Interviewer: I understand you're interested in holistic medicine. Can you explain what holistic medicine is?
Vivienne: OK. Holistic medicine, um, takes into consideration the whole of the person. Now what this means in, in most holistic systems is regarding the person as a physical entity, a mental or emotional person, and also even their spiritual side of them. Um, it also includes looking at the body as a whole rather than looking at individual parts of the body, and as a way of explaining this, we could look at conventional medicine as producing people who are like a cardiologist, who looks at a heart, um, a brain specialist, a person who deals with bones, er, etc. So what we've tended to do in conventional medicine is break things down to a point where we're actually only looking at one part of the person and we're not actually relating terribly well that part to the rest of the body, whereas holistic medicine insists that if there is a problem, er, with your right foot, that is going to somehow, um, affect your entire body.
Interiewer: Um, your speciality is acupuncture. Er, is that a part of holistic medicine?
Vivienne: Acupuncture is very much a holistic system. Um, traditionally the Chinese regarded the person very much as a whole entity and acupuncture itself works on an energy system basically, and in a very simplified way, it's saying that, er, you have an energy system within your body and when that energy becomes blocked or tainted in some way, then you will manifest certain symptoms and the things that we look at in conventional medicine as things like arthritis or rheumatism are, to the Chinese, merely an imbalance of the energy. So, in this way, they may say to you, well, yes, you have rheumatoid arthritis but we're going to actually look at your energy balance and rebalance you, and, as a result, your symptoms should disappear.
Interviewer: Um, is acupuncture essentially a form of preventative medicine?
Vivienne: Traditionally, it was, very much. Um, in fact, traditionally, in China, people only used to pay the doctor while they were well and they used to go to their doctor fairly regularly on, you know, maybe four or five times a year, and they would only pay the doctor when they were kept well. And if they got sick, they didn't pay the doctor. And the doctor had various methods of which acupuncture was one, diet was another, exercise was another, er, of ensuring that the person lived a right life style and their emphasis was on if you're living a right life style, if you're living in tune with the laws of the universe, going to sleep when it's dark, waking up when it's light, working, resting, doing all these things properly, then you won't get sick. Unfortunately, our way of looking at life in the West is very different in that we tend to struggle on in spite of our headache and not take terribly much notice of our body when things are not quite right and we tend to struggle on until we fall over and we get carted off to hospital in an ambulance. And so, acupuncture in the West, unfortunately, in a way, has come to be not the preventative medicine that it could be because we're not taking responsibility enough for ourselves in going along and making sure that we stay well.
Janice: So you really believe that clothes carry a kind of message for other people and that what we put on is in some way a reflection of what we feel?
Pauline: Oh yes, very much so. People are beginning now to take seriously the idea of a kind of psychology of clothing, to believe that there is not just individual taste in our clothes but also a thinking behind what we wear which is trying to express something we may not even be aware of ourselves.
Janice: But surely this has always been the case. We all dress up when we want to impress someone, such as for a job interview with a prospective employer; we tend to make an effort and put on something smart.
Pauline: True, but that's a conscious act. What I'm talking about is more of a subconscious thing. Take for example the student who is away from home at college or university: if he tends to wrap himself up more than the others, this is because he is probably feeling homesick. Similarly, a general feeling of insecurity can sometimes take the form of over-dressing in warmer clothes than are necessary.
Janice: Can you give any other examples of this kind?
Pauline: Yes. I think people who are sociable and outgoing tend to dress in an extrovert way, preferring brighter or more dazzling colours—yellows, bright reds, and so on. In the same way, what might be seen as a parallel with the animal kingdom, aggressive clothes might indicate an aggressive personality or attitude to life. Think about the threat displays used by animals when they want to warn off opponents.
Janice: Do you think the care—or lack of it—over the way we actually wear our clothes has anything to tell us?
Pauline: Yes, indeed. The length, for example, of a man's trousers speaks volumes about his awareness of his own image. Or, if his trousers are at half-mast, all sort of hanging down, this probably means he's absorbed by other things.
Janice: Really.
Pauline: Or, to give you other examples, often minority groups, who have perhaps failed to persuade with words, tend to express themselves by wearing unconventional, or what some might consider outrageous clothing, as a way of showing their thoughts and feelings are different from the rest, and so they find an outlet in this way.
