Edmund Kean — How Can a Man Have Real Self Expression?

Aesthetic Realism Consultations and the Real Self-Expression Men Are Looking For

Jonathan White, a young man who cares for sports, has spoken deeply about hoping to express himself with sincerity as an actor, with the woman he cares for, and as a son. But like many men he has felt hemmed in, unable to give his mind to people and things in a steady, deep way. Instead, he has banked on a kind of expression men can go for—charm and kidding people along. He once wrote to us, "I have betrayed myself thousands and thousands of times because I wanted to get people's approval."

Mr. White told us he was having a hard time with his father. His parents had been quarreling and he was bitter, somewhat blaming his father, who worked in a non-profit company and was not a "go-getter" in business as Jonathan White thought he should be. In a document he wrote for one consultation he said:

My relationship with my father...is not something of which I am proud. I feel like a cold person almost every time someone asks how my father is doing...because...I have put him out of my mind so much....I feel terrible saying this, but I often think of him as a downer, a loser.

To have him see his father's feelings from within, with depth and respect, we asked him: "Why do you think he chose work that is more in behalf of justice to people than in making profit?—do you think there is something to respect there?" And "What do you think your father cared for in your mother when they first met?"; "Are you a snob about your father?"; "Do you want him to feel he's a success or a failure?"

Mr. White wrote assignments such as "A soliloquy of James White at age twenty two" and "10 places I am the same and different from my father." He told us recently, "I'm happy to say my relationship with my father has improved a lot in the last weeks," and Mr. White's life as a whole is blooming—he feels more sure as an actor and more hopeful about love than ever. He wrote to us:

I'm extremely excited by the world that's opening up to me, or I should say that I'm opening up to, as a person and a n actor. I feel very fortunate to be studying Aesthetic Realism—it is enabling me to see so much more than before.

Article Sections
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6