RIP Philip Zimbardo
- Sam Allen
- Oct 19, 2024
- 2 min read
"William Shakespeare — 'Hell is empty and all the devils are here.'"
(Thank God I don't believe that anymore)
This man is a case study in the good that can come out of evil. Yes, he conducted the infamous prison study where unknowing research participants were psychologically tortured by grad students, and that was shocking and unacceptable. But do you know what came out of it? An understanding of shyness. He took accountability for what he had done, and he paid it forward by creating the Stanford Shyness Clinic, which was a groundbreaking treatment center, one of the first in the world, if not the first, to help people who struggled with shyness. He saw that the inner critic was a lot like the guards in the prison who tortured those research subjects In his prison study, and he paid it forward.
I attended the Stanford Shyness Clinic when I was in high school.
I remember driving over the hill to Corte Madera with my mom and dad once a month or twice a month for about 6 months. It used a lot of CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), and the intake psychologist was one of the first people who recognized that I was queer. I wish I had had the realization that I was queer as well so that I could have worked on that too. Ultimately, I didn't practice enough and the torment that I was receiving from my peers was overwhelming to me, and I think I needed to address that first before I addressed being shy. There were nearly literal prison guards in my life . So it didn't work on me.
But Philip Zimbardo, and his thick intro to psychology book that I read in high school, the one with the close-up of a painted Renoir woman starring off into space on the front cover, will always have a lasting affect on me.
Thank you for making the mistakes, and thank you for realizing the wisdom in what you found.
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