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Take 12 Strokes Off Your Golf Game By Overcoming Cathexis With Kenosis – What?
By Ron Strand
Every summer for the past five or six years I have reread Scott Peck’s quirky book about psychiatry and golf, and the Spirit. Peck is probably better known for his best selling books about his experiences and insights as a psychiatrist, such as, A Road Less Travelled. In and the Spirit, Peck combines his love for and what has taught him about the human condition and relates that to his years as a psychiatrist, and what studying the human condition that has taught him about golf.
If that sounds a bit convoluted, well, paradox is one of the recurring themes in the book. Peck says in the introduction that reading the book might take 12 strokes of your game, and it might not. His advice on the physical and technical sides of the game is simple, keep your eye on the ball and take a nice easy swing, and, watch a good player and imitate the swing. The book is more about the mental part of the game, and the behaviour that is required to succeed at and in life.
Peck, who has spent decades as a golfer, and now, unable to play, creates his imaginary dream course on a tropical island. In each chapter he plays a hole on the course, reflecting on memories of past experiences, both as a golfer and a psychiatrist. Along the course, he ponders issues like, why it is so difficult for people to change, even though they want to, whether it is correcting your swing to get rid of a slice or someone trying to overcome an addiction and everything in between.
A couple of the recurring themes are difficult concepts that define difficult words. Peck returns again and again to the concept of kenosis, the idea that to change you must empty yourself of self. Self gets in the way. Every golfer knows that the mental game plays a big part in a golfer’s success. involves the often difficult paradox of relaxing and concentrating at the same time. cannot be played well if ones mind is distracted with all kinds of thoughts, whatever they may be about. Somehow, it is best to be thought-less. The mind must be emptied, which is the beginning of kenosis.
Another concept Peck returns to often is called cathexis. This word describes the human condition of developing
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