T H E S T O R I E D N A T U R E OF HUMAN LIFE The Life and KARL E. SCHEIWBEo,r kF of Theodore R. Sarbin R A N K J. B A R RETT The Storied Nature of Human Life Karl E. Scheibe • Frank J. Barrett The Storied Nature of Human Life The Life and Work of Theodore R. Sarbin Karl E. Scheibe Frank J. Barrett Wesleyan University Naval Postgraduate School Middletown, Connecticut, USA Monterey, USA ISBN 978-3-319-48789-2 ISBN 978-3-319-48790-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48790-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955054 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image © Mary Evans Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo Cover design by Henry Petrides Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface The title of this book contains an implicit claim. “The storied nature of human life” implies that it is useful and enlightening to look at human life from a narrative point of view—as if life were bound up with story, with history, with the unfolding of mean- ingful events, most of them in com- pany with others—along the pathways of the world. To assert that this point of view is natural is, of course, quite arbitrary. The psychologist has, over the 150 years of the discipline, been rather more partial to biology than to story as the linkage of psychology to nature. Nothing is wrong with that claim, even though it also is arbitrary. We are all a nimals—to be sure. But we are animals who have a an inveterate c ompulsion to tell and live storied lives—enriching mere feeding to gastronomy, mere breeding to romance, and mere experience to esthetics. We are, at least on occasion, prepared to lay down our mere lives for great causes. While this is a para- dox for biology, it is perfectly intelligible if the story of life is one’s focus. It is helpful to think of the choice of a point of view in psychology as analogous to the selection of a particular objective from among those v vi Preface available on a turret of objectives on a modern microscope. Microscope objectives differ in the degree of magnification they supply, and perhaps also in their filtration properties and other special features. One objective is not ideal for all targets. Similarly, one might examine human life from the point of view of historical narrative, or of biological evolution, or of one or another religious system, or from some mythic structure. That we have chosen “story” as our natural objective is not to deny that other points of view do not have value. Rather, our aim in this book is to extend the claim we have taken from Ted Sarbin, as our mentor, that psychology would do well to adopt contextualism as our worldview and to regard the historical event as our root metaphor.1 The dominant worldview within psychology for most of the last century has been mechanism, not contextualism. The root metaphor has been the machine, not the historical event. It is still the case that mecha- nism and the model of the machine are dominant in contemporary psychology. To be sure, pragmatists of the sort represented by William James or George Herbert Mead could now be classified as contextualists— but the mechanist lens has been and remains the most frequent choice informing the vision of psychologists. Surely Sarbin is not alone in his choice of the contextualist perspective. Bruner (1990) has come to favor a cultural psychology aimed at developing understandings of the working of human mind by embracing “acts of meaning,” which must relax the strictures of positivist reductionism. And Gergen’s (1982) influential crit- icism of positivist social psychology calls as well for the admission of human history and contemporary culture as essential to the advancement of psychological understandings. The voices of Bruner and Gergen are supported by legions—but even so at this time are the lesser force than those psychologists of a mechanistic persuasion. This book begins with a chapter that is a retelling of the story of the life of Ted Sarbin. The next chapter is a review of his work and writings as a psychologist, concentrating on his writings since his retirement as an active faculty member in 1976. Those of us who were his students at the time of his retirement thought to publish a collection of his contributions to psychology. The social context of conduct (Allen & Scheibe, 1984) was a result of that initiative. But Sarbin’s productivity showed no signs of abat- ing with his retirement from academia. When he died in 2005, more than Prefac e vii 250 items were listed on his vita—only 137 of which predated 1976. Once again, those of us who were his students thought that the world might benefit from having some of the fruits of Sarbin’s later scholarly life more readily available. This book is the product of that supposition. We have chosen ten articles from the last three decades of Sarbin’s work as a psychologist for inclusion in this volume. Sarbin’s positions on major issues in the theory and practice of psychology are consistent through his 70 years in the field. But his later writings demonstrate a clar- ity and mature power that warrant our attention. He was always disposed to challenge