Jungian Psychotherapy, Part III:

Tools and Applications

David Van Nuys, PhD

Archetypal Work with Inner-City Youth with Dr. Kwame

Scruggs
Interviewed by David Van Nuys, PhD

Dr. Scruggs: One of the first things we do with the boys is we apologize to the boys for
our generation leaving them on their own. It's a sincere apology to them.
The boys we work with, I would say 80%, don't have fathers in the
homes. One of the first things we do is apologize and then we tell them
this one myth, the beginning of the myth and it's called the King and the
Corpse. In this myth, there is this mendicant, which is a holy man in this
particular myth. He's a beggar but he's really a holy man. He goes to the
king's treasurer and every day for ten years he gives this king's treasurer
a piece of fruit. When I'm telling them the story, you got the beat of the
drum going. He does this everyday and the king's treasurer just casually
tosses the fruit aside but this does not discourage the mendicant. He just
calmly walks back into the crowd and returns home. Then he comes back
the next day and hands the king's treasurer a piece of fruit and this goes
on every day for ten years.

David Van Nuys: That was the voice of my guest, Dr. Kwame Scruggs speaking about his
Jungian approach to working with at risk African-American youth in

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 Akron, Ohio. If you want to hear the rest of that story, you should
definitely listen on.

Kwame Scruggs, PhD is the founder and executive director of Alchemy

Incorporated, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in Akron, Ohio,
that he established in 2003 to assist urban male youth in developing a
sense of personal purpose in life while utilizing strategies to successfully
function as members of a family, school, community, and the world at
large.

He came up with the idea to create Alchemy several years ago when he
was working as a counselor with high school dropouts. After telling a
story to the young men, he was asked to tell another story. He realized
that he had found a way for them to connect the messages and
characters of the stories he told with the people and issues within their
own lives. From that moment, Kwame began his own journey of self-
fulfillment, learning, and confirmation of his professional aspirations.

Under his leadership, Alchemy was founded and today it's a nationally
recognized program that combines mythological traditions, drumming,
academic support, cultural enrichment, and the guidance of a team of
highly accomplished and caring male mentors to encourage and equip
middle and high school adolescent males in developing their full
potential, service to others, and finding their place in life.

Alchemy's name is derived from the ancient art of chemical

transformation in which medieval alchemists attempted to transform a
lower base metal or prima materia into gold called the philosopher's
stone. Alchemy works to transform prima materia of the urban male
youth into the philosopher's stone, that is the gold inherent within those
youth.

Kwame began interested in studying and using mythology to connect

with youth after being initiated into the Akon system of life cycle
development, which is an African-based rite of passage system. In
reading the works of Carl Jung whose work addressed the concept of the
collective unconscious, Jung's work led Kwame on a reading journey that
included the works of Joseph Campbell and Michael Meade. These and
other readings confirmed his desire to pursue the use of myth in his work
with youth. It also strengthened his educational aspirations.

Kwame now holds a PhD and MA degree in mythological studies with an

emphasis in depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. In

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 addition, he holds an MS degree in technical education with emphasis in
guidance and counseling from the University of Akron. Now here's the
interview.

Dr. Kwame Scruggs welcome to Shrink Wrap Radio.

Dr. Scruggs: Thank you very much, Dr. Dave. I feel humbled that you asked me to be a
part.

David Van Nuys: I'm so pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you. I heard from
one of my listeners, Laura who is a doctoral student in the Collaborative
Counseling Doctoral Program at the University of Akron and she
suggested that you'd make a terrific guest. I think this was on the heels of
my interviews with Dr. Dana Hauck, a Jungian therapist, who used myth
and storytelling in his work with hardcore cons and I think she saw a
certain similarity in your work that you've drawn on Jungian ideas in your
work with inner city youth there in Akron, Ohio. Is that right?

Dr. Scruggs: Yes, that's correct. I had an opportunity to listen to that interview that
you did and basically a lot of our work seems to parallel. Where I pretty
much got my idea from, although it is definitely Jungian based, was from
the work of Michael Meade. I had read his book, Men and Water of Life
and he told seven different mythological stories. He told the stories and
then gave interpretations of the stories and then ... it was from there that
I got the idea to start using myth with urban males.

David Van Nuys: That's great. We'll go more into that background and maybe a little bit
more into Michael Meade as well. But before we start talking about the
program that you've created, let's talk some more about you. I know
you're into stories so tell us the story of Kwame Scruggs. Where did you
grow up, etc.?

