Conductor Benjamin Zander.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JANUARY 06, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 010601np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Interview With Benjamin Zander
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:00

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

BARBARA BOGAEV, GUEST HOST: From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is FRESH AIR.

I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.

On today's FRESH AIR, the art of conducting. We talk with Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. His passionate performances and preconcert lectures have earned him a devoted following. His recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony with the London Philharmonia was just nominated for a Grammy award for best orchestral performance.

Also, making time for things that matter. We talk with Dr. Edward Hallowell about his new book, "Connect." Hallowell is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychiatrist. He's also written books on worry and attention deficit disorder.

That's all coming up on FRESH AIR.

First, the news.

(NEWS BREAK)

BOGAEV: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.

Over his 20-year history with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Benjamin Zander has earned an international reputation as one of the most ambitious conductors in the business, daring to take on the great masters of the classical repertoire. He's known as an expert on the music of Gustav Mahler.

His new CD set, a recording of a live performance of Mahler's Ninth with the London Philharmonia, was just nominated for a Grammy.

Let's listen to this passage from the first movement.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, MAHLER'S NINTH SYMPHONY, BENJAMIN ZANDER AND THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF LONDON)

BOGAEV: This new recording includes an extra third disk in which Zander talks about the symphony, exploring the emotional dynamics of Mahler's music and the composer's tragic life. The discussion is drawn from Zander's hugely popular preconcert talks.

He also includes the first two pages of his own score, complete with conducting notes.

Here's an example of his analysis of the music we just heard.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BENJAMIN ZANDER, CONDUCTOR: At the beginning of the second page, bar 14, the second violin is still unfolding its long-breathed lament. But as it falls and dies away -- "morendo," dying, Mahler instructs -- the second horn, with the added color of the bassoon, now becomes the chief mourner, reiterating that most disturbing of intervals, the tritone, C-sharp to G.

(sings tritone intervals)

And here it is, with the orchestra.

(ORCHESTRAL EXCERPT)

ZANDER: At the same time, in bar 15, Mahler adds the voice of the even sadder English horn. Three times the English horn sighs. First, the familiar falling motive, F-sharp to E, then one note higher, then higher still. This last time, heavy with sorrowful accents on every note.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BOGAEV: Ben Zander says he thinks of himself primarily as a teacher. He's on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and is the musical director and conductor of their Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

I asked him why he included his conducting score in the new CD.

ZANDER: Well, there are two reasons. One is, it's a fascinating way of entering a score, because otherwise how would an ordinary person be able to look at a score unless somebody were to guide them through it by pointing out everything that a conductor would need to know?

There's another reason, which is that if you focus for a moment on every element in the music and realize that every note and every gesture and every shape and every phrasing means something in the whole, that gives you an insight how to listen. And that's my main purpose. I believe that every human being has the capacity to respond to great music and to be touched and moved by it and to have their lives changed by it.

And so this is the best way of drawing people in, namely, to say, Listen to this note, and then listen to that. And then now listen to this, and see what this is doing while that's happening, and think about the meaning and the implication of that.

And gradually people get drawn in. And people have told me, people who've never had any training in music whatsoever, have told me they've been riveted by that experience, and they've used it as a way of getting inside the music and listening to the rest of the piece, since obviously I only do that for two pages, listen to the rest of the piece with their eyes and ears wide open.

BOGAEV: Do you think that it's similar to what people say about poetry, that as children we have this innate ability to interact, to experience the music, to feel it, and that we lose that as we get older, unless you nourish it?

ZANDER: We lose it the way we lose all sorts of things in life. You know, you were a 7-year-old child, and you were singing in a choir, and the teacher said, Don't actually sing, I'd prefer it if you would just mouth the words, because you're spoiling the sound of the choir, and that child grows up to be somebody who later on says, I'm tone deaf and can't hear music.

And that's all it is. It's somebody simply closing down a door which used to be open.

I feel my role is partly to open those doors again, to remind people of the power of this music and how deeply affecting it can be, even if you have no academic training and (inaudible) don't even really know the difference between, you know, a dominant seventh and a minor third.

