Audio Interview, Dean Hannotte, undated
- BRUCE JEWELL: Literally speaking,
- if a group of people--
- and I have no idea how large this group is,
- actually-- but if a group of people such as this
- are to succeed, there's a need for community.
- There is the practice that you might
- call your group therapy or your meetings here, and so on.
- But there's also a need for community,
- a need for interaction on a wider level.
- Are you doing anything about that, or what's happening?
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Yes.
- I'm glad you brought up that word because we
- are nothing if not community.
- As a matter of fact, our groups, and even our counseling
- tends to be often just simply the structure
- that that community uses to happen or to come alive.
- The real events in our world happen in an unstructured way.
- They happen when, for instance, people fall in love.
- That's very much a part of the Ninth Street Center.
- As a matter of fact, shortly after we opened the center,
- we noticed that people from all over the city--
- young, idealistic people, largely--
- were moving down to the East Village
- to be closer to the center.
- Paul says that the bump rate is large in a community like this
- when people are living close together
- and run into each other all the time on the way to work.
- Even at work.
- I mean, there are people who just happen
- to work in the same building.
- So that-- yes.
- The thing that keeps the Ninth Street Center alive
- is the sense of community, is the rich sense
- of the variety of ways in which people interact.
- As far as groups go, we have open discussion groups
- every night of the week at eight o'clock.
- And people come to those when they will.
- But the thing that keeps most people interested in the center
- is the sense that it is a community
- that people are helping one another in a number of ways,
- that what you would call therapy does not only
- go on in the counseling sessions or in the group sessions.
- But they really go on to some degree
- when every one person is reaching out to another person
- to try to express something in themselves that they've never
- expressed that well before.
- So it is a therapeutic community.
- And every aspect of it enhances every other aspect.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Do you have any plans
- for expanding your activities to other cities?
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, not at the moment.
- If there are some people at the center who
- feel that they'd like to do that,
- we would, of course, give them our blessing.
- But we feel that it really doesn't
- matter what city you're working in,
- as long as it's a large city.
- I think a large metropolis offers many advantages in terms
- of the numbers of people, the varieties
- of people, the varieties of cultures represented.
- So, we're happy here in New York.
- But we have no objections to anybody starting another center
- somewhere that would advocate or express or take
- advantage of any of the viewpoints
- that Paul has been teaching us.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Dean, it seems to me
- that the gay movement so far has been
- very concerned with political change, which I favor.
- That is, the change of laws and so on.
- I think changing the laws will provide an impetus
- for the development of a new type of gay community, one that
- isn't constantly threatened by various institutions,
- and particularly, the police and the church, perhaps.
- However, I'm struck that the gay movement has also worked itself
- into a corner of defending institutions as they currently
- exist, institutions that bar the bads, whatever,
- that are, in fact, the products of oppression.
- And thus far, there's been very little movement
- towards alternative modes of life
- to present people with models of a gay life which
- is attractive and more fulfilling than what
- is currently the norm.
- It seems to me that this center, in your thought,
- offers some kind of alternative of this nature.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Exactly.
- We founded the center because we felt
- that other gay organizations in New York
- were doing very valuable work, but not
- in terms of offering people a lifestyle
- that they could elect to pursue on the basis of having
- fulfilling human relationships.
- In other words, this center is psychological.
- And that in itself is a dimension
- which the political groups, or the social groups,
- say, leave out.
- We try to address the psychological problems
- of gay people in terms of the psychological problems of man
- in general, and on that basis, offer people ways
- to get into life more, to find out
- what their human capacities are, to explore
- the kinds of enriching relationships that
- are available to anybody who is willing to roll up his sleeves
- and get his hands dirty in this world.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I know that movement people are not
- terribly fond of the Ninth Street Center.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: They tend to--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Sometimes, at least--
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: That's a mild statement.
- (laughter)
- Do you have any idea why that would be?
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, sure.
- Because they don't understand us.
- It's not a newer phenomenon in history.
- People boo what they don't understand quite often.
- You know, we're just trying to establish
- the fact that gay people don't understand themselves
- as much as they would like, and that this is,
- while an embarrassing statement, is nevertheless true.
- And we'd better face it if we want to grow,
- and if we want to find the kind of life
- that we really deserve to live.
- Because if we keep on defending, as you
- say, the status quo of gay life, we'll
- end up being stuck with it.
- And I don't think that that is a destiny worthy of people
- who I have as much feeling for as the people who
- come to the Ninth Street Center, as yourself.
- As people who are exploring life in an open-ended way,
- we want more life.
- We want to see the beauty in other people
- who want to explore the goodness in human nature.
- And these are things that people who become overly committed
- to the gay political cause cannot appreciate fully
- because they've blinded themselves to it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: On the other hand, to take the other position,
- I can see where being apolitical at this point
- would bring up resentment.
- Because it's, in essence, through the political schema,
- through removal of laws, essentially, rather
- than the creation of new ones, that we
- can create an atmosphere.
- Or if you want to put it simply, the turf,
- the psychic and physical freedom which
- would allow the development of a center such as this.
