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I want to tell you about a late social psychologist
who, in the late 1950s, brought together three paranoid schizophrenics,
in one Michigan State mental hospital.
This social psychologist, by the name of Milton Rokeach,
was interested in delusional belief systems.
He was particularly interested in these three men
because they all shared the same delusional belief.
Each of these three men believed himself to be
the living reincarnation of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Now the Bible says, "There is only one Son of God."
So Rokeach thought,
huh... if we put these three men
who are asserting this very exclusive one identity in one room,
surely, they will see the absurdity of their claims
through the lens of one another.
Well, this was the idea:
to potentially find a cure for their outlandish delusions,
by creating an environment in which they were forced
to encounter and fight their own arguments
all day, everyday, through the eyes of one another.
But it's not exactly what happened.
Two years went by,
and their eerily similar claims never did cancel one another out.
Instead, each man remained persistent and steadfast in his own position,
incessantly picking apart the arguments of the other two.
So, let's be honest; it's easy to see why these men were institutionalized.
Not only were their claims naively grandiose
but they also obsessively clung to their own self-perception,
regardless of what those around them said.
In as, "normal people", we can't relate to this;
we don't know what this would be like.
We certainly can't imagine what it would be like to go through life,
with a complete inability to see ourselves through the eyes of other people.
Right?
(Laughter)
Come on.
We all have a self-perception that we have carefully crafted,
throughout our entire lives, whether we realize it or not.
This perception is largely created
through the labels given and repeated to us
by friends, family members, teachers, and mentors.
This personal narrative-- it's not just an idea of who we are;
it is who we are.
So sure, the three men in Michigan
happen to buy into a famous, and easily refutable identity.
But the fact that they so rigorously fought on behalf of that identity
is not at all indicative of a crazy person;
it's what we all would do, it's quite normal.
What is remarkable, I think, about this case,
are the extreme and high-pressure circumstances
under which they refused to give up their self-perception and their identity.
I've always thought this was especially interesting,
because I had, to some extent,
a personal experience not quite like but a little bit like this.
When I was 20 years old,
I voluntarily checked myself into a drug treatment program,
where I was forced to confront
what mental health and medical professionals were calling "my denial".
Clearly, I was not an unbiased outside observer,
so I cannot tell you whether or not
I was displaying sure-shot signs of a drug addict in denial.
But what I can tell you is that looking around,
I could only see two distinct groups of patients.
I could see those who had surrendered to their addiction,
and admitted they were drug addicts,
and those who were still in denial
and refused to surrender to their addiction.
And this denial was repeatedly used as evidence of their addiction
until they were ready to surrender, and admit they were drug addicts.
I was kind of bummed about this; I thought this was really a shame
because it didn't allow for a lot of wiggle room,
even in the most exceptional of cases.
I didn't know if I was an exceptional case or not, I really didn't care,
all I know is that I had really big dreams.
I had only been using for a couple of months,
I was on the Provost's Honor Roll, I was at a first tier university,
I was a really hardworker.
I wasn't ready to carry the burden of a life-long drug addict label.
That is exactly what this label is;
it is a life-long thing.
The way our treatment system works in this country
is that it's based on the premise
that all addicts have a chronic, permanent condition
in which you are powerless and hopeless over your disease.
Despite decades of evidence to the contrary,
we've seen very, very little changes in the system,
since the emergence of Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s.
At the age of 20, I found myself walking back and forth on this hospital floor
saying, "Hello, my name is Chelsea,
and I'm either a drug addict, or I'm in denial."
You know, it really doesn't leave a position for the experts to be wrong.
But what we do know now, more and more experts are coming out to say,
"Hey, this labeling process has more adverse affects than positive ones."
The numbers show that natural recovery dominates.
What is natural recovery?
Natural recovery is the maturing out,
and our system shows that it's really counter-intuitive to our system.
The idea that someone could just "outgrow" their drug or alcohol abuse?
That seems absurd; that you wouldn't intervene?
But in fact, there's been decades of evidence showing
that the decisive number of alcoholics and addicts
outside of the clinics, do achieve sobriety on their own.
This emerged in 1962 with a social researcher, Charles Winik,
who wanted to look at the claim that heroine addicts
use, until they die, except for brief periods of time if they are locked up,
or in hospitals.
A forced withdrawal, basically.
He found, in fact, that two-thirds to three-fourths of people,
of addicts, do recover, on their own, but it usually takes a decade or more.
The minority of people, those who didn't mature out, he found,
were those who had actually bought into what others said about them,
and abandoned efforts to recover on their own
because of the perceived inevitability of their condition.
This relationship between the perception and the reality is also well studied.
Several British studies show that outcomes of alcoholic drinkers are in large,
part-based on how they conceive of themselves and their condition.
So there's a rich body of evidence showing how important these labels are.
A lot of experts are coming out now to say, "Hey, these labels,
this repeated self-identification, 'Hello, my name is Chelsea, and I am an addict'
has more adverse consequences than positive ones."
I often look back and think, "Who might I have evolved into,
had I not so easily bought into this concept, this identity?"
Because it really did manifest itself, and ultimately became
not just a central but defining part of who I am.
What I want to leave you with is that we're all human beings,
we all want to grow, we all want to evolve,
we all want to pursue our authentic selves.
But under what conditions, and at what costs?
Maybe the three men in Michigan,
maybe their incessant rationalization wasn't so irrational after all.
Delusional or not,
maybe there's actually something to be admired in their refusal to accept
the social demands and the labels of other people.
Just, maybe.
Thank you.
(Applause)