Dr. Scruggs: I grew up in Akron, Ohio. I was born in 1958 and Akron was the rubber
capital of the world. It had the headquarters of Goodyear, Firestone,
Goodrich. When I was growing up, my earliest memories of childhood
was sitting and watching black and white TV and seeing the Blacks, well
we were Colored back then or Negroes, being beaten and the water
hoses and the dogs. As a child, I just didn't understand that.

David Van Nuys: I can imagine.

Dr. Scruggs: Everything that I saw on TV in relation to Blacks was negative. We were
clowns, butlers, slaves, nothing positive. I internalized that as a child and

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 felt less than, all based on the color of my skin. That was like my earliest
wound and when you look at myth you find that pretty much it's the
wound that drives you. That's primarily how I ended up using myth to
work with urban males.

Back to who I am, I grew up in an all Black neighborhood and went to an

all Black grade school. Lower middle class upbringing, but I remember
feeling guilty because I had a baseball glove and a bat and we drank out
of glasses while a few of my neighbors drinking out of mayonnaise jars
and I remember feeling guilty about that. I did okay in school, nothing
earth shattering. Went to public grade school K through 6 and then I
went to private school to middle school and then I went to public high
school. Then played basketball and did other things in high school that I
probably shouldn't have done.

David Van Nuys: Part of your initiation, right?

Dr. Scruggs: Yes, yes. I started working when I was 16 years old.

David Van Nuys: That's young.

Dr. Scruggs: When I was 17, worked two jobs in the summer 12 hours a day. Worked
8 o'clock in the morning until 8 in the evening. I worked every day after
school when I was a senior and then graduated from high school on
Thursday and my father had been working at Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Company the following Monday. I worked at Goodyear for 15 years and I
went to school in the evening so it took me 15 years to get my degree.

David Van Nuys: Are you talking about your college degree now?

Dr. Scruggs: Yes, my bachelor's degree. It took me 15 years to get my bachelor's

degree. Goodyear offered a separation letter. I took the separation letter
and ended up getting a graduate assistantship from Dr. Frank. I didn't
even know what graduate assistantship was but I needed to get a job. I
wanted to move to New York City with my sister, but then she moved
back home and the recession hit. I ended up taking the graduate
assistantship. I wanted to get my degree in counseling but after leaving
Goodyear I took about a 70% cut in pay so I ended up getting my master's
in technical education with an emphasis on guidance and counseling.
Then I ended up getting a job at the University of Akron with the Upward
Bound program and worked there for like five years.

In the meantime, I had volunteered with this neighborhood program

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 working with youth and through that program I got introduced to a rites
of passage program like an African-based rites of passage. It was through
that, the initiation and the whole bit that I got introduced to the work of
Carl Jung. I started reading Jung, fell in love with Jung's work, and from
Jung I started to read Joseph Campbell. That's when I found out about
Pacifica Graduate Institute.

I was about 38 years old and I remember looking out my window at the
University of Akron, wow I'm going to be 40 here in a minute and I really
don't want to remain here. At the time, I was reading Campbell's Power
in Myth and the one sentence, follow your bliss. He said, “when you
follow your bliss, doors open where you thought there would be no
doors.” I'm like asking myself, wow what is my bliss? What is it that I
really want to do? Not what can I do, but what do I really want to do? I
said, I want to play my drum and tell mythological stories and to find out
about Pacifica Graduate Institute.

A couple of years later I ended up going to Pacifica and did the master's
in mythological studies with the emphasis in depth psychology. Then I
took a few years off and started my nonprofit Alchemy Incorporated and
ended up finishing my PhD at Pacifica Graduate Institute. That's a long
story, short.

David Van Nuys: I'm sure you left a lot out, of important things. That's quite a journey. I
think it's a very rare and unusual journey for an African-American male.
I'll bet you ... Did you meet any others at Pacifica Graduate Institute?

Dr. Scruggs: No. I was the only Black in that program and basically the students there
usually come from all around the country. Our classes were like Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday once a month and you pretty much go through
with that same group for the two years or the three if you're doing PhD.
That was one of the reasons why I left, it just brought up too many
childhood memories for me of being the only Black out there and feeling
less than, because the school is in Santa Barbara, California.

David Van Nuys: Right, which is an affluent place. Very, very white affluent.

Dr. Scruggs: If you're looking around and you're seeing that wow you're in a beautiful
place like that and then you don't see anybody who looks like you, it just
kind of works on your psyche. You're like, wow what am I doing here? It
brought up so many memories from childhood and just trying to be a
spokesman for the entire Black race. It just got to be a little too much for
me so I took a little leave of absence.

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David Van Nuys: I appreciate you speaking so frankly about that. Maybe we'll come back
to some of those racial issues. You've already touched on a bunch of
things I was going to ask you about, like what as the wound that got you
into this work and you spontaneously went to that place.

