they would donate their abandoned property," says Catmur. "We would then turn around and sell it. They would get a tax deduction because we're a nonprofit." But whom would Elmwood sell it to? Any prospective buyer is likely to want the property for heavy industrial use, just as Lawrence does. Catmur, however, sees this as an opportunity to change the character of the area. "We welcome business on Dudley, but business that's good for the neighborhood," she says. "Our greatest hope would be that it be rezoned residential." -- Debbie Gilbert Making A Difference In Millennial MemphisNothing holds a neighborhood together like communication between residents. For 10 years, a monthly newspaper called The Lamplighter has played a key role in the revitalization of the Cooper-Young district in Midtown. The publication is delivered free to 1,721 households in Cooper-Young, and recently added 400 households in the nearby Rozelle-Annesdale neighborhood. The Lamplighter is working to expand its coverage to include more young adults and minorities, giving these groups a voice in the community. The newspaper will also be publishing a history of Cooper-Young, currently being researched by the students at Peabody Elementary. The Lamplighter is the recipient of the eighth Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis grant. The $1,000 will help pay for a new Hewlett-Packard 5000 printer -- without which the newspaper will have to resort to cut-and-paste layout (and we at the Flyer know how tedious that is). As part of its 10th-anniversary celebration, The Memphis Flyer is giving away $50,000 in grants of $1,000 each. The money is provided by an anonymous Memphian who hopes to encourage what might be called "good works" -- little things that improve the quality of life in Memphis. The grants are disbursed by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Grants are available to any nonprofit in the Memphis area. To apply, send a proposal on the organization's stationery to: Making A DifferenceThe Memphis Flyer |