conventional thought and methods. He was always keen on developing a psychology that would be of some benefit in redressing some of the obvious wrongs of human existence—of inequality, of suffer- ing, of prejudice and exclusion. His later work, we claim, has the advan- tages of a maturity of vision and a carefully honed style. Also, his turn to narrative as the most promising way to develop a new and fruitful psy- chology provided thematic unity for his later work. His pathbreaking collection of works on Narrative psychology was published in 1984. From that time on, narrative was his passionate first choice as a handmaiden for psychological inquiry. Our own contacts with Ted Sarbin and his work have been continuous since their beginnings—in 1959 for Karl Scheibe, and in 2000 for Frank Barrett. Correspondence was frequent, meetings were many—and with the advent of e-mail, the communication was copious. It was through Ted that we came to know each other—for he was a mentor for us both. It is said that a father is ill-suited to become a mentor—perhaps because the role of father is not chosen but rather obligatory. Ted Sarbin was in some ways like a father to us both—for his constant caring, for his nur- turing, for his generosity. But he was a mentor for us and for many others not out of a sense of obligation, but because he genuinely cared to share the benefits of his learning and understanding with willing others. As the biographical chapter will show, Ted grew up in a loving family, even if their circumstances were not rich. The care that Ted received somehow translated into his capacity to care for others. He was a gentle, graceful, and loving man—even as his posture within psychology was defiant and nonconforming. viii Preface We have had the privilege of sharing in the later parts of the story of Ted Sarbin’s life. We now have the pleasure of presenting a harvest of his later contributions to psychology as The storied nature of human life. Acknowledgments Ted Sarbin was a collaborative worker in psychology—not a solitary scholar. From the beginning of his publishing career to the end, much of his work was co-authored. In putting together this book, we have benefitted from collaboration as well. Ken Gergen first encouraged us to set about this task. He has been steadfast in his support from beginning to end. Others who have been directly involved in this project include Theodore Sarbin, Jr., Ron Allen, James Allen, Vincent Hevern, Ralph Carney, Caroline Carney, Karin Sobeck, Ki-Taek Chun, Miriam Cope, Cara McNeff, Francesca Livermore, and Wendy Scheibe. Many others have been indirectly involved—all of those Role Theorists of the Year, members of the Tuesday Morning Group, and the scores of Ted’s co-a uthors over the course of his career. Copyright Acknowledgments The authors and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint from the following materials. We particularly wish to thank the Office of Academic Affairs at Wesleyan University for their generous support in obtaining this set of copyright permissions. ix x Acknowledgments Barrett, F. J., & Sarbin, T. R. (2008). Honor as a moral category. Theory and Psychology, 18, 5–25. Reproduced by permission of Theory and Psychology. Reproduced by permission of SAGE, publishers of Theory and Psychology. Sarbin, T. R. (1986). The narrative as the root metaphor for contextual- ism. In T. R. Sarbin (Ed.), Narrative psychology. The storied nature of human conduct. New York: Praeger. Republished with permission of ABC-CLIO Inc. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Sarbin, T.  R. (1986). The narrative turn in social psychology. In B. Midgley & E. K. Morris (Eds.), Modern perspectives on J.R. Kantor and interbehaviorism. Reno, NV: Context Press. Republished with permission of New Harbinger Publications. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Sarbin, T. R. (1989). Emotions as narrative emplotments. In M. J. Packer & R. M. Addison (Eds.), Entering the circle: Hermeneutic investigation in psychology. Albany: SUNY Press. Republished By permission of SUNY Press. Sarbin, T. R. (1990). Hypnosis: A fifty-year perspective. Contemporary Hypnosis, 8, 1–20. Reproduced by permission of Crown House Pub- lishers, UK. Sarbin, T. R. (1996). The deconstruction of stereotypes: Homosexuals and military policy. In G. J. Herek, R. Jobe, & R. Carney (Eds.), Out in force; Sexual orientation and the military (Chapter 9). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Republished by permission of University of Chicago Press. Sarbin, T. R. (1998). Believed-in imaginings: A narrative approach. In J. de Rivera & T. R. Sarbin (Eds.), Believed in imaginings: The narra- tive construction of reality. Washington: American Psychological Asso- ciation Press. Republished by permission of American Psychological Association. Sarbin, T. R. (2003). The dramaturgical approach to social psychology: The influence of Erving Goffman. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The anat- omy of impact: What makes great works of psychology great? Washington: American Psychological Association. Republished by permission of American Psychological Association.