| M. Scott Peck is a psychiatrist and bestselling author. Educated at Harvard (B.A.) and Case Western Reserve (M.D.), Dr. Peck served in administrative posts in the government during his career as a psychiatrist, and later in private practice. For nearly two decades, he has devoted much of his time and financial resources to the work of the Foundation for Community Encouragement, a nonprofit organization that he and his wife, Lily, helped found in 1984. He lives in northwestern Connecticut. |
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| Perhaps no book in this generation has had a more
profound impact on our intellectual and spiritual lives than The Road
Less Traveled. With sales of more than seven million copies in the
United States and Canada, and translations into more than twenty-three
languages, it has made publishing history, with more than ten years on
the New York Times bestseller list.
Now, with a new Introduction by the author, written especially for this twenty-fifth anniversary deluxe trade paperback edition of the all-time national bestseller in its field, M. Scott Peck explains the ideas that shaped this book and that continue to influence an ever-growing audience of readers. Written in a voice that is timeless in its message of understanding, The Road Less Traveled continues to help us explore the very nature of loving relationships and leads us toward a new serenity and fullness of life. It helps us learn how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become a more sensitive parent; and ultimately how to become one's own true self. Recognizing that, as in the famous opening line of his book, "Life is difficult" and that the journey to spiritual growth is a long one, Dr. Peck never bullies his readers, but rather guides them gently through the hard and often painful process of change toward a higher level of self-understanding.
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Morgan Scott Peck, M.D. (May 22, 1936 – September 25, 2005) was an American
psychiatrist and best-selling author.
Biography
Peck was born in New York City. His parents sent him to the prestigious boarding
school Phillips Exeter Academy (in Exeter, New Hampshire) when he was around 15
years old, but he did not stay there for long. In his book, The Road Less
Traveled, he confides the story of his brief time at Exeter, and admits that it
was a most miserable time, during which he did not cease begging his parents to
let him leave until they finally agreed to let him return home. He graduated
from Friends Seminary in 1954, after which he received a B.A. from Harvard in
1958 and an M.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1963. He served
in administrative posts in the government during his career as a psychiatrist.
He was the Medical Director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic and
a psychiatrist in private practice in New Milford, Connecticut. His first and
best-known book, The Road Less Traveled, has sold more than seven million
copies.
Peck's works combined his experiences from his private psychiatric practice with
a distinctly religious point of view. In one of his books, People of the Lie, he
wrote, "After many years of vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic
mysticism, I ultimately made a firm Christian commitment — signified by my
non-denominational baptism on the ninth of March 1980..." One of his religious
insights was that people who are evil attack others rather than face their own
failures. His religious views are criticized by some fundamentalist Christians
(for example, Debbie Dewart).
In 1984, Peck co-founded the Foundation for Community Encouragement (FCE), a
tax-exempt, nonprofit, public educational foundation, whose stated mission is
"to teach the principles of community to individuals and organizations." FCE
ceased operations in 2002.
Peck married Lily Ho in 1959, and they had three children. In 1994, they jointly
received the Community of Christ International Peace Award. In 2004, they were
separated and later divorced. Peck then married Kathleen Kline Yates.
Peck died at his home in Connecticut after suffering from Parkinson's disease
and pancreatic and liver duct cancer.
The Road Less Traveled
The Road Less Traveled is Peck's best-known work, and the one that made his
reputation. It is, in short, a description of the attributes that make for a
fulfilled human being, based largely on his insights as a psychiatrist and a
person.
In the first section of the work Peck talks about discipline, which he considers
essential for emotional, spiritual and psychological health, and which he
describes as "the means of spiritual evolution". The elements of discipline that
make for such health include the ability to delay gratification, accepting
responsibility for oneself and one's actions, a dedication to reality and
balancing.
In the second section, Peck considers the nature of love, which he considers the
driving force behind spiritual growth. The section mainly attacks a number of
misconceptions about love: that it is about dependency, that true love is
"falling in love", that love is cathexis, that love is a feeling. Instead love
is about the extending of one's ego boundaries to include another, and about the
spiritual nurturing of another.
The final section describes Graces — phenomena which Peck says:
nurture human life and spiritual growth
are incompletely understood by scientific thinking
are commonplace among humanity
originate outside conscious human will
He concludes that "the miracles described indicate that our growth as human
beings is being assisted by a force other than our conscious will".
Theories
Discipline
In his epoch making book The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck talked of the
importance of discipline. He described four aspects of discipline:
Delaying gratification: Sacrificing present comfort for future gains.
Acceptance of responsibility: Accepting responsibility for one's own decisions.
Dedication to truth: Honesty, both in word and deed.
Balancing: Handling conflicting requirements. Scott Peck talks of an important
skill to prioritize between different requirements -- bracketing.
Neurotic and genuine suffering
Scott Peck believes that it is only through suffering and agonizing that we can
resolve the many puzzles and conflicts that we face. This is what he calls
genuine suffering, the Christian way. By trying to avoid genuine suffering,
people ultimately end up creating more causes for suffering. Unnecessary
suffering is what Scott Peck terms neurotic suffering.