Dr. Scruggs: No doubt, no doubt for me and you know we all have crosses to bear. For
me, personally that was my wound and I don't have any real bad personal
stories but it was just more of a collective story. I always remember when
I would go out to Pacifica, I would cry each trip. I would cry like a little
baby. I remember one night it was 4 o'clock in the morning and I was
crying uncontrollably. I had a roommate and went to the bathroom and
closed the door so I wouldn't wake him and I'm sitting there and I'm
crying for like about 20 minutes nonstop and then I'm finally stopping
and I said, wait a minute what am I crying about. I said, hell my parents
have been married 50 something years and I never really wanted for
anything and then I saw an image in the bathtub. There was some water
in the bathtub and below the water was bones. It was the bones of my
ancestors. At that moment I realized I'm not crying for me. My pain is
more a collective pain.

David Van Nuys: That's fascinating. That reminds of the story of Jung tells, I think in
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, about the dream that he had when he
was on the ship with Freud. Jung had a dream about bones in the
basements. Freud wanted to interpret that hostility towards his parents
whereas Jung saw it really as being archetypal and about the ancestors,
the collective. That's an interesting vision. Did you already know that
story when you had your vision?

Dr. Scruggs: At that time, I knew it but it was interesting, I didn't think about it until
you just mentioned it right now, but I was aware of his book. I read that
book twice. I love that book. As a matter of fact speaking of that and we
won't get too far off, Deirdre Bair's book on Jung, Jung's Bio is a nice
follow-up to MDR.

David Van Nuys: You know, I don't know that book. What's the title?

Dr. Scruggs: It's Jung's Bio by Deirdre Bair. It's a nice ... it's like a bio on Jung. It's like
600 some pages, a couple hundred pages of notes. It's a book worth, in
my opinion worth reading.

David Van Nuys: Okay, well I appreciate that recommendation.

What was it about the Jungian approach that spoke to you? Something

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 was speaking to you pretty deeply to make you kind of grit your teeth
and keep going back to this place that was so painful for you to go to.

Dr. Scruggs: Like I say, when I was going through that African-based rites of passage, it
was the rites based on the Akon principles of people of West Ghana. It
was through that I was introduced to the work of Jung. The gentleman
who was doing our facilitating he had the book, Portable Jung. I went out
and got Portable Jung. What captured me and this was my initial
introduction to Jung, what captured me was he had a chapter there on
the phenomenology of self where he talked about the ego, the shadow,
the anima, the animus, the persona, the wise old man, the trickster. I'm
like, wow that really captured my attention there. Also, he had a chapter
on synchronicity that captured my attention and also the collective
unconscious. That's what pretty much got me into Jung's work and then
also the dreams. I started to write my dreams down.

That's what got me into Jung but it was more the myth. It was more the
study of the myths and the character traits of the hero and the common
themes in the myths that kept me sticking it out at Pacifica and kept me
sticking it out day to day.

David Van Nuys: I gather there was somebody maybe who was sort of a mentor for you
there in Akron whoever it was who was doing this African,
mythologically-based program.

Dr. Scruggs: Really, the mentors for me ended up being books. Initially, it was books.
It was the reading of Malcolm X. That's what really got me started to
reading and I was about 30 some years old when I read that. My wife
introduced me to that book and I still remember her handing it to me in
the hallway of our apartment. What turned me on so much about
Malcolm was that after I read his autobiography, I'm like wow he's not
the bad guy that I've been told as was a child. As a child, everything I was
told about Malcolm X was negative and all the images are negative. So
naturally, if they lied to me about that, they lied to me about other
things. That's what got me started to reading.

Then from that I started to read about the psychology of Blacks. So books
ended up for the most part being my mentor. Like I said, it was Meade's
Men and the Water of the Life, which was really my mentor with that
book there. Then after Meade's book came on the scene and then I had
the opportunity to meet Dr. David Whitaker out of Cleveland. At that
point, I had a tangible mentor in Dr. Whitaker. I had Dr. Whitaker and
then Michael Meade.

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David Van Nuys: Is Dr. Whitaker white?

Dr. Scruggs: No, he's a Black gentleman. He has his bachelor's degree out of Kent
State, I think it's in mathematics. He ended up getting a master's in
school psychology but at the same time that he got his PhD in clinical
counseling, he got a law degree. He got his PhD from Case Western
University and his Law degree from John Marshall but he got them at the
same time. He’s just a very, very wise man. I met him from going through
the rites. Through myth I understood the importance of a mentor and so I
just started to try to hang around him as much as a I could.