Janice: That surely spills over into other things as well.
Pauline: Oh yes, indeed. Haircuts, jewellery, kinds of fabric used—these things can all be a form of rebellion. But to get back to clothes, I would like to add that a whole lot about our personality is conveyed in our clothes and the way we look—aggressiveness, rebelliousness, happiness, sadness, and so on. These can all be interpreted. Think of the ageing pop star who may be pushing middle age, he'll keep on dressing up like a rebel to try to prove he's 'with it' still, and in touch with his young fans and current trends.
Janice: Do you think that at work clothes and general appearance have any significance?
Pauline: Definitely. We've already spoken about job interviews a bit, and it's interesting to note that in a recent survey it was suggested that employers prefer young executives to stick to grey, black and dark blue suits if they are men, and classical outfits and dresses in sober colours if they are women, perhaps because they feel this is a reflection of a more responsible and sober attitude to work and will also project this image to customers.
Janice: Do you subscribe to this opinion?
Pauline: I personally think that too much conservatism defeats the object of the clothes industry. They want to create new fashions and colour to sell clothes, so I can't really say that I go along wholeheartedly with it. There should be room for manoeuvre, leaving people scope to express their individuality in what they are wearing.
We've all seen them on TV commercials, looking out at us from the covers of glossy magazines or showing off the latest creations from Paris, and it must have seemed to us that they have lives which are all glamour. Jeffrey Ingrams has been delving into the world of the fashion model and has come up with some interesting facts.
Denise: The average model can earn roughly the same as a top secretary on the basis, that is, that she's a freelance with an agent who'll send her out for auditions and interviews and get work for her.
Jeffrey: Denise Harper is a model agent. The Central Model Agency, in which she's a partner, is very closely associated with the Metropolitan Academy of Modelling, where dozens of aspiring models have come over the years to pay their money to take a basic course in the techniques of being a model. Just over five years ago, one such aspiring model was eighteen-year-old Margaret Connor, fresh from school.
Margaret: Your mother has told you that you're a pretty girl and you think that you're God's gift. You're not, of course, but the Academy give you the works, how to do make-up, how to walk, how to do your hair, dress sense, the lot.
Jeffrey: Now before we go any further I really ought to give you some idea of what Margaret looks like. She's about 5 feet 8 inches tall, with shoulder-length auburn hair, hazel eyes and a ready smile. Like Margaret, every model has her index card which potential clients can keep in their files to refer to. When not working, Margaret is a rather prettier-than-average girl-next-door, but her photograph alone seemed to show that she can be as versatile and as fashionable as anyone might want. But why did Denise Harper pick her out from the other similar applicants for the modelling course at the Academy?
Denise: I always look for personality, poise, good height and, very important, initiative, all of which Margaret has. You try to find above all a girl who you think will work and is not only in it for the money.
Jeffrey: Naturally, when they've finished the course it doesn't always mean automatically that they are set for stardom. Margaret occasionally gives classes at the Academy and she told me why some girls just pack in the job.
Margaret: Sometimes the work is too hard, sometimes it's too scarce and sometimes you have to push yourself too much. You've got to be a saleswoman to be a model, just sitting back and thinking you're going to be cosseted is no good, you've got to go out there and get work. But once you've got it, OK, fine.
Jeffrey: When work does come along, it could be pretty well anything.
Margaret: Really it's a different job every time—it might be TV advertisements, live advertising promotions, a photo session, anything.
Jeffrey: I asked Margaret to give me some idea of a typical day in her life.
Margaret: This is the fun thing about it, really. You've got no idea what you'll be doing tomorrow, nothing's planned ahead. There's such a variety of ways of spending the day. There's a sort of 'wake-up at 8 o'clock with the phone ringing' day, and next minute you're off abroad somewhere, which is everybody's idea of modelling. Then, other days you have to go round and sell yourself because you've got nothing on at all—seeing photographers, magazines, newspapers, generally getting your face around. On a busy day you've got to dash from job to job, it's all very hectic, but basically you've always got to have everything literally by the phone, be ready to leave at a moment's notice. But there's variety in it. Making TV commercials has in fact now overtaken straightforward fashion as our favourite occupation. It's more fun than photographic work, where one split second decides whether you look nice or not. In a TV commercial there's some acting involved, and you have to keep it up for a while, which is more of a challenge.
