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posted by Stanley W. Standal Ph.D. @ 11:14 AM
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Stanley W. Standal 1923-2008
Stan Standal passed away June 7th in the Philippines after a long illness. Stan was a larger than life man who touched and enriched many people during his lifetime. He lived a full creative life, overcoming many personal challenges to contribute many lives. Please share with us your thoughts and memories of this very creative, brilliant and complex man- Paul
Thursday, July 31, 2008
About Me
- Name: Stanley W. Standal Ph.D.
has been described by those who knew him, colleagues, friends and clients, as a brilliant mind whose creativity and energy changed and challenged all those around him. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago in 1954. His dissertation: "The Need For Unconditional Positive Regard" was a groundbreaking theoretical paradigm that continues to be a cornerstone for understanding interpersonal relations. It is seminal to the understanding of the change process in the therapeutic relationship. Stan founded, directed and inspired the therapeutic community, Deer Creek Institute, located near Utah’s Escalante Wilderness. He described it as a human relations laboratory in which his theories of growth and change could be explored in an in-vivo environment. Although he continued to write and remain creative, Stan was diagnosed with Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type in the mid 1990's. As his function continued to deteriorate, he and his fifth wife Ophelia decided to move to the Philippines where they felt that he would be cared for lovingly and effectively by her family. He is survived by three of his four children Paul, Kamala and Gregory.
15 Comments:
There was much in my father that was extraordinary and much that wise, good and kind. Yet, he was his own worst enemy because he acted out that which haunted him and that with which he never came to terms.
I'm sorry that many didn't really know that sweet, loving and innocent part of my father that truly cared about people. I know it was there. I knew it well. And I also realize that we all had to save ourselves, in our own ways, from the force and power of his broken zones. The shock of such dichotomies in a human being was too much for many of us to bear.
Yet, it taught me. It's allowed me to hold the opposites in life and understand the bigger picture. I continue to benefit from what my father taught me, and I continue to heal from it.
May he rest now. May he be held in kind arms, as he tried to do in his life for others---even as he struggled mightily with his own limitations and the distortions of the worst in himself. I hold a flame of compassion and forgiveness for a man who tried. Rest in peace, Dad.
I knew for several months that Stan was close to the end of his life, and I didn't expect to have feelings about his death. I didn't WANT to have feelings about his death. Once I received the news from Kamala, I put off calling her back for a few days, but once I started talking into her voicemail system, the tears came.
Stan took over the job of parenting me when I was 19 years old. He gave me gifts that my parents could not give me. Among other things, he helped me to accept myself as a gay man. He taught me that subgrouping would destroy people's trust in me. He taught me never to trust people who sought power, even as he consolidated his power over an entire community of young people who believed he was their savior.
When I met Stan, I had recently dropped out of college for the 5th time. With his help, I finished college and gained confidence in myself as something other than a loser. During that time, he taught me about the profound interaction between the Needy Gland and the syndrome he named Great Golden Weenie-Itis, and he invented the Standal Slammer. He entertained me mightily.
During the last four of the 10 years that we were close, I committed enough felonies on Stan's behalf to land myself in prison for 100 years.
His lawyer once told me, "You're risking the rest of your life in prison in order to help him avoid a 3-year sentence, a sentence he could have avoided if he hadn't fled the country when he was indicted for statutory rape."
Did he exploit me? Of course. At 19, I was flattered that he considered my potential worthy of exploitation. And among the many ironies is the knowledge that my life is better than it would be, and I am a better person than I would be, if he had never come into my life.
As Kamala says in her post, Stan was his own worst enemy. He caused many people to suffer, and he suffered greatly himself. He taught that understanding is the greatest gift that one human being can give to another, and I doubt that he ever felt anyone understood him.
Stan enriched my life tremendously. I have never known anyone like him, and the world is a less colorful place without him.
We first met Stan in Manila in the mid-60's at the Interchurch Guest House. Of course there were many long and fascinating conversateons. Later he stayed with us for three months at Cagayan do Oro, Mindanao.' where I was serving as an agricultural fraternal worker with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. From there we travefled to many remote areas in cluding Lun Padidu in the mountains above Gen. Santos. We think of him and remember him well. Rev. Armin Schmidt, Broken Arrow, OK.