David Van Nuys: That's great.

Dr. Scruggs: We've been friends now, he's the director of my board, he's on my board.
We've been friends about 15 years now. You know like with the myth, I
study the myth but also we use a lot of quotes and they say that "water
picks up the sediment from the channel in which it travels." I just try to
surround myself with people like Dr. Whitaker. They also say that “you
make your friends your teachers and you mingle the friendly art of
conversation with the advantages of instruction.”

David Van Nuys: That's great. The reason why I asked about race in relation to Whitaker
and I guess it implies more with Michael Mead, I'm just wondering if the
fact that there was this racial divide, if there was a struggle for you
accepting teaching from somebody like Michael and some of the other
teachers that you encountered, even Carl Jung?

Dr. Scruggs: That's a good question. Here again I use a lot quotes and live by quite a
few. They say that “you can have people of your color who are not of
your kind and people of your kind who are not of your color.”

David Van Nuys: That's nice, I like that.

Dr. Scruggs: You basically want to look at the message and not the messenger. I never
really, I don't want to say never, but for the most part I don't let color get
in the way.

David Van Nuys: Good. I hope you're passing that teaching along to ...

Dr. Scruggs: Oh, no doubt. Like with my boys, I mean Michael Meade, he's come here
for three years. For the second of our three years when we started the
program, we brought Michael here to work with the boys. I noticed too, I

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 look at a lot of our pictures, I had Darryl McDermott who is a Call to Call
medal winner, another white gentleman who studied under Campbell for
like 13 years and brought him here to work with the boys. The boys spent
an entire day with Jody Wainer, president of the Jungs in Cleveland and
she's white. No, we don't get off into that.

David Van Nuys: Tell us about your program that you've created and how you came to
create it and how it's structured.

Dr. Scruggs: Basically, when I was working at the University of Akron, I was counseling
students, Upper Bound students. It was like pulling teeth to get them to
talk and then I came across Meade's book with the myth and I just said,
wow myth is the ticket to working with the youth and getting him to talk.
So then I started to run parent groups in my counseling groups using
myth. Then when I left the University of Akron ...

David Van Nuys: Let me just stop you there because you've thrown out an interesting
pearl there. Myth is the ticket for getting recalcitrant youth to talk.
Somebody might want to know how to do that trick.

Dr. Scruggs: That's one of the things we're in the process of doing right now, putting a
teacher's manual together. My dissertation was how to use myth with
urban adolescent males. We're also in the process of trying to get that
put into book form. Basically, it's not that difficult. You tell the story and
you have certain questions that pertain to each story that deals with
different development issues. So that's how we do that, which later I can
give you an example.

David Van Nuys: Okay, that sounds that good.

Dr. Scruggs: After I left the University of Akron, I started to work with a few
gentlemen who had some contracts with charter schools and I started to
work with high school dropouts in Akron and Cleveland you know doing
my myths. Everything I do is playing the drum, telling a mythological story
while I'm playing the drum, then we ask questions, we have discussions
afterwards. I was doing training for teachers at the charter schools in
Akron, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.

I was with them for about two years and then I broke off on my own and
created the nonprofit Alchemy Incorporated. As you know, alchemy is the
ancient art of transformation. We just use that as a metaphor to extract
the gold that's inherent within our youth. I just happened to be in the
right place at the right time. I was Perkins Middle School and John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation put like about 5-6 million into this after

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 school program for like five years or so and I just happened to be there
and we ended up getting a nice three-year grant from the Knight
Foundation. That's pretty much how it all started, just being in the right
place at the right time. I had a few other people who were just like angels
sent from God, Vivian, Neal, and Carla Sibley.

When you see our program in action, you see a group of Black boys
sitting in a circle, adolescent boys. We start off with the drum beat and
you tell the mythological stories and then we'll stop at a certain point. All
the boys have journals and they'll write down what resonates with them
in the story, no right or wrong answers. They just go around and they talk
about some pretty deep issues that are going on in their life.

With our program right now, basically we have an in-school program

where we go into the school during the school day and we also have
an after school program with middle school students. We have a
summer component where we have a three-day overnight camp. We
do some training for teachers. Last year we worked with over a
hundred boys. Last year we were in about four schools and next year
we're slated to be in about five or six schools. We will have 35 boys
that we will work with until they're seniors. Out of that 35, 17 of
them we've have since sixth grade and they're going into tenth and
eleventh grade now. We have about 17 we've had since ninth grade
and they're going into eleventh grade, so we'll have these students
for about six years.

David Van Nuys: How do boys get into the program?