Jeffrey: When Margaret said she kept everything by the phone, I wondered what she meant.
Margaret: Definitely your diary, with a pen, waiting for that interview. Then every model has one arm longer than the other (laughs) because of all the things she has to cart around in her bag—spare pairs of shoes, make-up, spare tights, and a book—it can get boring waiting around sometimes. I read such a lot of novels! Umm, everything but the kitchen sink—it all has to be packed in.
Jeffrey: Whatever her motivation, it's quite clear that Margaret enormously enjoys being a model.
Margaret: Yes, I love it! It's fantastic! I just couldn't think of doing anything else. It's always been the glamour that attracted me. To begin with, it's real hard work to get established, but the variety and excitement of not knowing from one day to the next what's going to happen has never ceased to give me a thrill.
Solving Problems
Today I am going to talk about some thoughts that psychologists have had on how people go about solving problems.
The first point I want to make is that there is no one way of solving all problems. If you think about it you will realize the obvious fact that there are many different kinds of problems which have to be solved in different ways. Let us take two very different examples. A student is sitting in his study, trying to solve a problem in Mathematics. After an hour, still unsuccessful, he gives up and goes to bed. The following morning he wakes up and wanders into the study. Suddenly, the solution comes to him.
Now for a very different kind of problem. In the Shakespeare play Hamlet, young Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, discovers that his father has been murdered by his uncle. The evidence is based on the appearance of his father's ghost, urging him to revenge his death by killing his uncle. Should he accept the ghost's evidence, and kill his uncle? This is obviously a very different kind of problem. Such moral or emotional problems might have no real solution, or at any rate no solution that everyone might agree on.
There are many other different types of problems apart from these two. In this talk, I would like to talk about the first kind of problem: the kind that the student of Mathematics was involved with.
The solution to that kind of problem is sometimes called an 'A-ha' solution, because the solution comes suddenly, out of nowhere as it were, and in English people sometimes say 'A-ha' when a good idea comes to them like that. Another, less amusing, name for it is insight. For a long time the student seems to get no where, and then there is a sudden flash of insight and the solution appears.
A classic example of insight is the case of the French mathematician, Poincare. I'll spell it. P-O-I-N-C-A-R-E, POINCARE. For fifteen days Poincare struggled with a mathematical problem and had no success. Then one evening he took black coffee before going to bed (which was not his usual custom). As he lay in bed, he couldn't sleep, and all sorts of ideas came to him. By morning he had solved that problem which had baffled him for over a fortnight.
What do psychologists have to say about this process of problem solving?
A very good and helpful description of the solving process has been made by POLYA, a teacher of Mathematics. I'll spell his name, too. P-O-L-Y-A, POLYA. Remember that Polya is thinking of insight problems, and in particular, mathematics problems, but his ideas should apply in all sorts of areas.
Polya's description has four stages. They are:
Stage one: Understanding the problem: At this stage, the student gathers all the information he needs and asks himself two questions:
The first question is:
What is the unknown? What is my goal? In other words, what do I want to find out?
The second question is:
What are the data and conditions? What is given? In other words: what do I already know?
Stage two: Devising a plan: here the student makes use of his past experience to decide on the method of solution. At this stage he asks himself three questions:
a) Do I know a problem similar to this one?
b) Can I restate the goal in a different way that will make it easier for me to use my past experience? Polya calls restating the goal 'working backwards'.
c) Can I restate what is given in a way that relates to my past experience? Polya calls restating what is given as 'working forward'. The student stays at stage two until he has the flash of insight. If necessary he can put the problem to one side for a while and then come back to it. Eventually he will see how the problem can be done.
Stage three: Carrying out the plan: the student carries out the plan of solution, checking each step.
Stage four: Looking back: the student checks his answer in some way, perhaps by using another method, or whatever. Having done that, he makes it part of his experience by asking himself: 'Can I use this result or method for other problems'?
I will repeat again that not all problems are like the mathematics problems that Polya is thinking about. Not every problem is solvable, and some may even have no satisfactory solution. Nevertheless, it is probably a good idea to do what Polya has done. That is, when you are successful in solving a problem, analyse how you have done it, and remember your method for the next time.
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