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Published on 09/22/1997 All articles from this issue

Dr. Stuart Brown makes house call to the Morning Forum

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By Cecilia Keehan

Special to the Town Crier

Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and president of The Center for Authentic Play in Carmel, so much believed in the importance of play in the development of healthy people that he closed his medical practice 10 years ago to concentrate on his studies in this area.

He told the Morning Forum audience last week - the first meeting of the organization's 47th season - that the need for play is on a par with the need for oxygen and sleep.

"In all mammals, play is as pervasive and as necessary as sleep," he said.

The nursery school children's game of Ring Around The Rosy is a prerequisite for adults able to sit around a conference table to work, he said.

Brown illustrated his talk with photographs from the December 1994 issue of The National Geographic, for which he provided the text. The photographs showed assorted animals at play in their natural habitats. One striking example was of a Canadian Eskimo dog tethered with a 1,000 pound polar bear lumbering toward him. The pictures document an amazing story: instead of expressing fear, the dog is wagging his tail, grinning and welcoming the bear whose own body language seemed to say "let's play."

In his clinical practice, Dr. Brown found that a lack of natural, spontaneous, free-spirited play during childhood seemed to be a common thread in the histories of horribly violent mass murderers, some felony drunk drivers and others on the fringe.

While working in Texas in 1966, he was chosen to be part of a research team examining the life of mass murderer Charles Whitman. After killing his wife and mother, Whitman climbed the tower at the University of Texas in Austin, and began a shooting spree. He killed 29 people and wounded 31 before he was shot to death.

Brown studied the behavioral as well as the medical side of Whitman's life, interviewing his family and others who had known him. He discovered that Whitman's natural tendency towards spontaneity and play had been controlled by his father, and the doctor was convinced that abuse and lack of play set the stage for the mass murders.

In addition, Whitman's diaries detailed his feelings of powerlessness, despair and humiliation, A larger project involved young murderers, in which Brown learned that normal play behavior was virtually absent throughout the lives of highly violent, antisocial men.

From Texas, Brown came to California and had a clinical and administrative practice for 20 years. During that period, he took the case histories of between 8,000 and 10,000 patients.

What he was told confirmed his belief that healthy, varied play in childhood is absolutely necessary for the development of empathy, altruism and a repertoire of social behaviors enabling the person to handle stress.

He later spent almost a year at Harvard doing research, and during this period, he began to study the works of Joseph Campbell, the author of many books on the origin and meaning of myths.

Brown was so taken by the work of Campbell, that he wanted to make it more broadly known. After meeting Campbell, he persuaded him to participate in a television venture.

Eventually, Brown served as executive director of the popular PBS documentary, "The Hero's Journey, The World of Joseph Campbell."

In Brown's interviews with Nobel laureates, he found they could not differentiate work from play. Brown's credo includes the wisdom that play has a transcendent quality and a capacity for the elevation of the human being; it gives greater productivity and meaning in life.

Ceceilia Keehan is current president of the Morning Forum speaker series.