Dr. Scruggs: At Perkins we pretty much just took whoever would come and then that
second year once we saw that this is really working, we became a little
more selective with teacher recommendations, counselor
recommendations. We had a summer program to see how many of them
would take to the stories. That was for our second group of students.

At Copley High School where we have an in-school program, basically this

is considered the suburbs but it's not really and they have an influx of
urban youth coming in and they were just concerned about these urban
males. They heard about our program so they brought us into work with
the students and they just chose the students they were concerned
about. That's how that group there was selected.

At one of our other schools, it's an alternative school for students that
have been expelled from their schools and they all come to this one
school. The principal and assistant principal selected the students that

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 they wanted us to work with but from here on out, any other students
that we might work with from sixth grade on, we need to be a little bit
more selective because we put in a lot of time, energy, and money per
student and we just need to see perhaps more of a return on our
investment.

David Van Nuys: Speaking of investment, how are you able to support yourself? Is there
grant money that pays you a salary?

Dr. Scruggs: Grant money. We were very fortunate in the beginning to receive a nice
grant from Knight Foundation, Akron Community Foundation, City of
Akron, GAR Foundation, Crest Foundation but lately with the economy
we've taken quite a hit. A lot of my personal money right now is going
into making this happen. We're gonna be okay.

David Van Nuys: This is a tough time for nonprofit efforts like this. Maybe you can share
some success stories with us because you've had ... I saw that you had
kids that have gone through the program and are now on your staff,
right?

Dr. Scruggs: No, because we've only been up since 2004.

David Van Nuys: Okay, I guess I misunderstood something on the website. I was looking at
the different personal stories of people on the staff and somehow I got
that impression.

Dr. Scruggs: We have boys who have been in the program for four years and this is
another component that we really want to fine tune, our mentoring
component where the students who are going into the tenth and
eleventh grade they come back and they assist boys in our program who
are in fifth grade or sixth grade but all through the mythological stories.
We pay them ten bucks an hour to do that. We had a one-week summer
program and we also had a program during the school year, which ran
about ten weeks. We really want to fine tune that because that's a nice
concept there with the youth.

David Van Nuys: It definitely is. Is there a story that stands out for you as kind of a success
story? What keeps you going?

Dr. Scruggs: We have some boys who are pretty sharp but then we have some boys
who are sharp who seem to be going down that wrong path. To me it’s
kind of early to say that we have success stories. The boys are still in high
school. It's funny that you mention that because I was just thinking today

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 about one of the boys. We were talking about something in one of group
sessions and there is one myth that we talk about a lot is called the Fire
Bird and in this myth the king has a boy go out and catch this feather. He
catches the feather and he brings it back to the king. The king tells him,
well if you can catch the feather, you can catch the whole bird. The boy
brings back the whole bird and after the king well if you can bring me
back this, you can bring me back something else and it goes on and on
and on and it's just never enough. I recall one of the boys saying that I
would never be satisfied. In the myth the king pushes the boy past his
limits because he recognizes the genius within the boy.

I guess it's according to how you define success but I just think it's a little
early right now for us to say what is successful. Even with that said, when
I look at some of the things that the boys have to deal with on a daily
basis, just getting up every day and going to school and being able to just
get through that every day I guess is somewhat of a success. With our
boys, one of the ways we evaluate used to be just the grades and
behavior and you see an increase in their grades and a decrease in their
negative behavior, but primarily what we look for now is their ability just
to develop and to just be able to make better decisions. If I were to say a
success, I would say more so based on a boy just making better decisions
and not looking short term and trying to make the sacrifices for long
term.

David Van Nuys: I would guess also that you might see success in terms of some
development of their presence in the group.

Dr. Scruggs: Yes, that's a good point. A couple of weeks ago we had our three-day
overnight camp and we were doing evaluations. One of our top boys,
without question one of our top boys, had just gotten into some pretty
serious trouble. I was talking to him, it was just him and I sitting there and
he was just saying how he had a really good time during the camp but he
said next year he would try to be more of a leader. He knows that the
boys will follow him. We definitely see it in their comments from the
stories.

For me, it's a little difficult for me to see because I'm with the boys. When
you have someone from the outside and sees a group session and they
always talk about how they've seen the boys grow. For me, it's like seeing
my son; how since I see him every day I can't necessarily see the growth
that's taking place. Without a doubt, for people who come from the
outside and when they look and listen to these boys talk, in all humility
it's impressive to see what the boys talk about through the mythological

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 stories.

David Van Nuys: Is there any kind of word of mouth? Are they excited about it, tell their
friends, and the friends want to get in?