But somehow this music is -- we are permeable to this music if we allow ourselves to be, and we close down all the conversations which tell us that we can't do it.

BOGAEV: You have an interesting professional history with this music, with Mahler and Mahler's Ninth. I think over 20 years ago, you were fired as the conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony by its board because you presented this symphony, you presented such difficult music. What so provoked them? What did they not like about it?

ZANDER: Well, I'd done a lot of, as they called it, MAY-ler. They didn't like the music. It was too difficult. You know, this was an orchestra (ph) that wanted to be entertained. One of the board members asked me why I didn't perform any of the Chopin symphonies. Well, of course, I said I had no time to write any.

But this was not a group of people who wanted to be challenged to the ultimate, and so they saw this as a kind of confrontation. They fired me because they felt that the orchestra was going in the wrong direction. And what happened next was that the entire orchestra resigned, all 98 players.

And I think the reason for that was because the players themselves saw this as a wonderful path to be going on, to be delving deep into this music. We had a long period of rehearsal time because it was a community orchestra, and so I believe we had 22 rehearsals for that performance over a three-month period. And it really transformed the lives of the people who participated.

And they weren't about to give that up, so they went on with what is now the Boston Philharmonic.

BOGAEV: Now, we've been talking about how difficult and complex this music is, and you do say in the discussion of Mahler's Ninth that, especially in this third movement of it, that you wonder why the first-time listener would want to listen. They might ask themselves, Why should I listen to this? It's so bleak, it's so hard to follow. And then they -- you know someone who always leaves it out when he listens to this symphony.

ZANDER: Right. Well, it's a -- the old recordings, you know, on the LPs, it was on four sides. And so he could conveniently go from the end of the first movement to the last movement, which is gorgeous and beautiful and very, very satisfying and -- to listen to. And he left out those middle two movements.

And what I believe, of course, is that we have to go through the struggle of the middle movements to the dark night of the soul in order to appreciate coming out the other side, so that when we finally get to the pages at the end of the Ninth Symphony where he expresses his own mortality, his own death, we have been on a long, arduous struggle and come out the other side.

If you have avoided the struggle, obviously you don't appreciate and don't experience the whole thing. That's the flaw with the approach to music which we see so much nowadays of taking little bits, the -- sort of the best moments of an opera or the best moments of a symphony and pretending that that is the work.

The experience of music is very much that of a journey, of going from one place to another. It's a transformational experience. You start in one place, you go through the journey, and you emerge the other side. And we have to go through that journey in order to fully experience the outcome.

BOGAEV: Let's listen, then, to the third movement of Mahler's Ninth. And Ben, would you like to say anything before we listen to the music?

ZANDER: Well, the thing about this movement is that it's enormously complex. This is about as complex as music can get in terms of polyphony, of the voices that are put, piled, one on top of the other. In this, he's like Bach, and in fact he was influenced by Bach.

The tempo which I chose for this performance is a little bit slower than it's often heard, and the reason for that is in order to make sure that every single voice is clearly heard, so that the complexity of the language, of every single moment, is experienced. And when in the end it goes over the edge -- it really goes into madness, into a complete hysteria at the end in the final section -- that is then a feeling of going over a precipice, of having experienced everything and gone over the edge.

Of course, the consolation of the final movement has to be experienced to in order to get the full weight of that. But it is a chilling, grim, forbidding experience, although so masterful in its expression and its technique that it blows one's mind.

BOGAEV: Let's listen. This is the third movement of Mahler's Ninth.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, THIRD MOVEMENT, MAHLER'S NINTH SYMPHONY, BENJAMIN ZANDER AND THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF LONDON)

BOGAEV: That's my guest, Benjamin Zander, leading the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in a live performance of Mahler's Ninth.

Now, I want Ben to play a little bit of the fourth, the final movement, of this symphony, because as you said earlier, you want to get to the resolution of the...

ZANDER: The consolation (inaudible).

BOGAEV: ... the consolation of the final movement. And the beginning -- I find myself listening to this holding my breath, waiting to exhale. Is that what you're consciously leading an orch -- your orchestra to create that effect?