I spent three years at Stan's ranch on the 'work crew.' As Claudia remarked I too continue to benefit from what Stan taught. Those years at the ranch were, for all of us (who were there), a strange and wonderful time, full of pain and love. Stan didn't cure me during those years, but his insights still guide me and have helped have a very good life. Dan K
Kamala describes him well. The ranch seemed to attract people who were fed up with the craziness and lies of our society. At first it seemed as though a new reality or existence was being created and it attracted so many incredible people. People who were enriched with incredible talents-- soul, music, education, spirituality, compassion, passion, love, sincerity, vitality, and just plain craziness.
Stan was the master mind of this new reality. It seemed like this "truth" was worth more than all of the money in the world. Most of the people attracted to the ranch were rebels who needed to totally submit in order to not be harmed our own pathological impulses. Stan quoted so many things that were wise regarding human nature. He said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Indeed, he fell to corruption with the inordinate power that this band of people surrounding him gave him. Stan did a good job of instilling discipline into the lives of the rebels.
Sadly, it was the failure of the rebels to rebel against Stan's corruption that lost the opportunity for Stan to achieve a similar benefit that many of those around him got. The discipline hammered into most of these rebellious individuals carried them to the far reaches of the world-- professors, lawyers, computer geeks, psychologists, counselors, doctors, executives, developers, artists, etc. I am not saying that Stan deserves credit for the accomplishments -- that is a totally crazy thought, but one that he seemed to cling to. Yes, and Stan was not the only one to go to jail or prison.
He made big differences in so many lives-- good and bad.
Scores of people could attest that Stan knew them better than anybody in this world. He was one of the most intelligent and sensitive individuals I have ever met. Yet, his microsphere of social power and alcohol brain poisoning set the stage for his deterioration. Sadly, the more he sank, the more he drove people away. The agony of losing the super status that he once held, resulted in his further hurting the few remaining friends he had. He drank and sank. Finally, he was mostly alone.
Stan was and is not a person about whom you feel indifferent. You either passionately loved or hated him. It appeared to me that most people held both of these strong emotions toward him. His selfish actions hurt many people. His passion for liberating the inner being of the wounded souls of the world helped many people. He was a drunken liberator. His vitality for the human encounter was and is unmatched.
I needed the stimulation, passion, and liberation that Stan Standal challenged me with. I am not saying that he was necessarily a loving guy but he did know about love. I wouldn't give him credit for saving lives-- I really think that he was just helping himself and that is okay until you hurt others.
If Stan had been interested in music there is no doubt that he would have been one of the fallen rock stars that everybody now memorializes-- ahead of his time, an artist, a poet, crazy, selfish, and out of control-- dysfunctional but full of vitality.
I forgive him for hurting me. God I wish that he would have seen the light and humbled himself, but that is just not the way life is. I also wish a great deal about my parents. The world is the world.
Stan-- see you soon.
Hello,
My name is Casey C. Jones. Although I would like to keep such information private, I am a large contributor to a non-profit and Facebook fan site with over 11,000 fans. It is titled Love Infinite.
It is an expression of the concept of unconditional positive regard. I would love to understand more deeply how Dr. Standal thought about the subject. I know Dr. Carl Rogers was better known, and credited for popularizing the phrase. Yet it must be that a review of Dr. Sandal's original thesis would be even more enlightening.
If you would be so kind, might I obtain a copy? I'm happy to pay for postage, etc. A message can be posted to me via //www.facebook.com/CaseyCJones
Very warm (and unconditional) regards,
Casey
This man was a fraud, a rapist, and a megalomanical asshole. May he rot in hell.
What an asshole. His thesis is bullshit and whatever healing was done at Deer Creek for some was at the expense of others. I was there. His soul was corrupt, his spirit devilish. FUCK HIM! I SHIT ON HIS MEMORY. May the Devil himself bend him over and fuck his ass with a tree trunk. May he meet 'Vlad the Impailer'
Your a sucker!! That thesis is drivel.