Dr. Scruggs: Oh, yeah no doubt. As a matter a fact it was a couple of years ago where
the boys, and I forgot the question that we asked you know the specific
question, but it centered around that and the boys just gave examples
about, “yeah I was telling my buddy the one myth and he didn't want to
hear it and I kept telling him and the next thing you know it's time for us
to go to sleep and he's like no, no tell me the rest of the story.” We have,
I would say on the average maybe once a week I get a phone call or email
or somebody trying to get in the program, especially when we were in
the schools.

The boys have their tee shirts. They are black tee shirts and on the
back it says extracting the gold inherently in our youth and the red tee
shirts the back of them say becoming a hero within our own stories.
The white tee shirts, which takes you a while to get the white tee shirt
but on the back of those it says a stone will be found when the search
lies heavy on the searcher. They have the Alchemy shirts, the Alchemy
bags, the Alchemy hats, the drumming, you know we do a lot of
drumming. It's obvious that it's a nice tight group bond and boys you
know, they're looking for that.

David Van Nuys: In a way, you're kind of creating a missing rite of initiation for these
urban boys.

Dr. Scruggs: No doubt. It's not just me, I've got a heck of a staff that works very close
with me. The one thing about the people who work with us, all of them
have just really good hearts and really care about the boys. I've been
blessed. Another thing in myth, “the hero never does it on his own, he
always has assistants”.

David Van Nuys: Aha. One of my students is exploring an interesting archetype that I've
never heard referenced to before, she's calling it the Amicus I think. The
idea of the faithful sidekick who accompanies the hero on the journey.
There are lots of good examples of that like in Lord of the Rings and other
stories.

Dr. Scruggs: I call it the mythological need for the Other.

David Van Nuys: You tell them stories and this to the beat of an African drum, perhaps

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 there is one that you ... maybe you could share one of your favorites here
with us.

Dr. Scruggs: Okay. One of our favorites is The City Where People Are Mended. In this
story, we probably won't have time to go through the whole story but I'll
just tell you parts.

David Van Nuys: Okay.

Dr. Scruggs: Let me back up a little bit. When we tell the myth, we normally go in a
certain order. One of the first things we do with the boys is we apologize
to the boys for our generation leaving them on their own. It's a sincere
apology to them. The boys we work with, I would say 80%, don't have
fathers in the homes. One of the first things we do is apologize and then
we tell them this one myth, the beginning of the myth and it's called the
King and the Corpse.

In this myth, there is this mendicant, which is a holy man in this particular
myth. He's a beggar but he's really a holy man. He goes to the king's
treasurer and every day for ten years he gives this king's treasurer a piece
of fruit. When I'm telling them the story, you got the beat of the drum
going. He does this every day and the king's treasurer just casually tosses
the fruit aside but this does not discourage the mendicant. He just calmly
walks back into the crowd and returns home. Then he comes back the
next day and hands the king's treasurer a piece of fruit and this goes on
every day for ten years.

Then one day it happens. When I'm telling the story, I always tell the boys
and it always happen on just one day, it just takes one day to change the
rest of your life. On this particular day, a monkey intercepts the fruit and
he starts to play with the fruit. Inside of the fruit is a precious jewel and
the precious jewel falls out and the king's treasurer sees that as does the
king and king asks the treasurer, why have been you been doing with this
fruit every day for ten years. He said, I've just been storing it in a
storehouse. Then he goes back to the storehouse and he sees the fruit
lying there in the storehouse from the floor to the ceiling in various
stages of decay.

We stop the story right there and we always talk to the boys and we tell
them every day they're given a precious jewel but it's disguised as fruit
and to stop throwing it away. All the myths that we say, we'll always refer
back to this myths. For 5-6 years we'll refer back to the myths so we talk
about precious jewels. That's one of the first myths we do.

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 One of the other ones that we do from the very beginning and the reason
why we do this one, The Water of Life, is because in this myth it talks
about crying and getting off your horse and ask for assistance. In this
myth the king is sick and when the king is sick, the whole village is sick.
He has three sons who are sitting on the castle steps and they're crying.
This old man walks by and he sees them crying so he stops and says why
are you crying. They say, we're crying because our father the king is sick.
The old man tells them that he knows where a cure is but it's very
difficult to get to.

The older son thinks that if he secures the water of life, he will become
his father's favorite and inherit his father's kingdom. He asks his father
can he go in search of the water of life and his father tells him, no it's far
too dangerous but then the son doesn't give up and the father
relinquishes as some father's do. The older son mounts his horse and is
headed to find the water of life. There is this dwarf standing on the right
side of the road and he says, where are you going in such a hurry? The
oldest boy says, none of your business you little runt get out of my way.
The dwarf casts a magic spell on the oldest son and you don't see him
again.