- I mean, there are countries in which this
- would be an impossible place.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Sure.
- Sure.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It simply couldn't exist
- because of the political climate in those countries.
- So there isn't exactly a contest here.
- The two, it seems to me, are complementary.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Oh, of course.
- We have a number of people here who
- are active in the gay movement and who
- find that their work at the Ninth Street Center
- enhances and complements it, as you say.
- You know, we're not opposed or alienated
- from the political side of the movement.
- On the contrary.
- I, myself, have worked in the political arm of this movement
- before we started the Ninth Street Center.
- And I find no inner-alienation about it at all.
- I just simply think that it is important,
- but that it simply cannot address the psychological
- issues involved in discussing and learning about the meaning
- of gay existence.
- Gay people did not become gay on political grounds.
- They became gay because of basic human tendencies and desires
- and needs.
- And if you want to understand what these are,
- we really can't spend too much time
- learning about our legal system.
- You can do some good work, some good, egalitarian work
- to change the laws, to expand the democratic principles
- of good government.
- But you can't really understand yourself
- better or what is blocking your own development.
- In order to do that, you have to look
- at the basic issues of human nature, such things
- as inner masculinity or inner feminity,
- to find out what these resources can mean for you,
- how you can use them, how you can open up your relationships
- with other people.
- People in the gay movement who become totally committed
- to the political arm find that they become rather
- ignorant of the variety of human relationships that exist.
- In other words, human nature is the most broad subject matter
- that I think can exist because it's constantly
- in a state of change and development and evolution,
- and because there are so many little areas that it gets off
- into and can develop.
- Homosexuality itself has, throughout history,
- been one of these little areas of deviancy.
- So what we're advocating is that to understand homosexuality
- or any other deviant pattern, you
- have to understand human nature itself.
- And this is a lifetime study.
- This is not something that can be simply explained
- by making a few radical assumptions
- about political institutions.
- That doesn't do it.
- What you have to do is you have to look at people's lives.
- You have to examine how their development progresses.
- What are the blocks in human development?
- Always society's fault, or is there sometimes
- inadequacies in themselves?
- So these are the kinds of issues that we at the Ninth Street
- Center are devoting ourselves to stu--
- (pause in recording)
- Our approach to counseling is quite different, I think,
- from most organizations in the city, certainly
- most professional organizations, and probably many
- of the gay counseling organizations.
- We feel that unless there is some real human interest
- in the other person, that there is no conceivable way of really
- helping them at the psychological level
- that we address.
- Sure, you can offer advice, perhaps,
- on when to move away from your parents.
- Or you know, there are all kinds of practical matters
- that advice can be given on.
- But to really examine the person's development,
- to begin to see the potential in the person, where
- the person can grow, where he can expand,
- where he can reach out, this requires, by definition,
- a real love for the other person of some sort--
- a real interest, a real sense that they are alive.
- Because how can you address that sense of (unintelligible)
- unless you see it?
- BRUCE JEWELL: But you use love as a vehicle, let's say,
- to get to the other person.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: That's right.
- That's right.
- It's something that we believe in very, very strongly.
- So, the people I counsel, I would never accept somebody
- for counseling unless I really believed in them in some way,
- unless I really felt that this person was
- a beautiful person who could really go somewhere, who could
- really open up, who could really start relating more
- in more high-quality kinds of ways, in bigger ways.
- And unless I feel that I can help him go towards that,
- then I wouldn't dream of counseling somebody
- because it would be on a false basis.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, it's generally
- thought that everybody has this capacity to expand.
- And I wouldn't doubt that it's there.
- But some people, it seems pretty well driven underground,
- let's say.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What type of person would you refuse?
- What--
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, we would--
- BRUCE JEWELL: When you have refused,
- as I gather you have refused to counsel people,
- what were your criteria?
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, the basic issue is whether or not
- they can grow.
- And there are many people in this world who
- have had their inner resources and potential beaten out
- of them by a hostile society.
- And this is not only true of homosexuals.
- It's true of all children who have to undergo
- the brutality of this world.
- It's a really grim world.
- And so I think it's tragically naive to assume
- that everyone that we would like to be able to help
- can, in fact, be helped in the terms that we're discussing.
- Yes, they can often be helped to adjust to society
- or to accept social roles more meekly.
- In fact, this is what most psychoanalysts do,
- most psychiatrists.
- They teach a person to adjust, to give up, really.
- To stop trying to find that sense of aliveness,
- that sense of excitement about living
- that all children know from the day
- they're born that they want.
- So conventional therapy really is designed, in a sense,
- to kill the patient.
- This is its goal.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Let me ask you again.
- Suppose a patient, a typical patient, comes to you.
- What kind of problem is he going to-- usually,
- a person coming someplace has a problem.
- He's lonely, he's depressed, he's hyper all the time,
- he can't find a lover or a partner.
- I don't know.
- There must be many, many different types of problems.
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, there's an old song Medicine that says,
- you don't treat the symptom, you treat the disease.
- And that's what we do.
- We don't look at the immediate-- well, we look at it.
- We look at the immediate cause of his distress.