ZANDER: Definitely. I'm thrilled that you have that feeling. And actually at the end of that movement, there's a 56-second silence before anybody dared to applaud after the performance. And that's the same thing you're talking about. Mahler has the capacity of holding us in thrall, where the lines are so long, where the tension is so great, that he simply doesn't allow us to breathe.

And if we allow the music to unfold in that way, we can hold 2,000 people in a hall in that kind of spell. And it's one of the few things that can do that.

BOGAEV: Let's listen to the fourth movement, the beginning of the fourth movement of Mahler's Ninth.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, FOURTH MOVEMENT, MAHLER'S NINTH SYMPHONY, BENJAMIN ZANDER AND THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF LONDON)

BOGAEV: That's my guest, Benjamin Zander, leading the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in a live performance of Mahler's Ninth.

For this music, do you make a conscious effort to develop the individuality of your musicians, rather than trying to homogenize the sound of the orchestra?

ZANDER: Yes, that gets at the absolute central idea of Mahler's music. In most music, we're taught to make all the voices amalgamate, as you say, homogenize, that's a perfect way of describing it, where everything is related and listening carefully to everything else, and it all sounds very pretty.

The secret of Mahler's music is that every single individual voice is separate from every other, and that makes it profoundly modern. Each voice, each instrument, seems to have a life of its own. And sometimes he calls on an instrument to play very softly, and at the same time another instrument might be playing very loud and raucously.

And it's actually quite a discipline to get an orchestra to realize that and not make the quiet person play a little louder and the loud person a little softer to make it all belong together.

And that is at the absolute core of his expression, and I think tells us something about who we are as people. And it's a unique voice for Mahler that he does that. And I put a particular emphasis on teaching orchestras to do that. And that's one of the characteristics of the performance.

BOGAEV: If you're just joining us, my guest is Benjamin Zander. He is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He teaches at the New England Conservatory and conducts their Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. He's also served as guest conductor for numerous other orchestras in this country and abroad.

Ben, let's take a break, and then we'll talk some more.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

BOGAEV: My guest is Boston Philharmonic Conductor Benjamin Zander.

Now, how do you decide, as a conductor, where to take liberties with a piece and to depart from the notations of a composer, and when to adhere to them as faithfully as you can? (inaudible)...

ZANDER: Well, in general, I'm one who believes in adhering faithfully to what the composer wrote, and I will actually go to quite extremes to do that. I really believe these composers were taking us into often counterintuitive places, places where we wouldn't go just on our own naturally by following our instincts. And so I think it behooves us to follow exactly what they had in mind.

And the Beethoven performances are based not only on following every dynamic marking and every phrasing, but also the tempi that he left through the metronome marks. And that makes them very unusual, because most people have disregarded those tempo marks and say they're unreasonable or they're too fast or they don't (ph) work, or whatever.

I have taken him at his word, always asking the question, Could he have meant it? Could he have meant it?

So in general, I would say we follow religiously what the composer has given us. In some cases I find myself changing what's there, and there will always have to be a very special reason why that -- I would do that.

BOGAEV: Can you give us an example of when you would take a different path?

ZANDER: Well, I might take a different path if I simply cannot understand what the composer meant. The first movement of the Prokoviev Fifth Symphony is at a tempo so slow that I cannot make it work at that tempo. Now, there's something -- either I'm wrong about it, or he simply wrote the wrong tempo. I think it's perfectly possible that either is true.

That would be one example. There's a fascinating example in Stravinsky of "The Rite of Spring," where what the composer wrote and what I believe he intended was something different. That happened because we have a piano roll of Stravinsky, not actually playing, but a piano roll he supervised, of the final section, the Danse Sacrale, where the piano roll is 30 points faster on the metronome than his own performances and what he wrote in the score.

And it's possible that the faster tempo, thrilling and exciting as it is, was simply too hard to play or too hard to conduct, and so he reduced the tempo so that it would be more comfortable. I think in the process he lost some of the power and the incredible excitement of hearing this at a breakneck speed. This is, after all, suggesting a young virgin dancing herself to death. And at the slower tempo, I suspect she would hardly break a sweat.

At the faster tempo, you can really feel the frenzy and the desperation and the terror. And I think it makes a much more effective interpretation, though Stravinsky himself neither did it nor wrote it.