The second son does the same thing. The third son is not thinking about
anything about becoming his father's favorite or inheriting the kingdom,
he just wants his father to be well. He asks can he go in search of the
water of life. The same thing happens and the father finally relinquishes.
The youngest son mounts his horse and he's headed to find the water of
life and the dwarf is standing now in the middle of the road and he asks
him, where are you going in such a hurry?

At this point I stop playing the drum and I tell them that the youngest son
gets off his horse and admits that he does not know where he is going. At
that point, the dwarf thanks him for not being as arrogant and as rude as
his older two brothers and he gives him just about everything that he
needs. Then I start back playing the drum and we'll stop the story at that
point.

The reason why we tell that story first is because for urban youth, they
keep up this persona of toughness. We let the boys know that in the
story if the three sons act like nothing was wrong, the old man wouldn't
have stopped. So crying is important. You don't necessarily have to cry
but you have to let someone know when something is wrong. We also
talk about the importance of getting off your horse and admitting that
you don't know where you're going. That's one of the first myths that we

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 use and the reason why, here again, is for them to admit that they need
help.

David Van Nuys: That's fascinating.

Dr. Scruggs: Let me get to one of our favorites and then I'll let you get back to your
next question.

David Van Nuys: Okay.

Dr. Scruggs: The City Where People Are Mended. The story I told you right there we
got from Meade's Men and the Water of Life but that's a Grimm's fairy
tale. The City Where People Are Mended is a beautiful, beautiful myth.
Basically, these boys are playing together and they go inside this tree, a
Baobab tree. A nemesis comes and he tells them that he will let them
leave if they give him their bracelet and their clothing. All the boys give
up their bracelets and their clothing, except for one, so he remains in the
tree.

All of the other boys go home. The mother of the missing boy says, where
is my son. They say, he's back in the tree. She knows that there's a hole at
the top of the tree so she takes him some food and she goes back to the
tree and she says son, son reach out your hand and I'll feed you. He could
tell that's the voice of his mother so he reaches his hand out. There's a
hyena that's there and he overlooks the situation so he goes and says,
son, son reach out your hand. The boy can tell that's not the voice of his
mother.

The hyena goes to the blacksmith and tells the blacksmith, now keep in
mind the drum is going and the drum is a mesmerizing type thing. The
blacksmith tells the hyena that he can change his voice but make sure
you do not eat anything on the way back. The hyena says okay. On the
way back the hyena eats a centipede so it screws his voice up. The hyena
gets mad at the blacksmith and he is going to kill the blacksmith then he
ends up ... the blacksmith says, I'll give you another chance, just make
sure you don't eat anything.

The hyena goes back and now his voice is changed so the boy thinks
that's his mother, so he reaches his arm up and the hyena with his strong
jaws, he pulls the boy out. Then he eats the boy and he just leaves the
bones there. The next day the mother comes and she sees the bones and
she puts the bones in a bag and she heads to the city where the people
are mended.

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 We stop it right there. Again, the boys go around and they write down
what resonates with them in the story. Each one of them will say, what
resonated with me in the story was ... they sit in the circle by age
youngest to oldest. They'll go around and say again no right or wrong
answers.

From that myth right there, from that component of the story right there,
we'll talk about the importance of the hyena blaming someone else for
something that he was told not to do. With youth a lot of times they
blame others, so we talk about that. We ask them, the hyena had the boy
in his grasp - what has you in its grasp right now. What is pulling at you?
Out of this one right here we ask them, what are they putting in that bag
to take to the city where people are mended?

With each one, we'll ask them specifically what are you putting in the bag
to take to the city where people are mended? Just to hear the responses
of things they are taking. Generally speaking, what the boys say is that
they are taking is the lack of relationship that they have with their father
or they're taking their parents relationship and they're putting in the bag.
A lot of times what they're putting in that bag it has to do with
relationships. That story goes on and on and on, but that's one of our
favorites. I've got quite a few favorites.

David Van Nuys: Well, you're on a roll.

Dr. Scruggs: Thank you.

David Van Nuys: Where can a person find that story, The City Where People Are Mended?

Dr. Scruggs: I will send that to you. Okay, I'll send that to you. I'll send you the City
Where People are Mended. I'll send you a few of them, with the
questions and everything.

David Van Nuys: That's wonderful. You know, these kids have been exposed to TV stories
and movies, saturated by the media and yet these myths connect with
them anyway. Right?

