Therapy in LA

We will feature a new article here each month written by one of our group members. These
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December 2011

A THERAPIST LOOKS AT OCCUPY WALL STREET
By Anita Frankel MA, MFT

With the rapid spread of Occupy Wall Street, a new generation has encamped in the public square to challenge the increasing polarization of wealth and power in our country. With humor, outrage, and even occasional tenderness, it has changed our national conversation, turning the spotlight away from government deficits and toward the behavior of global financial and corporate elites that enrich the 1%. It has spread to 900 cities throughout the world.

The 99% protest has been good for our mental health. . It has pierced the veil of our collective resignation by focusing attention on the perpetrators of economic and political abuse. It has coaxed many kinds of people out of their isolation, and has championed an ethos of interconnectedness and mutual care.

"Come down to the public square,” was the initial message, “and bring your anger and your personal stories with you. We’ll provide you with lots of poster board to broadcast how you are affected by the crisis, and we will keep each other warm and fed, and entertained, as we make our presence felt.”

The lack of a fixed set of demands and the refusal to put forth official spokespeople at first confused and even infuriated the traditional news organizations. But the movement mushroomed, and the invitation to participate went viral in cyberspace, starting a conversation through all the platforms of social media. At that point, the traditional media decided that the story deserved daily coverage.

Now that many encampments are facing eviction, the Occupy folks are confronted with the challenge of occupying our attention with, or without, an ongoing presence in physical spaces. College campuses are erupting with Occupys, and there are online efforts, like the Occupy Student Debt Campaign which hopes to gather a million pledges from student debtors to stop their monthly payments, absent a major restructuring of their loans. (Average college loan debt nationally tops $25,000.)

Inside the encampments, there have been sporadic problems with belligerent members of the inner city’s homeless population (and also instances of peaceful integration of the homeless), and a few incidents of window-smashing (disavowed by an overwhelming majority of Occupiers). And we have witnessed many instances of police overreaction to an essentially nonviolent – if disobedient – crowd. But while angry chants and raised fists often greet the officers who attempt to evict them, Occupy's inner workings have largely displayed a reasonable, even gentle, aspect (1).

Before they disappear, or morph into something else, it's worth looking at how many of the encampments have integrated and connected individuals in their practice of an imperfect grassroots democracy. Participants are expected to agree with the overall declaration of purpose (2). Beyond that, what is to be done and how to do it are decided at daily General Assemblies. The inclusion of each person in the decision-making community is a goal in itself.

Seldom in the history of political protest has necessity been so clearly the mother of invention. Denied the use of sound equipment by the City of New York, the original OWS adopted and popularized the “human microphone.” A call goes out for a "mike check;" those nearest the speaker repeat the call; others further back repeat it too; and so the conversation begins. Phrase by phrase, each speaker has their voice amplified and echoed. It is a community-wide Reflective Listening exercise, wherein no one voice can dominate others, and yet decisions are made. “Stackers” volunteer to ensure that speakers take turns. Participants can quietly register their reactions with “spirit fingers.” Agreement is arms up, palms up, wiggling the fingers. Disagreement is arms up, palms down wiggling the fingers. And No Way, José is known as a Block -- arms crossed at the chest, hands in fists (3).

The Occupy movement strives for what some therapists call a “power-with” model of discussion, as opposed to the "power-over" one (See Psych Bytes section of this website). The idea is that we all deserve a chance to be persuasive with each other, and that unity of purpose is most powerful when it’s a product of maximum inclusion. With a group containing of hundreds of people, it can be clumsy and unwieldy, but more often than not, it works.

Over time, a "horizontal hierarchy" has evolved in the long-term encampments, similar to the style of collaboration among interested people online (4). At the original Occupy Wall Street site in New York City, the earliest participants established an atmosphere of openness, and welcomed the more or less spontaneous formation of subgroups to make sure that tasks are covered -- keeping people fed and clothed and sheltered as winter arrived, maintaining sanitation, offering medical care, negotiating with municipal authorities, creating spaces for artists and writers and musicians and drummers, launching marches to the symbols of power, and joining with traditional organizations like unions to protest the effects of the economic crisis on particular groups of people.

Some encampments seem more purposeful, more unified, and more militant than others. Occupy LA, for example, is (surprise!) more laid back than its New York or Oakland counterparts (5).
But everywhere, the Movement of the 99% keeps chugging along, seeking new locations in which to disturb the peace. As they face eviction by police armed with truncheons and pepper spray, they are trying to hold on to what they have achieved, and looking for new terrain to Occupy.
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Anita Frankel MA, MFT specializes in therapy for the 99% in her Silver Lake practice. If you are among the 1%, she will make an exception if you have a good heart. afrankel@earthlink.net

END NOTES:

1) Huffington Post, "You Can't Evict the Human Spirit." 11/15/2011
www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-schaper/you-cant-evict-the-human-_b_1094500.html

2) Right-hand column at the Occupy Wall Street website: <http://occupywallst.org>
3) A hand signal primer: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xV3zTlgu3Q)>
4) Washington Post, “Occupy Wall Street’s ‘horizontal hierarchy’ seen through prism of the Internet,”http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/occupy-wall-streets-horizontal-hierarchy-seen-through-prism-of-the-internet/2011/11/09/gIQAcJ5lCN_story.html
5) Los Angeles times, “L.A. Occupies Its Own Niche.” 11/22/2011 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-holland-20111122,0,2117651.column