BOGAEV: Now, I know you brought two examples of "The Rite of Spring" with you so that we could hear this.

ZANDER: Yes.

BOGAEV: Maybe we could play them.

ZANDER: Good. Well, you can first of all, this is a performance of Stravinsky playing, say, the last minute of the Danse Sacral at the tempo that he chose both to mark in the score and to perform it at. And then immediately afterwards we could play the same passage played by the Boston Philharmonic at the tempo of the piano roll.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, DANSE SACRALE FROM STRAVINSKY'S "RITE OF SPRING," CONDUCTED BY IGOR STRAVINSKY)

BOGAEV: And now the Boston Philharmonic's recording from a live performance of the last minute of the Danse Sacrale.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, DANSE SACRALE FROM STRAVINSKY'S "RITE OF SPRING," BENJAMIN ZANDER AND THE BOSTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA)

BOGAEV: The Boston Philharmonic performing Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," conducted by my guest, Benjamin Zander.

We'll talk more in the second half of the show.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

BOGAEV: Coming up, connecting with what matters in our lives. We talk to Edward Hallowell about his book "Connect." And we continue our conversation with conductor Benjamin Zander.

(BREAK)

BOGAEV: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.

My guest, Benjamin Zander, has conducted the Boston Philharmonic for over 20 years. He's also a popular guest conductor for orchestras in this country and abroad. His new CD, a recording of a live performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the London Philharmonia, has just been nominated for a Grammy.

Zander began his musical career as a cellist.

Ben, your father was an amateur orchestral musician. What did he play?

ZANDER: He played the viola.

BOGAEV: And you...

ZANDER: And also the piano, and he also composed.

BOGAEV: Ah. You played the cello as a child.

ZANDER: Right, yes.

BOGAEV: You started very young. Was the cello your choice, or your father's?

ZANDER: No, it was my choice. I started on the piano, and then -- composing, and then at about the age of 9, I became a cellist.

BOGAEV: What were your first compositions like?

ZANDER: Well, actually there's quite an amusing story about that, because I wrote several compositions when I was 9, and my mother put them in for an arts festival in the village, you know, where we lived in England. And the man came down from London, who was an adjudicator, and he was to hand out the results of the competition.

And he held my compositions up in the air in front of the entire village in the village hall and said, "These compositions are so bad that not only can they not be considered for the competition, that goes without saying, but I think this young man should be discouraged from ever composing again."

(LAUGHTER)

ZANDER: Well, that tells you...

BOGAEV: Auspicious start.

ZANDER: But then my mother, bless her, sent the compositions in an envelope with his comments and a letter to Benjamin Britten for a second opinion. And the telephone went four days later, and it was Benjamin Britten on the phone. I was quite stunned. I picked up the phone, "This is -- here's Benjamin Britten." It could have been Beethoven. I said, "Mum, it's Benjamin Britten!"

Anyway, he got on the phone to my mother and he said, "Your compositions -- your son's compositions are fine, and if you want to come and spend your summer holidays in Alborough (ph), where I live," this beautiful English fishing village, "I would be happy to oversee his development."

And that happened for four summers, we went to Alborough, and I studied with Benjamin Britten, and it changed my life. So those comments can go either way, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

BOGAEV: He sounds as if he were a wonderful teacher and communicator.

ZANDER: Yes, Britten was a wonderful human being, very gentle and gracious, and always spoke somehow through the voice of children. He was fascinated by innocence and its dissolution. All his operas about the threat to innocence, and I think he was drawn to that quality and to children. And he was an extraordinary mentor for me.

BOGAEV: Now, you left home and you left school at the age of 15 to study with the great Spanish cellist Gaspar Casado (ph) in Florence. Did you have an adopted family there to keep you out of trouble?

ZANDER: Yes, I started off living in a pension, you know, for several months, and then I joined a family and stayed away from home, actually, for five years. I never went back to school. That was my life, and I traveled all over Europe with him. I was in that relationship with him as master to apprentice, you know, that was a very special relationship that hardly exists any more.

But it's something that is very valuable, where you are actually deeply engaged with somebody at all levels. And I traveled enormously with him and learnt my craft, as it were, on the court.