Scott Peck says that our aim must be to eliminate neurotic suffering and work
through our genuine suffering, to achieve our individual goals.
Evil
Scott Peck discusses evil in his book People of The Lie: The Hope For Healing
Human Evil. He describes in some detail several individual cases involving his
patients. In one, a moderately impaired neurotic patient pseudo-named George,
made a 'pact with the devil' to alleviate his symptoms. As a psychiatrist Scott
Peck makes an uncharacteristic moral judgment about George's therapeutic pact
and was ultimately successful in treating him.
Most of his conclusions about the psychiatric condition he designates 'evil' are
derived from his close study of one patient he names Charlene. Although Charlene
is not dangerous, she is ultimately unable to have empathy for others in any
way. According to Scott Peck, people like her see others as play things or tools
to be manipulated for their uses or entertainment. Scott Peck claims that these
people are rarely seen by psychiatrists and have never been treated
successfully.
He gives some identifying characteristics for evil persons. Discussed below are
Scott Peck's views.
Evil is described by Scott Peck as "militant ignorance". In this it is close to
the original Judeo-Christian concept of "sin" as a consistent process that leads
to failure to reach one's true goals.
An evil person:
Projects his or her evils and sins onto others and tries to remove them from
others
Maintains a high level of respectability and lies incessantly in order to do so
Is consistent in his or her sins. Evil persons are characterized not so much by
the magnitude of their sins, but by their consistency
Is unable to think from other people's viewpoints.
Most evil people realize the evil deep within themselves but are unable to
tolerate the pain of introspection or admit to themselves that they are evil.
Thus, they constantly run away from their evil by putting themselves in a
position of moral superiority and putting the locus of evil on others. Evil is
an extreme form of what Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, calls a character
disorder.
In a discussion on group evil, Scott Peck talks about the My Lai Massacre
tragedy during the Vietnam war:
In the spring of 1972 I was chairman of a committee of three psychiatrists
appointed by the Army Surgeon General, at the request of the Chief of Staff of
the Army, to make recommendations for research that might shed light on the
psychological causes of MyLai, so as to help prevent such atrocities in the
future. The research we proposed was rejected by the General Staff of the Army,
reportedly on the grounds that it could not be kept secret and might prove
embarrassing to the administration and that "further embarrassment was not
desirable at that time". (Chapter 6, "MyLai: An Examination of Group Evil")
Scott Peck makes great efforts to keep much of his discussion on a scientific
basis. He says that evil arises out of free choice. He describes it thus: Every
person stands at a crossroads, with one path leading to God, and the other path
leading to the devil. The path of God is the right path, and accepting this path
is akin to submission to a higher power. However, if a person wants to convince
himself and others that he has free choice, he would rather take a path which
cannot be attributed to its being the right path. Thus, he chooses the path of
evil.
Peck's writings on evil are to some extent based on accounts of apparent demonic
possession and exorcism by Malachi Martin. However the veracity of these
accounts has been questioned.
Love
His perspective on love (in The Road Less Traveled) is that love is not a
feeling, it is an activity and an investment. Love is primarily a concern for
the spiritual growth of another. Love cannot be sustained by mutual dependence,
rather, love between two parties is made stronger when they are completely
independent of one another.
Scott Peck seeks to differentiate between love and cathexis. Cathexis is what
explains attractions to the opposite sex, the instinct for cuddling pets and
pinching babies' cheeks. However, cathexis is not love. All the same, true love
cannot begin in isolation, a certain amount of cathexis is necessary to get
sufficiently close to be able to truly love.
The four stages
Scott Peck postulates that there are four stages of human spiritual development:
Stage I is chaotic, disordered, and reckless. Very young children are in Stage
I. They tend to defy and disobey, and are unwilling to accept a will greater
than their own. Many criminals are people who have never grown out of Stage I.
Stage II is the stage at which a person has blind faith. Once children learn to
obey their parents, they reach Stage II. Many so-called religious people are
essentially Stage II people, in the sense that they have blind faith in God, and
do not question His existence. With blind faith comes humility and a willingness
to obey and serve. The majority of good law-abiding citizens never move out of
Stage II.
Stage III is the stage of scientific skepticism and inquisitivity. A Stage III
person does not accept things on faith but only accepts them if convinced
logically. Many people working in scientific and technological research are in
Stage III.
Stage IV is the stage where an individual starts enjoying the mystery and beauty
of nature. While retaining skepticism, he starts perceiving grand patterns in
nature. His religiousness and spirituality differ significantly from that of a
Stage II person, in the sense that he does not accept things through blind faith
but does so because of genuine belief. Stage IV people are labelled as mystics.
Scott Peck argues that while transitions from Stage I to Stage II are sharp,
transitions from Stage III to Stage IV are gradual. Nonetheless, these changes
are very noticeable and mark a significant difference in the personality of the
individual.
