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it in therapy groups, although we had been implied when we talked have talked around it. about escape before. A group member made a remark This brief exchange made me the other day that, on the surface, think about a great many things. Is seemed casual. He said he was go- there a “good-bad” designation for ing to market forty-one-day survival everything? Is escape necessarily kits. When asked what he was bad? Are man’s actions always Escape talking about, he said that Jesus had simply measured on the surface, or gone to the wilderness for forty is it necessary to look a little deeper I,y Vernelle Fox, M.D. days and that if Jesus had a right to and see the purpose of these actions try to figure things out, he assumed before the meaning can be known? it would take him at least forty-one It is fairly well accepted that escape days to do the same. I believk the from reality – an attempt to dodge The author’:’ has treated many alcoholics. The -group accepted this for its worth, as life as it is – is generally destrucquestion o f escape comes up: is it always bad? the “survi;al kit” was referred’ to tive and results in leaving the perseveral times in the next few days, son out of life, and therefore con- A patient orlce suggested n forty-one day survival kit. . . . but they did not explore its depth stitutes a kind of death. Does this or meaning. mean, then, that all escape is a little Then, gradually, the depth of death? Not so for Jesus! He eswhat had been said seemed to come caped, all right, but wasn’t it an has bothered me The concept that all escape is S OM ETHING through the years that I could not quite-put my finger on. It is destructive shows up in many little ways. Patients say to each other in to the surface. What was this survi- escape to life, to reality? Wasn’t it val kit? Did it mean that Jesus felt an escape which enabled Him to get the need and the right to take forty a closer view of the purpose of His this whole question of escape. In- a very judgmental tone, “You’re days and nights to go to the wilder- life? itially, patients fight the idea that running away again,” or “Antabuse ness? Why did He go? I feel He Granted, the rest of us are not so their drinking is an escape, and is is just another crutch or dodge,” or went to really think about the wise as He was. That’s why the man I I abnormal and destructive in that it “You can’t even be by yourself five meaning and purpose of His life, in the group needed at least a fortyis an escape from reality and from minutes, or someone accuses you the direction His life was going to one-day survival kit. But; nonetheunresolved conflicts which trap of hiding.” take, and where He fitted into the less, we can learn something from them. When all these comments are put whole scheme of things. That He Him. If He had the right to escape Gradually, as our acceptance of together, we are apt to get a strong not only felt the need for this time, to the purpose and the meaning of patients is felt and their need for feeling that the only acceptable or but that He must also have felt that life, don’t we have the same right? defense lessens, most of them are healthy thing is for everyone to be it was right to meet this need. Could it be that most of us lose able to recognize that destructive “brave” and to face every issue in Was this escape? I suppose so. sight of the fact that it is not necesdrinking is an escape. Then, almost life the minute it happens and, fur- It fits the usual description, but it sarily the act of escaping that counts, inevitably, the majority come to the thermore, to decide upon the out- certainly was not destructive escape. but the direction that escape takes? not very logical conclusion that all come immediately. I have been Obvious, even on the surface, are Constructive and creative escape escape i s destructive. This conclu- aware of this kind of “over-buying” the survival, life-finding and search- may be as much a part of what sion is the thing that bothers me. that follows the initial rejection of ing qualities of this kind of escape. makes man live as destructive es- The author is a psychiatrist in Georgia. This the idea of escape, but somehow Jesus’ escape just doesn’t have the cape is a part of what makes him article reprinted from “Tlie N e w Life.” Vol. 11, No. 1 , with permission. have not been able to work through running-away, dying qualities that die.