Professional Dishonesty - Part Two

NOTE: This is Part Two of a continuing entry. See Monday 4/30 for Part One.

Halleck’s seven areas of professionally dishonest behavior include 4 ‘lies’ and 3 ‘attitudes’. Two of these lies seem related to me; the lie of adult morality and the lie of rewards for conformity.

In the lie of adult morality Halleck points out that we sometimes approach young people who are coping with issues of sexuality and aggressiveness with a message that these are easily resolved impulses, and a view of an adult world where restraining these impulses is a prerequisite for success. Yet the adolescent’s personal experience with these impulses and their observation of the adult world clearly reveals to them that this is a lie. They witness moral failings by adults on a daily basis; they see adults struggling with the same issues of sexuality and aggressiveness that is being used as an indicator of their deficit; and, perhaps most affronting to young people, they know that many successful adults have relied on sexuality and aggressiveness as a contributing factor in their own success. In other words, the adolescent knows that most of the adults they meet who hold power over them have probably at some time in their lives been guilty of the same behavior that is identified as their ‘problem’.

At the same time, adults often insinuate that conformity will make the young person’s life better. If only they will change their behavior to match community norms and expectations, everything will be fine. It is to their advantage to “be passive, to conform, to obey.” Yet when adolescents accept this as truth and begin to conform they can quickly discover that this is often untrue. In many cases their behavior is a manifestation of personal defenses and coping skills. Simply conforming to external expectations of behavior without a corresponding focus on the context for the behavior will generally leave an adolescent more susceptible to anxiety and fear. From our perspective their conformity is an improvement as they are less of a ‘problem’ for our communities. From their perspective, however, things often get worse, not better. This may explain why street youth are more likely to attempt suicide when they are in programs than when they are on the street, or why we see so much acting out and ‘back-sliding’ with adolescents who appear to be doing well.

Of course, there is truth in both of these ‘lies’. It is certainly true that some control and restraint is necessary when dealing with aggressive and sexual behavior, and life can be pretty difficult when your behavior consistently deviates from the norms of the community. But if we give the impression that there is a paradise of adult morality to which they are simply unable or unwilling to conform – and that everything will be just peachy if they do – then we are most certainly lying.

Tomorrow I’ll describe Halleck’s remaining two ‘lies’.