BOGAEV: Why didn't you pursue a soloist career?

ZANDER: Well, I had a deficiency in my fingers, funnily enough. I couldn't produce calluses on my finger ends, so it was very painful to play the cello. And so that was not a possibility for me. But it is many -- as very often happens in life, when a door closes, another one opens up, and as a result I turned to conducting.

BOGAEV: What does that mean, you couldn't create calluses like any other person? Did your fingers bleed, or...

ZANDER: Well, actually it's -- yes, my fingers bled, yes. That is a condition -- one doesn't hear about it very much because not many people need calluses. There aren't many professions for which you need that. But in fact, my fingers would bleed when I played too much.

BOGAEV: Did you perceive it then as a huge failure?

ZANDER: Well, it was a crisis for me, because that's what I'd always assumed I would be, a professional cellist, and I'd planned my life for that. But, of course, as often turns out to be the case, you never know what are the good things and what are the bad things. And it often is that way.

BOGAEV: How'd you get your first conducting job?

ZANDER: By telling a lie. It was a very simple thing. I was -- I got a job as a cellist and as a chamber music teacher at a summer school in Lenox, and at the end of the interview, the lady who ran the camp said, "Incidentally, we're looking for a conducting -- person to conduct the orchestra. Do you know anybody?" And I said, "Oh, I'd love to do that." And she said, "Are you very experienced?" And I said, "Yes, oh, very experienced."

Well, in a sense that was a lie, and in a sense it wasn't, because, of course, I'd been a teacher and a chamber music coach for many, many years. And being very expressive with my hands and arms and so on, of course, what I'd been doing all those years was actually conducting, although it was small groups and individuals rather than a large orchestra.

But that's essentially what a conductor is, it's somebody who is giving physical life to a musical idea. And in that sense, I was quite experienced.

BOGAEV: Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. Last year, he celebrated his 20th anniversary with the Boston Philharmonic and his 60th birthday with an acclaimed performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony. He's again conducting the orchestra in Mahler's Eighth at Symphony Hall in Boston on January 17, and at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 19.

Here's Benjamin Zander conducting the New England Conservatory's Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in Leonard Bernstein's Overture to "Candide."

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, OVERTURE TO LEONARD BERNSTEIN'S "CANDIDE," BENJAMIN ZANDER AND THE NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY YOUTH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA)

BOGAEV: Coming up, psychiatrist Edward Hallowell on scheduling meaning into our lives.

This is FRESH AIR.

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Dateline: Barbara Bogaev, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Benjamin Zander
High: Conductor Benjamin Zander of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra has been called "a Pied Piper" of classical music and "one of music's evangelists." His passionate performances have earned him quite a following. He has conducted the Boston Philharmonic for over 20 years, and his recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony was just nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance.
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End-Story: Interview With Benjamin Zander
_Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JANUARY 06, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 010602NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Interview With Dr. Edward Hallowell
Sect: Medical
Time: 12:00

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

BARBARA BOGAEV, GUEST HOST: How many times have you thought, I don't see my friends enough, and I'd really like to volunteer somewhere, but between working and the kids and the house, I just can't fit it in?

Dr. Edward Hallowell says the frenetic pace of today's world may be detracting from the meaningfulness of our lives. In his new book, "Connect," he argues that the single most important key to emotional well-being is to connect with something larger than yourself, such as relationships with family and friends, contributions to the community, a belief system, or nature.

Dr. Hallowell is a practicing psychiatrist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. His earlier books are "Driven to Distraction," a 1994 best seller about attention deficit disorder, and a book about worrying.

In his new book, he writes of how connections helped him through a difficult childhood.

DR. EDWARD HALLOWELL, "CONNECT": They saved my life. Connections meant everything to me, and I suppose that's the driving force behind my writing the book. Not only have I seen as a professional the transforming power of connection, but long before I ever heard of medical school, I was transformed, saved, rescued by connections.

I come from a -- what I call an old New England WASP family characterized by what I call the WASP triad, which is mental illness, alcoholism, and politeness. And so most people in my family tree were touched by two or three of those qualities.