Based on his experience with community building workshops, Scott Peck says that
community building typically goes through four stages:
Pseudocommunity: This is a stage where the members pretend to have a bon homie
with one another, and cover up their differences, by acting as if the
differences do not exist. Pseudocommunity can never directly lead to community,
and it is the job of the person guiding the community building process to
shorten this period as much as possible.
Chaos: When pseudocommunity fails to work, the members start falling upon each
other, giving vent to their mutual disagreements and differences. This is a
period of chaos. It is a time when the people in the community realize that
differences cannot simply be ignored. Chaos looks counterproductive but it is
the first genuine step towards community building.
Emptiness: After chaos comes emptiness. At this stage, the people learn to empty
themselves of those ego related factors that are preventing their entry into
community. Emptiness is a tough step because it involves the death of a part of
the individual. But, Scott Peck argues, this death paves the way for the birth
of a new creature, the Community.
True community: Having worked through emptiness, the people in community are in
complete empathy with one another. There is a great level of tacit
understanding. People are able to relate to each other's feelings. Discussions,
even when heated, never get sour, and motives are not questioned.
The four stages of community formation are somewhat related to a model in
organization theory for the five stages that a team goes through during
development. These five stages are:
Forming where the team members have some initial discomfort with each other but
nothing comes out in the open. They are insecure about their role and position
with respect to the team. This corresponds to the initial stage of
pseudocommunity.
Storming where the team members start arguing heatedly and differences and
insecurities come out in the open. This corresponds to the second stage given by
Scott Peck, namely chaos.
Norming where the team members lay out rules and guidelines for interaction that
help define the roles and responsibilities of each person. This corresponds to
emptiness, where the community members think within and empty themselves of
their obsessions to be able to accept and listen to others.
Performing where the team finally starts working as a cohesive whole, and
effectively achieve the tasks setof themselves. In this stage individuals are
aided by the group as a whole where necessary, in order to move further
collectively than they could achieve as a group of separated individuals.
Transforming This corresponds to the stage of true community. This represents
the stage of celebration, and when individuals leave, as they must, there is a
genuine feeling of grief, and a desire to meet again. Traditionally this stage
was often called "Mourning".
It is in this third stage that Scott Peck's community building methods differ in
principle from team development. While teams in business organizations need to
develop explicit rules, guidelines and protocols during the norming stage, the
emptiness' stage of community building is characterized, not by laying down the
rules explicitly, but by shedding the resistance within the minds of the
individuals.
Scott Peck has started the Foundation for Community Encouragement to promote the
formation of communities, which, he argues, are a first step towards uniting
humanity and saving us from self destruction.
The meaning of true community
Peck describes what he considers to be the most salient characteristics of a
true community.
Inclusivity, commitment and consensus: Members accept and embrace each other,
celebrating their individuality and transcending their differences. They commit
themselves to the effort and the people involved. They make decisions and
reconcile their differences through consensus.
Realism: Members bring together multiple perspectives to better understand the
whole context of the situation. Decisions are more well-rounded and humble,
rather than one-sided and arrogant.
Contemplation: Members examine themselves. They are individually and
collectively self-aware of the world outside themselves, the world inside
themselves, and the relationship between the two.
A safe place: Members allow others to share their vulnerability, heal
themselves, and express who they truly are.
A laboratory for personal disarmament: Members experientially discover the rules
for peacemaking and embrace its virtues. They feel and express compassion and
respect for each other as fellow human beings.
A group that can fight gracefully: Members resolve conflicts with wisdom and
grace. They listen and understand, respect each others’ gifts, accept each
others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, bind each others’ wounds, and
commit to a struggle together rather than against each other.
A group of all leaders: Members harness the “flow of leadership” to make
decisions and set a course of action. It is the spirit of community itself that
leads and not any single individual.
A spirit: The true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and
power. Members may view the source of this spirit as an outgrowth of the
collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.
Bibliography
The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and
Spiritual Growth (Simon & Schuster, 1978)
People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil (Simon & Schuster, 1983)
What Return Can I Make? Dimensions of the Christian Experience(Simon & Schuster,
1985) (republished by Harpers in 1995 under the new title, Gifts For the
Journey: Treasures of the Christian Life)
The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (Simon & Schuster, 1987)
A Bed By the Window: A Novel of Mystery and Redemption (Bantam, 1990)
The Friendly Snowflake: A Fable of Faith, Love and Family (Turner Publishing,
Inc., 1992)
A World Waiting To Be Born: Civility Rediscovered (Bantam, 1993)
Meditations From the Road (Simon & Schuster, 1993)
Further Along the Road Less Traveled (Simon & Schuster, 1993)
In Search of Stones: A Pilgrimage of Faith, Reason and Discovery (Hyperion 1995)
In Heaven As On Earth: A Vision of the Afterlife (Hyperion, 1996)
The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (Simon
& Schuster, 1997)
Denial of the Soul: Spiritual and Medical Perspectives in Euthanasia and
Mortality (Harmony Books (Crown), 1997)
Golf and the Spirit: Lessons for the Journey (Harmony Books, 1999)
Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession,
Exorcism, and Redemption (Free Press, January 19, 2005)
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