The Anti-Intervention

I saw Dr. Wayne Dyer on PBS over the weekend. At one point in the program, he mentioned how one of his daughters was once having problems.

He was sort of vague, but I got the impression that it might have been depression and drug use. Anyway, the family had an intervention, where they all gathered around her and told her how her behavior was affecting them.

Instead of reforming, she went out and continued her destructive behavior.

He said that she is ok now but, if he had to do it over again, he said that he would follow the custom of an African tribe he read about.

When someone in that culture does something wrong, he is brought into the middle of the village and everyone surrounds him and they tell him all the good things he has ever done, and how they enriched their life.

The rules are they can't make stuff up or be condescending. They ceremony can go night and day, until they have exhausted themselves and praised everything about the person. Then, the person goes back to their life.

Dyer concluded the story by saying that the need for the ceremony is very rare ;-)