And I lost -- my mom and dad divorced when I was 4 years old because my father became psychotic and was put in a state mental hospital. And my mother then remarried an alcoholic person who was alcoholic and abusive and carted us off to South Carolina. And so I was in this crucible of craziness and drunkenness and abuse, and it was not a good place for a little boy to be.

And I at that point got sent off to boarding school in the fifth grade at the age of 10. And that really saved me. Even before then, finding healthy parents in the homes of my friends, singing in the little choir that I sang in at St. Michael's Church in Charleston, South Carolina, through those connections, my life was saved.

BOGAEV: Your stepfather -- I think you called him Uncle, Uncle Noble, right?

HALLOWELL: Right, right, right.

BOGAEV: Was he a physical drunk? Was he physically abusive?

HALLOWELL: Yes. He would get drunk and beat up my mother. And then I would try to intervene, and he would knock me around.

BOGAEV: What was your coping mechanism as a kid?

HALLOWELL: I fought with Uncle Noble while I was there. I fought with him, I stood up to him. And, you know, he put me down, of course, because he was bigger. But I used spunk, I used my verbal skills, I -- because I was sober and he was drunk, I could dodge around him.

I covered over the sadness, I guess, like a lot of little boys. I cried in my pillow sometimes. But then I would find other people...

BOGAEV: Did you still have meaningful contact with your mother and stepfather after you went to school?

HALLOWELL: Well, it was very strange with my stepfather. By then I pretty much hated him and he pretty much hated me. But -- and then not long after that my mom divorced him, and I lost contact with him. I called him up after I'd finished medical school and was selling my first book and told him what I'd done. And he disbelieved me. He said -- I won't say on the air the words he used, but he said that was impossible, that I was -- I could never have done anything like that.

And I remember feeling to myself so vindicated that I had done more in my life for other people and had achieved more than that man could ever possibly have done. It was a moment of vindication for me, because when I was a little boy, of course, there was a part of me that thought maybe he's right.

BOGAEV: It's interesting in the context of discussing connecting more deeply to one's past, you talk about a trip you took back to South Carolina, back to Charleston, to your childhood home. And this is after you've been married -- you were in your second marriage, you had three kids, you're a fully established adult.

And you went to see the house you grew up in. What were you looking for?

HALLOWELL: Ghosts, I guess. It was eerie. I guess I was looking to master the bad things that had happened. There's something about the concrete, you know, walking back into those rooms where I had watched those drunken fights, where I'd watched my stepfather pick up the poker and swing it at my mother, where I had tried to tackle him around the knees, where I had watched the Christmas turkey get dumped on the floor and been told to clean it up.

To walk through those rooms and now see that it wasn't there any more, that it was gone, that it was over, that I had grown up, and that I had children I loved, and that I had friends that I loved, and that I had a job I could do, that people valued me. I went back to Charleston because they wanted to have me come down and lecture. They knew nothing of my past there.

But it was over. And at the same time, that I didn't have to amputate my past, that I could still say and even write about it and talk about it now with you, that I -- that it's OK to have had a horrible past and still integrate it into who you are now. And in a sense, I'm the stronger for it. I mean, I wouldn't recommend it. But having survived it and having lived through it, I feel equipped and able to help others do the same, that it's a bearable problem.

BOGAEV: Does it change the emotions that you carry with you from childhood, this act of, I guess, of taking -- of closure and of reconnecting?

HALLOWELL: Very much so. It detoxifies it. People say you can't change, and it -- trauma cannot be undone. Well, the events can't be undone. But I tell you how I feel about it now, it's detoxified. It's like it's been, you know, the Boston Harbor has been depolluted. I mean, it's like my memories have had the pollution taken out of them, that the toxicity, the evilness of it seems to have been taken out.

BOGAEV: My guest is Edward Hallowell. He's a practicing psychiatrist. He teaches at Harvard Medical School, and he has a new book about establishing a deeper engagement with friends, with your work, with life. It's called "Connect."

You wrote your first book off two about attention deficit disorder back in 1994, and there's been an ongoing debate about Ritalin and the rise of psychotropic drugs in the treatment of children, and overdiagnosis of ADD in the last five years. There's -- it's been a roiling topic of controversy. Has your thinking about ADD evolved since you wrote the book?

