Barrett L.
Dorko, P.T.
The character’s name is Cypher, and I see the actor (Joe
Pantoliano) weekly on The Sopranos on HBO playing a vicious mobster with
a wicked sense of humor. His portrayal of Cypher in the movie The Matrix
is similar. This movie and its connection to my life in therapy has been going
through my head a lot lately, and Cypher’s role is prominent in that thinking.
Let’s start here: In Plato’s Republic he uses
what is called “the cave allegory” to describe what he believed to be the
way most people perceived the world. Plato said it was as if they were chained
against the wall of a cave, unable to turn in any direction and able only to see
the light and shadows cast upon the wall before them by a nearby fire. Those in
charge occasionally move figurines that are seen as certain shadows on the wall.
This vision of the light and shadows contained all anyone chained in the cave
knew of reality. One day a man was allowed to escape and see the world as it
actually existed, which was, of course, a little different. When he returned to
the cave in order to share his vision with the others he is received with
mockery and resistance. The cave dwellers tell him he’s gone mad.
Now, you might think that I’ve made a tremendous leap
from The Matrix to Plato’s Republic, but I’m simply repeating
what many professors of philosophy have noted in the book The Matrix and
Philosophy edited by William Irwin (Open Court 2002). To these people the
movie is first and foremost a retelling of the cave allegory and that this
accounts for a good deal of its popularity though I would suppose that most of
its fans wouldn’t normally be especially conversant with Plato’s writing.
Me, for instance. Anyway, The Matrix is a movie about a young man named
Neo (Keanu Reeves) who appears to be living in the late twentieth century but
finds out that all he’s seen, felt and heard his entire life, everything he
thinks is true is in fact an illusion created by an immense computer that many
years previously had enslaved the human race. In reality, humans exist in
individal “fetal pods,” soaking in a chemical goop and fed the vision and
experiences of Neo’s world electronically. This artificial world is called The
Matrix. Like the man from Plato’s cave Neo escapes from the pod and lives with
a small band of rebels dedicated to the destruction of the computer. Neo’s
purpose becomes the waking of mankind from their collective illusion of reality
and a return to freewill. He doesn’t get to do this, but there’s a sequel
coming.
So what’s this got to do with therapy? Well, bear with me
a moment.
In my experience most therapists (this occasionally
includes me) practice clinically as if certain things were true despite the fact
that researchers have learned that they are not. Here’s a short list of what I
call “therapeutic illusions”:
Ø Strength and posture are related
Ø Pain and posture are commonly related
Ø Strength and pain are related
Ø You can stretch connective tissue with your hands
Ø
You can reliably palpate vertebral joint movement
There are more, but I suppose you get the idea. I have
found that these ideas endure due to a combination of ignorance (of the
literature), reverence for the traditions of therapy and fear of change. This is
not a situation conducive to change, and I find that I have to approach my
colleagues carefully with the news of research contrary to their beliefs. Often
this doesn’t work either. Let’s return to The Matrix.
Neo isn’t just told of his body’s imprisonment, he is
carefully offered a choice; either to learn that all he normally perceives is
“a prison for (his) mind” or be painfully wakened to “the desert of the
real” or he can remain ignorant of this and return to the familiar. This
choice is represented by the ingestion of either a red (reality) or blue (The
Matrix) pill. He chooses the red pill.
Coincidentally, when I teach I always carry with me what I
call “the red file.” In here I have compiled the peer-reviewed literature
demonstrating that many dearly held notions of therapeutic practice are, in
fact, based upon a model of the body that is incomplete at best and often just
wrong. You could say that the traditional ideas listed above are illusions
maintained quite easily until one reads the contents of the red file. I offer
the contents of the file quite literally to my students both as lecture subjects
and as a palpable and immediate resource for learning. Some choose to listen and
read and some don’t. In addition to the file I have a table full of books that
support my assertions about self-correction and esoteric knowledge of neural
functioning. These are available for anyone’s perusal but only a small
percentage of my students ever touch them. The red pill might be tempting but
not everyone is going to swallow it.
I mentioned the character of Cypher at the beginning of
this essay and I want to return to him now. Like Neo, Cypher lived in the
imaginary world of The Matrix for many years but chose the red pill once given
an opportunity. In the movie Cypher has lived the difficult path of reality for
nine years and he wants to go back. His recent existence may include the use of
his own consciousness but The Matrix is warmer, safe and the food is much
better. Cypher knows full well that all he perceives there is an illusion, but
he no longer cares. He says, “Ignorance is bliss.”
I offer my students an arresting and perhaps startling
vision of normal function, principally by introducing them to ideomotor
movement. Having never before seen this, the therapist is suddenly
confronted with a world of therapeutically useful movement they hadn’t known
existed. Once shown how to elicit it, they find that alterations in painful
function may rapidly and unexpectedly occur without any real effort on the part
of the patient or therapist (I’ve watched this happen in my clinic and at
workshops for over twenty years so I say this with a great deal of confidence).
Faced with this, many therapists are initially confused and then thrilled with
their newfound skills, to say nothing of what they’ve just discovered about
their patient’s ability to improve.
It’s at this point that my mind turns to Cypher.
Evidently it’s hard to stay with the kind of thinking and practice I advocate,
and I know from long experience that most of the people who learn how to elicit
ideomotor movement do not continue to do this for any significant length of time
after the course. The traditional rituals of practice followed by most clinics
outweigh the potential effects of care that includes counter cultural movement
and the distinct alteration in methods of handling can be remarkably disruptive
to the roles played by ancillary caregivers. I know that billing patterns and
documentation must also be changed, and I don’t know how that might be avoided
short of simply abandoning the entire theory of care I propose. For most
therapists, Cypher’s reasoning is the best choice.
I live with that.