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Let me tell you a story about moral imagination that applies to both psychology and writing. It's about my cousin Paul, who gave me permission to tell this story because he respects therapists. Paul is in his forties now. He's a tall, fierce-looking man with long hair and tattoos. He wears black boots and black leather and has lost most of his teeth. He's had a rough life.
Paul grew up in a rural, working-class family in the Ozarks. He inherited the mental illness that runs in my father's family. As a boy, he was smart, funny, and lovable. He was a master storyteller. In his twenties, he had psychotic breakdowns and, since then, has been seriously and chronically mentally ill. He receives disability payments because he can't work. He's easily rattled by stress. Still, Paul is honest, kind, and dignified. He cares for his disabled mother.
We're a close family. Last time I was at my Aunt Henrietta's trailer, Paul asked me if I'd read his life story that he'd written down through the years in a spiral notebook. I read it that same evening in my hotel room. It contained many sad chapters. Because of his vulnerable and often homeless life, Paul had witnessed many traumatic events. Once he'd saved a man's life by swimming into a lake for him. He'd come across domestic violence, injured animals, and late-night car wrecks, and he'd tried to be helpful. Once in a rural area of Arkansas, he was arrested while psychotic. His parents were looking for him, but these local police didn't read the all-points bulletin. His jailers were cruel. Paul was teased and kept in chains. No one would give him water to drink or let him make a phone call. When he grew frustrated and swore at them, they poured kerosene on him and then burned him. He still has the scars on his arms and back. Another time he was on a street hallucinating and bikers rescued him. They took him home before he could be picked up and taken to jail.
When I returned Paul's notebook, I asked him what he wanted from me--feedback or help publishing? He said, "All I'd like you to do is to write at the end of the book, 'I understand.'" Writers and therapists strive to develop the moral imagination that allows them to say those words.
-- Mary Pipher, “Fostering Moral Imagination,” Psychotherapy Networker
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