HALLOWELL: Oh, very much so. And it's in keeping with what I was saying about sort of being a messenger. The general public is behind the brain science when it comes to most topics related to the brain, and attention deficit disorder being just one. We get caught up in controversy before we know the facts.

And so a lot of people are arguing about it without really knowing the facts. The facts are a really good-news story, that we now are able to help children and adults who struggle with this condition and change their lives very much for the better. I truly have a stack of letters in my office, people who've written to me who I've never met, saying how the diagnosis and treatment of this condition changed their lives for the better.

Now, that is not to say we should all run out and think that ADD and the medications used to treat ADD are, you know, the panacea. They're certainly not. But just as depression sort of came out of a period of tremendous misunderstanding and now is accepted by most people as a real condition with a real treatment, so attention deficit disorder has gone through a period of tremendous misunderstanding, and hopefully will come to a place where people realize it's a real condition with a real treatment and can help a lot of children and adults lead much better lives.

BOGAEV: I'm thinking of a new research study I just read about that is going on in Britain which apparently has a very low rate of ADD diagnoses. Scientists there studied two groups of kids, observed them. One group was diagnosed with ADD and one group was not. And the result was that there was no measurable difference in their behavior under observation.

And one conclusion that you could draw is that it's a matter of what kind of behavior our society is willing to tolerate, that we are -- we have a higher rate of ADD in this country, or it's a matter of what the psychiatric community tolerates or is looking for, perhaps. And all these questions, I suppose, are raised by this study.

I'm curious what your comments are.

HALLOWELL: Well, those are all very interesting observations, and it is certainly true that cultural norms have a lot to do with what we consider normal when we make a diagnosis. But if anything, I think the American cultural norm is more permissive than the average British school norm. I -- if anything, I think our gene pool is more on the rambunctious side than the British.

But where I get -- where I come down is as a clinician and less as a theorizer or an academician. I'm -- I can just tell you, I see people in my office every week who -- whose lives are deeply impaired because of the way their brain is wired, whether it's a child or an adult. And if the diagnosis happens to be attention deficit disorder, which is just a collection of symptoms, you know, if their symptoms fit that description, I also see in my office every week these lives change dramatically for the better.

So it's not a matter of, you know, oh, my saying, Tom Sawyer really needs a little Ritalin to make him less Tom Sawyer-like. It's a matter of saying, This eighth-grader, or this 40-year-old man, who has got tremendous potential and who is vastly underachieving, when given the right diagnosis and the right treatment, suddenly can start focus and achieving and mastering his or her world. That's well beyond, you know, are we overdiagnosing Tom Sawyer?

You know, I think the debates are more of theoretical interest. The practical concern, believe me, as a clinician, is just very, very clear. When this diagnosis is made properly, this is not a hairsplitting issue. This is a lifesaving diagnosis and treatment.

BOGAEV: Edward Hallowell is my guest. He's a practicing psychiatrist and a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School. His new book is "Connect." We'll talk more after the break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

BOGAEV: We're back with Dr. Edward Hallowell. His new book is "Connect." He's also the author of "Driven to Distraction," about attention deficit disorder.

Now, you have ADD, or had it.

HALLOWELL: I have ADD.

BOGAEV: You have it, right.

HALLOWELL: That's right, yup, I have it, I have it. And I've never required treatment for it. When I was growing up, nobody had ever heard of this condition. You know, when I was a kid, the diagnoses were good and bad and smart and stupid, and the treatment plan was to -- shame, pain, and humiliation, or try harder. I mean, that was the -- those were the diagnoses and the treatments that we had.

I was very lucky. As I said, I got sent away to boarding schools, small schools that were highly structured. I had teachers who drew out the best in me. I was very lucky. My ADD is mild. You know, I don't have the particularly hyperactive, disruptive kind of ADD. And so I...

BOGAEV: So how does it manifest itself?

