GRAYWOLF: On Alternative Psychotherapy

Written by Tammie Byram Fowles, PhD, LISW-CP

Interview with Graywolf Swinney, author, dream therapist and consciousness mentor.

Tammie: You wrote in, "Beyond the Vision Quest: Bringing it Back" that for much of your youth you'd been preoccupied with success, science and technology. How did those preoccupations shape your life?

Graywolf: I was always fascinated with science and math and in grade school it was the science demonstrations and lessons that challenged my mind and kept my interest. I had heard about Einstein and wanted very much to be able to contribute to science as he had. He became immediately (and still is) one of my heroes, along with Superman, the Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid. (Add Freud, Perles, Berne and Bohm to that list now)This was in the late forties and early fifties. When I reached high school (in Toronto, Canada), I was mostly drawn to my ninth grade chemistry and physics classes, and just put up with the other stuff because I had to.

The magic moment of total dedication came as follows: I was considering what seemed to me to be the most likely future problems that science might solve (meaning me) and the one most likely to provide me with fame and fortune. I saw that what we were very dependent on and what most supported our civilization was gas and oil. I reasoned that there was only so much buried under the ground and that it would eventually be all used up. In this I saw my chance. I decided to devise a synthetic replacement for it.

I took these considerations to my ninth grade science teacher (I even remember his name, Mr. Pickering) and asked him what career I should aim for to accomplish this. He advised me that becoming a chemical engineer would be best. That was it for me. From that point on my academic work was all directed to that end.

I was not a nerd, I was also very active as an all star football player and on the track team, president of the photography club, second in command of the school cadet corps, photography editor then editor in chief of the school yearbook, Piper and drummer in the Pipe band etc. etc. and I also played base guitar and sang in the first Toronto Rock Group. In this, I was a revolutionary (which figures in my later willingness to also be so in psychology) since rock was considered the music of the devil back then.

My two favorite fairytale heroes were the little boy in the Emperors New Clothes and David of David and Goliath which also speaks to my fundamental scripting. I also became an atheist, or perhaps more correctly an agnostic, in keeping with my quest to become a pure scientist.

I struggled to be as objective as I could in all circumstances and to a very large degree suppressed my feelings and emotional side. Consequently, I was very susceptible to them and they would pop out much to my consternation. So I would work even harder to suppress them.

Later, in the sixties, Mr. Spock of Star Trek represented my ideal (along with Scottie). By then, I had graduated from college as a Chemical Engineer (1963) and was working for a rubber and plastics raw material producer. I turned out a number of patents and was rising rapidly as a technical service and development engineer. I was working in the field of golf balls since we were developing synthetic rubbers to replace the natural ones used in their production. I dedicated myself to this and soon developed a reputation in the industry as a whiz kid.

I soon moved to the U.S. (1966) where I designed and built a golf ball production factory for Ben Hogan. I continued on totally dedicated to my career and engineering; getting ahead very rapidly. By 1969, after several career moves, I was appointed general manager (at age 29) of the Golf Ball division of Wilson Sporting goods. The position had much to offer, money, notoriety, country club membership, power, (lunches with people such as Jerry Ford shortly before he was president), connections to the White House (I made all the golf balls for the Nixon Administration).

Since I had succeeded in shelving all my emotions and feelings and was virtually a Mr. Spock, I had succeeded well in business but was failing miserably in my personal life.

My original goals of making a vital contribution to humanity had been lost along with my emotions and feelings. I was a robot and doing things (such as firing a close personal friend because we had to reduce overhead by 15%) which did not sit well with my humanity and the revolutionary in me. It set up an inner conflict of which I was not aware. I saw, as was required of good managers, the world as a function of the bottom line, and operated as a machine. The inner conflict and failure in my personal life had resulted in me being overweight (I ate to stuff the pain) and having a very driven (type A) personality.

My preoccupation led me to neglect my personal health and I had developed several executive syndrome disorders. I had hypertension, hypoglycemia, a fast developing ulcer, and my e.k.g. showed that I had already suffered from one or more heart attacks. There were indications of damage to one of the valves. I was overweight and well on my way, if not already, an alcoholic. I smoked about one-and-a-half packs of cigarettes a day. I had missed the pain of the mild heart attacks through my ability to stuff my feelings and sensations. My sports career had also taught me how to do that. (I didn't mention that in college I was the intercollegiate wrestling champion in my freshman year and later became the player-coach of the team. I had won the championship match with torn ligaments in my right knee from an earlier match. I was on crutches for months after that. I was really good at stuffing stuff.)