Biography, Autobiography, Old Steve of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

1. I don't really know how it all started but at some time during my middle to late twenties I became interested in the 'Psychology of Management.' Probably through work, but from there I was hooked. Here was a subject that I could study alone, except where I was obliged to mix with others on courses etc, but apart from everything else I found I could so readily and easily identify with it. Don't ask me to quantify that because I can't, other than to say that perhaps I subconsciously realised that there was the slight possibility that I could use some help myself. But because I didn't fully understand it, at that time, and would certainly never have openly declared the fact that I needed help, even if I had, I got stuck in with unparalleled enthusiasm. So with a lot of help from a mountain of books, every thing else I could lay my hands on and the Open University, my life long obsession started. It took over my life and while I still had to pursue an occupation and lots of other things to survive, it had a tremendous impact on me and I am certainly a much different person to that small male child that first drew breath in 1935 and struggled with himself and his inner turmoil and torment for the first twenty odd years of his life.

2. As I started to unravel myself I did what I am sure most people would do and indeed I have since proved it to be so and it is often the case, I quickly thought and believed that I had the answer to everything, when really I didn't. Anyhow I was not to know that, at the time, and so, armed with my newfound knowledge, I set out to share it with others and to do, what I believed I could, and that was solve all their problems. But the system and society, with a lot of ignorance and prejudice, would just not allow that. I could not, even if I had unbridled enthusiasm or the capital, just to set up as an inexperienced practitioner and work outside the establishment. In those days the establishment provided the Psychiatric Treatment, that society was allowed, and everyone, not within their hallowed portals, was labelled a charlatan or a quack. Nowadays, thank goodness, society has woken up to the fact that there are such things as Complementary Medicine, and these practices are particularly beneficial in areas most affected by the emotions and where many also now think that that embraces almost everything. Sort out the emotions and you sort out the person is the philosophy. But enough of that for the moment as we are primarily concerned here with my background and progress.

3. I was not too sure if I was 'sorted out' but I was sufficiently calm, confident and in control that I felt I could help others. A confidence that is still with me and which I think, I have managed to prove my skills and abilities, beyond any doubt, on innumerable occasions since then. But what of then?

How did I tell the world that I existed and that, I believed, I had the answer to every question including those that had not even been thought of: let alone asked? I would produce, advertise and distribute a Correspondence Course. But how and based on what? I knew! I would invest my limited capital on a course from the greatest source of all Correspondence Courses, the USA and on one with a Diploma, not recognised in the UK, but still a Diploma to go with it. So the hard work began as this course had to be worked at and completed before I could get my hands on, and appraise, the complete thing. Many Dollars later, copyright and plagiarism had to be taken into account and so a complete rewrite and rehash was in order and of course the end product had to include all my own revolutionary ideas. Or so I thought they were at the time, my not having then fully studied and fully comprehended the teachings and philosophies of such great scholars as Young, Adler and a chap called Freud, among many others. I also felt, that in what little I had researched, they might be wrong, which was an imposition at that time, as I now realise. But since then, of course, things have changed dramatically and I would be prepared to debate many subjects and confidently defend my corner.

4. Course written and many duplicate copies made, the next question was where to advertise? More research and masses of rejections from nearly every newspaper and magazine in the country, which simply did not, as part of their advertising policy, carry such advertisements. I was therefore reduced to the lesser-known publications that covered such things as spiritualism, the Para-normal, the occult and several others, all, all right in themselves, but not read by the people I was aiming at and so the results were fairly predictable. I picked up a few, mostly curiosity seekers; some cranks even, but few takers and from those who did take it up, some didn't seem to understand where I was coming from, as I now realise I don't think I really knew that myself. All I knew was, I had found something wonderful and despite not being too sure of myself, I wanted to share it. Anyhow the whole thing got shelved and set aside after I got fed up with people, who I thought knew less than me, picking on me and trying to pick holes in what I was doing instead of giving it a fair chance. The deciding factor came when I became involved, in a long written discussion, with a gentleman who accused me of being racist when I happened, out of ignorance and over which I later swore would not be allowed to happen again because I am not racist, to use the analogy that angels were white and good and that the devil was black and evil. No amount of apology or explanation would satisfy this guy and so in the end I said, 'sod it' and that was the end of the Correspondence Course. It certainly didn't take off and snowball like I thought it would, or I indeed expected it to and I got very little positive feed back from anywhere. So from that point on and for a while after, I concentrated on the acquisition of even more knowledge about my chosen subject and spent more time sorting myself out. Years later I looked at that course again and there were some good points in it but there were also a few that fell a long way short. Anything based on a religious connotation is not sound psychology.

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