Dr. Scruggs: Oh yeah. It's something magical to see, the boys just their engagement
when you tell a story. You can hear a pin drop. These are urban youth.
When earlier I said this is the ticket to reaching youth. When I told the
high school dropouts the story about the water of life and I had worked
with them for a year and this is when I was really first starting. Instead of
it being the first story I told, it was like the last story I told. We had been

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 with them for about a year meeting like once a week and they went
around the circle and they took it upon themselves to talk about the last
time they cried. This is from the boys sitting on the steps. I was like, wow
this is the ticket.

Another thing told me that myth was the ticket. When I was working
with the high school dropouts in Cleveland, I would have about 33 of
them at the time because the gentleman was trying to get his money's
worth so instead of giving me 12 at a time he give me like 33 at a time.
These are high school dropouts and I have for an hour-and-a-half. What I
ended up doing was giving them, I told them they could do whatever they
wanted to do the first 15 minutes, give me an hour, they could do
whatever they wanted to do the last 15 minutes.

The first minutes were chaotic. Out of their 15 minutes of chaos and this
is their time one boy hollered out, Kwame tell us another story. I was like,
wow this myth is the ticket.

David Van Nuys: Now, Kwame. That sounds like an African name. Is that a name that you
adopted at some point?

Dr. Scruggs: Basically, after I got initiated in Akon, Kwame was a name I was given. It
was Saturday's child. I was born on a Saturday. I legally changed my name
to Kwame at that point.

David Van Nuys: This sounds like a program that really should be spread across the land.
Do you have any ambitions to ...

Dr. Scruggs: It's funny you would mention that. We've been approached for that.
We've been approached to do that but there are certain parameters they
want and I guess we didn't quite fit that bill so we're looking to ... I'm
thinking that at the beginning of the conversation I told you how we were
putting together a teacher's manual. Now we're starting to work pretty
closely with the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

David Van Nuys: Good.

Dr. Scruggs: We're looking to make this a national model but we're just going to have
to do it on our time and the way we want to do it. This is definitely
something that could be spread and spread easily because it's not that
difficult. Basically, you give the people the myths and you give them the
questions. Especially someone with a counseling background, you know
it's really just about being able to facilitate the group.

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David Van Nuys: I think Barack Obama needs to hear about this program somehow.

Dr. Scruggs: He will. Everything is going to happen within it's due time.

David Van Nuys: Barack and Oprah, they both need to hear about this because they have
so much influence.

Dr. Scruggs: It's funny you would mention that because those are two of the top
people we are going to address. We're just waiting until it's the right
moment or the right timing. As soon as we have everything in line ... I
wanted to get the PhD out the way, that's out the way. We want to get
the book published. As soon as the timing is right and it's ready to be
unveiled, then it will be and we definitely plan to talk to both of them.

David Van Nuys: As an African-American man, I wonder if you'd be willing to share with us
what it meant to you or what it means to you really to have Barack
Obama as our president.

Dr. Scruggs: Obviously, I'm not speaking for the entire Black race but for me, I
remember the night he was elected. We had some over my parent's
house and I don't know, there were about 40 something people. Going
back, we're going full circle here you know just as a child seeing all those
negative images of Blacks. The first thing I thought about was that as a
child now we can't use that as an excuse, the negative images. That's the
first thing that I thought about is that something as simple as having his
picture you know in the schools because it's about images. Images form
your identity. It's something as simple as just seeing. That's one piece
there, is just the image of a Black man as a president.
Also, we've ... you know I don't really want to make this generalization
but then again, we can no longer use color as an excuse. Granted, you
have certain situations where color still plays a factor, no doubt but for
the most part we can't use color as an excuse to where you can't
overcome obstacles. It was a great feeling. I just remember being in my
parents’ house and you know I cry at a drop of a hat so that's really not
big deal, but I just remember the tears flowing. The first thing I was
saying is that they used to describe us as monkeys. That's what came to
my mind and that's what I just kept saying that night, we came from that
to being president of the United States.

David Van Nuys: It's really been quite a journey and I certainly had tears in my eyes
around all of that inaugural ceremony and so on and it is amazing. It's all
happened within your lifetime and within my lifetime.

Dr. Scruggs: Not to put a damper on it but like Malcolm said, “don't stick a knife in my

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 back 12 inches, pull it out 6, and tell me we’re making progress.” Now
we're making progress no doubt.

David Van Nuys: But it's not the end of the story. It's not the end of the struggle.

Dr. Scruggs: But it's certainly something that will give you incentive to move on day to
day, that's for certain.

David Van Nuys: There you go. That's a good place for us to wrap it up. Dr. Kwame Scruggs
thanks so much for being my guest today on ShrinkRap Radio.

Dr. Scruggs: Thank you and thank you for the work you're doing, that's impressive.

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