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I was a client, employee, and sometimes a friend of Standal. At 18 I was referred to him by a San Francisco psychiatrist. At that time Dr. Standal was a Clinical Psychologist working in Salt Lake City 40 miles north of Provo, Utah where I was attending BYU. I made an appointment to get some help and this began a 6 year journey of psychotherapy Standal style which was professional and personal. He never failed to challenge me to grow to become a "real" growth case. I was privileged to live on his ranch within his personal growth community for 6 years of adventure and deeply interpersonal relationships. I think I did well for a neurotic person somewhere within the spectrum of autism. On the ranch I observed, I had real emotions and affairs, I role played being normal and fell in love with life. He was kind and did his best to facilitate my growth. He presented me with challenges that allowed me to take a hold of my life. I think of his formula love + reality = life and practice that notion with my family and friends and within my professional community almost every day. I profit spiritually by his wisdom to this day. Shortly after I left Deer Creek, Standal moved his community, which was dubbed the "Circus", to Las Vegas. I was not invited. I had to become my own worthy person. During my life and in my memory I love Stan and I am forever grateful for his compassion and genius during my time of crisis. I am an old man, I love life and I am still growing. Your friend forever, Todd
What is the prime directive of a healer: First, do no harm.
So, for those of you who choose to describe him "complex,"brilliant,"wise,"kind," please take a moment to think about that.
I don't give him an pass b/cs he couldn't handle what he created. Yes, as one other writers on this blog observed, there is an axiom (A brit, Lord Acton centuries ago) that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." But the corruption is not in the wielding of power, it is in the seeking of it.
Nor do I don't give Stan Standal a pass as a brilliant person. An unpublished PhD dissertation is not a strong academic record. Seems to me to be all Carl Rodgers in theory and an absolute wreckange in Standal's implementation of that theory. I say this as a college professor at a major (55,000) state research university, having been tenured at 29, written two books, yada yada.
My older brother and younger sister were part of the deer creek "experience" or "community," or "cult," whatever you would like to call it. Neither was what you would call mentally ill at the time. My brother was searching; my sister was doing some pot--it was the late 60s early 70s in the S.F. Bay Area. She went first b/cs she was a lot to handle--15, into pot and starting to have sex--and Stan promised a way ahead when my folks were out of ideas of what to do. My brother went a few years after just unsure what to do after high school and searching. Really basic middle class stuff.
I met Stan at dinner with my parents when I was about 19 or 20, (1972 or thereabouts), home from break at college. He was drunk on my parents' alcohol at dinner at our house, excoriating them for screwing their children up, while billing them into a lower standard of living, and needing assistance from someone (named Paul?) as he stumbled to the door. I thought he was a charlatan at first meet. He took a lot of money from my parents, and caused strife between them along the way.
My brother, now 69, is a very nice person. But he became even more lost at Deer Creek, ending up at Menninger's Clinic, and then wandering for another 10 years trying to find who he was.
My sister took her life, forever changing my parents and our family.
I think of Stan as a narcissistic predator, Trump-like in that the story was always about him, with these revolving characters orbiting around. But in truth, none was actually very important to him. The only important thing to him was him. Not much laudable here, that I can find anyway.
I don't believe in an afterlife. But if there is one, I hope it includes judgment and justice.
Cliff Zukin 2020
God, I loved those Saturday night parties ("Proud Mary" anyone?)
I'm still here, Dan K.
Those Saturday night parties were fun, live music playing Proud Mary, until they weren’t. I attended those parties. I was 12 years old. I was drunk every Saturday night. One Saturday night I was sitting in the sand outside of the party. Stand was groping me, he wouldn’t listen to me telling him to stop. I was sure he was going to rape me. I saved myself by throwing up on him. He didn’t try that again, but others weren’t so lucky. He was a child rapist and hurt so very many people. He was a complete piece of shit and I hope he is rotting in whatever hell he believed in!
Wow! I never knew him but what a man and the reactions here are indeed thought provoking ! I'm simply here as I'm writing a journal for my Counselling course on unconditional positive regard and came upon this site. I prefer to name the true instigators, pioneers, the brave or whatever synonym that sits right with you rather than Dr Rogers taking praise so, yes I shall name Dr Stanley W. Standal's unpublished PhD dissertation "The Need For Unconditional Positive Regard", later expanded and made popular by Rogers. I am without doubt that Rogers too has skeletons in his closet, caused wrongdoing, caused and live with shame, transgression or whatever synonym you prefer.
Love
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