- But then we say that, basically, all these different varieties
- of psychic distress have a single cause.
- And that is human dissatisfaction
- with the quality of life.
- And if you can help a person get on a growth--
- get into a growth phase where he can really
- start relating more to people and relating from the best in--
- out of the best in himself.
- And really, you know, with a sense of hope for the future.
- These are the basic ingredients of helping another person.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, let me--
- (pause in recording)
- DEAN HANNOTTE: --is that you get a people who
- have tremendous potentials and tremendous creative drives
- and needs.
- And you find that they've spent most of their life
- defending themselves against the encroachments
- of a hostile, conformist society,
- and that therefore, their defenses
- have tended to become rather hard, rather severe, and rather
- difficult.
- And in a world such as ours, when,
- naturally, people who have creative tendencies
- can go off in many different directions,
- their defenses are very different and very in conflict.
- And so the defenses that we deal with here
- tend to often be in conflict with one another.
- Now the thing that makes it work is the fact
- that we help one another to love and to take
- constructive, moral responsibility for each other.
- And with that kind of emphasis, you
- can overcome and get around all of these,
- let's say, petty problems.
- Problems where you don't like the way a person cuts his hair,
- you don't like the style of shoes he has,
- or you don't like his tic.
- Maybe he shakes his shoulder every two minutes.
- Maybe he coughs a lot.
- On the basis of the kind of love that, say, Jesus of Nazareth
- was talking about, those kinds of annoyances
- really do recede into the background
- if you can look at a person as a human being
- and relate to him as such.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Now you've talked a good deal about creativity.
- If somebody that you were to say had benefited
- from his experience here at the center,
- if you were to describe that person,
- how would you say he had become more creative?
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, I'd say that he had become more alive,
- in that any specific evidence of creativity
- would be for life to show at some later point.
- But that the basic thing that we do for people
- is to help them see what's best in themselves,
- and to come alive, and to get more interested
- in living and in other people.
- And with that as your starting point, you can go anywhere.
- You could write books.
- You can paint.
- You can just do anything you want with it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Can you go to the office every day?
- Would that work?
- (Hannotte laughs)
- DEAN HANNOTTE: Well, I think you can go to the office every day
- and realize that you don't have to expect so much
- out of office life.
- That is to say, if you have a real creative avenue opening up
- for you, if you see that you can really mean something
- to other people, and that you can love other people,
- and that you can take responsibility
- in the world in some big, human way,
- then what you do for a living doesn't have to mean that much.
- I, myself, am a computer programmer.
- I'm a computer programmer because I think it's fun
- to work with machines.
- But it has absolutely, obviously, no human residue.
- (pause in recording)
- Well, we teach people that when they
- want to find a world in which its healthy for them
- to express themselves and to explore
- their inner capacities, then it has
- to be a carefully chosen world.
- It has to be a world of friends, of people who care about you.
- And so we do not advocate in any general manner that people
- feel impelled to come out on the job, on the subway, in a bus,
- or just in any situation that there just happen to be
- other human beings around.
- So I, for instance, in my own case,
- I didn't find it necessary at all
- to hide the fact that I was gay.
- So that was an easy situation.
- If I were working in a field where people were obviously
- very threatened by homosexual feelings
- and could not face it in themselves,
- then I would not expose myself to that kind of conflict.
- Or, to put it another way, I wouldn't expose them
- to the inner conflict that they would face having
- to work with a homosexual.
- I would spare them that kind of battle in themselves
- by not telling them about myself.
- Now this would limit, of course, the quality and spontaneity
- of our relationship.
- But I accept that on the grounds that these are not people,
- in the first place, that I have picked personally to relate to.
- These are people who I've been thrown in
- with on the basis of work, of getting a job done,
- of performing some service.
- And so another way of putting this
- is that people who want to grow and want
- to express the best in themselves
- have to find those people that this can work with,
- that this can happen among.
- (pause in recording)
- No.
- All I'm advocating is that once you have made your attempt,
- once you see that the other person isn't interested,
- or that in some way, the level of freedom of personal identity
- which you were able to reach for exceeds him
- in a way that embarrasses him inside,
- then you become a threat to him.
- The more you open up, the more you threaten him.
- And it does him no good if he's really become an impoverished
- person who cannot grow.
- I think in that case, the kindest thing to do
- is to not expose him to your needs for a human relatedness.
- You have to simply say, OK, you know, this man, to me,
- is like the person who drives the bus or the person who
- works next to me at work who I can't talk to for some reason.
- But people do accept these limitations,
- not because they're permanent and inherent blocks
- within themselves, but simply because we grow up
- in a world that is brutal, that is barbaric.
- We're still living in the dark ages.
- There are many, many people who grow up
- stunted, meaning psychologically, who
- can't relate, who can't face their inner feelings,
- who can't face tendencies which may prove, in the end,
- to be deviant at all.
- And people such as ourselves who are able to go beyond that,
- I think, have to have some kind of basis respect for human
- beings and have to respect the rights of those who cannot
- reach the levels that we're talking about.
- And I don't think that is at all snobbish.
- I think it's very responsible and very human to do that.