Metabolic Relevance: The First Interview

Brief Audio Announcement for 07
January 6, 2007
Personal History, Categorical Thinking
January 7, 2007

Francis Ford Coppola: Evolved Office Evaluations

So what does Coppola have to do with psych problems? Let me tell you a story:
Coppola, in a biz interview, discussing money, Hollywood and his latest picture, was asked by Maria Bartiromo this simple question-

What would you say is an underlying theme to the many movies you have produced [more than 60!].

Coppola took a deep breath, signed heavily, and replied firmly;

That is the wrong question… I am a poet, an artist, – and each film, like a poem, should stand alone – with a message beyond the words alone.

– and to follow that perspective consider these remarks by Michael Pollan in Omnivore's Dilemma:

Pollan [quoting Allan Nation in the Stockman Grass Farmer, from a remarkably different, non Wall Street, non Hollywood arena], discusses “artisanal economics” as opposed to industrial economics [orig ref from Harvard Business professor Michael Porter more next post];

‘Industrial farmers' are interested in the business of selling commodities with the only competitive strategy: be the least-cost producer, substituting capital for skilled labor and increasing production.

‘Artisanal production' is based upon a strategy of selling something unique and special rather than chasing the least-cost production grid. p249 Pollan

Imitating the industrial model limits customization and care with the product, and the result is less value in cookie cutter archetypes. But all the other farmers are doing it….

I think you know where I am going with this my friends. Coppola, Porter, and Pollan all have it right from many different angles, from grassland agriculture and food, to Harvard Business, to Hollywood. Do we have to think more deeply to leap over to psych diagnosis and management?

The DSM 4 psych diagnostic manual here in the USA, like the corn crop, feeds us for a moment, but if we don't customize our inquiry, become artisans, and customize our questions, the inevitable outcome: missed variables.

Those missed variables connect with the best solutions.  We have the technology and the foundation of evidence, it's just for us to learn it and use it with every person that walks into any office with a brain/body puzzle. Let's all become artisans and study poetry.

People are poetry, they have complex meanings beyond words alone.

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2 Comments

  1. Chuck Parker says:

    Michael,
    Thanks for your kind remarks. It is interesting to recognize the fact that so many from such diverse perspectives arrive at similar conclusions about what works best for the patients and ourselves.

    As categories and reductionistic thinking diminish new paths arise.

    Thanks again for weighing in!
    Chuck

  2. Michael Max says:

    People are poetry. I like that, and think it is helpful to doctors to think this way. That we are all a unique constellation of balance and harmony, illness and dis-ease. The RELATIONSHIP between the parts is often more important than the parts.

    This is one of the strengths of Chinese medicine, it looks at each person as a individual. There is no such thing as “one size fits all” medicine. Every prescription is like a poem written for that patient.