HALLOWELL: Well, in my life it manifests with a mind that's all over the place. And what I try to do is turn it into an asset. I try to -- you know, the keys to managing ADD are probably the keys of managing adult life in general, marry the right person and find the right job. And I've married this wonderful woman who loves me for who I am instead of trying to turn me into someone who I'm not. And I'm lucky enough to have a job where I can do many different activities. And, you know, I'm my own boss, I can write books, give lectures, and see patients. So I have tremendous variety.

And so I'm able to take advantage of the upside of my ADD and not be severely penalized by the downside.

Now, I want to emphasize that in talking about myself, I'm not talking about the typical person with attention deficit disorder. The typical person with attention deficit disorder, be it a child or an adult, is underachieving, is frustrated, is having trouble both socially and academically. And -- but is just one diagnosis and treatment away from a much better life. Not nirvana, but a much better life.

And the analogy I like to use, it's very akin to someone who is nearsighted who hasn't discovered eyeglasses. And when you give them eyeglasses, suddenly they can make use of the brain they've got, instead of seeing everything as a blur. They still have to work hard, it's not an excuse. They still have to take responsibility for their actions. But once you give them the eyeglasses, they're able to make use of the talents they have, instead of being constantly frustrated at how hard it is to see straight.

BOGAEV: There's an interesting progression, I'm thinking, in the work that you've done, and especially in the books that you've written. You wrote these two books about ADD, it's a very specific disorder. You wrote about learning and emotional problems in childhood. Then you had a book about worry, and apparently you're a big worrier.

HALLOWELL: Right.

BOGAEV: Which is also a very specific activity that can be both healthy and dysfunctional.

HALLOWELL: Exactly.

BOGAEV: And now you have a theory of engagement, connectedness, which is really pretty amorphous. It's about leading a good life. It's as if you're -- I don't want to -- I don't -- maybe you should make -- identify the meaningful development here. But you're straying a little bit out of the territory of psychiatry.

HALLOWELL: Oh, sure. And what I try to do is speak from my brain and my heart to other people in such a way that they can lead better lives. I mean, I -- yes, it -- I do write of what I know, both personally as well as professionally. My friend Alan Brown (ph), another psychiatrist, said to me, "Ned, when are you going to run out of personal problems that you can write books about?" And I told him that the store is endless. I don't have to worry about running out.

But I try to take what I know and what I've seen, both as a professional and as a person, and bring it to the level where it can ease people's pain, where it can make life better. And what is exciting to me is that we have practical tools for doing that now. We have practical tools.

I lost my father to manic depressive illness. My parents got divorced because of that condition. If he had received the right treatment and the right diagnosis when I was 4 years old, they would not have gotten divorced. And it was a very sad thing for me to see him pack his bags and leave home.

That didn't have to happen. And today, now, there are truly hundreds of thousands of children and adults in this country who are one diagnosis away from a much better life, their families, their own lives in the work site, whether you're talking about manic depressive illness or ADD or depression or simple unhappiness in everyday life. And that's not a diagnosis, but that's a state that we really do have effective remedies for.

And in the books, I outline the ones where you don't have to see a professional, like connecting, like keeping up with your friends, like eating family dinner, like raising a garden or having a pet. And I also talk about the professional interventions, which are equally simple and practical, and now tested, from specific forms of psychotherapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, to the newer generation of medications, the serotonin-active medications, the stimulant medications that are also safe and effective when they're used properly.

BOGAEV: Edward Hallowell, I want to thank you very much for talking with me today.

HALLOWELL: Well, thank you for having me on the show.

BOGAEV: Dr. Edward Hallowell's new book is "Connect." He heads the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Concord, Massachusetts.

FRESH AIR was produced today by Kathy Wolfe (ph) and Joan Toohey Wesman. Our interviews and reviews are produced by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, and Naomi Person, with Monique Nazareth and Patty Leswing. Our engineer is Audrey Bentham. Ann Marie Baldonado directed the show.

For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Barbara Bogaev, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Dr. Edward Hallowell
High: Dr. Edward Hallowell talks about his book "Connect," about the importance of connectedness and what he sees as the essential need for intimate attachments. Hallowell is a practicing psychiatrist and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Spec: Health and Medicine; Diseases; Dr. Edward Hallowell

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End-Story: Interview With Dr. Edward Hallowell
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