Living in the Human Moment

Noted A.D.D. expert and psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell '68 writes about forging connections that can change your life.

In February 1998, Dr. Edward M. Hallowell '68 spoke at the memorial service in Phillips Church for Fred Tremallo, who had taught English at Exeter for 33 years. Hallowell's regard for his former instructor was well-known, making him a natural choice to comment on how a teacher's influence can shape a student's life long after graduation.

But there was more to it than an alumnus bidding farewell to a mentor; as Hallowell tells it, Tremallo had been a vital connection. Hallowell, a practicing psychiatrist, lecturer and writer, published his seventh book, Connect, in 1999. The title represents a belief he has been building on for years, personally and professionally — namely, that the strength of our connection to things we consider important helps determine our mental, emotional, and even physical health. Part social autobiography and part modern psychology, Connect is a direct and often dramatic account of Hallowell's coming to terms with a turbulent childhood, and a persuasive page-turner on the power of connection, told through stories from his own life and the lives of others. In the book, Hallowell credits Tremallo and other Exeter teachers with being important, stabilizing influences during his school days. It includes Hallowell's poignant visit to his former teacher in his hospital room, where Tremallo sat writing college recommendations and joking with only weeks to live.

WALKING THE WALK
Hallowell has written about his life before, but never so personally. He described his struggle with Attention Deficit Disorder in Driven to Distraction, a 1994 bestseller. He confessed occasional counterproductive rumination in Worry: Controlling It and Using It Wisely, published in 1997. But, he says, everything kept coming back to connection as a way of confronting life's challenges, and for that book he didn't need to look far for his primary source.

"I thought, I have to put my own story in, for credibility and persuasiveness," he says. "Some people said, 'Don't, you'll open yourself up.' Others said the last thing we need is another book with too much about the author. I tried to strike the right balance. But I've walked the walk, I'm not just talking the talk."

The walk he's walked is that of the child of a manic depressive father who was committed to a mental institution when Hallowell was 4, an alcoholic mother and a hard-drinking and abusive stepfather. Statistics, Hallowell says, paint a dark picture for those with such a background: substance abuse, homelessness and even suicide aren't uncommon. But as a young boy Hallowell instinctively sought in other places the stability he couldn't find at home. He sang in the church choir down the street from his stepfather's house in Charleston, South Carolina, creating, he recounts in Connect, a version of family life for himself out of the warmth and welcome he found each Sunday morning. The tiny altar he made on his bedroom window sill became like a clubhouse, an escape from isolation and insecurity. Hallowell says the deep therapeutic value of reaching out for and holding on to important connections impressed itself on him early, and has been a strong undercurrent of his life ever since.

"It's the best thing I've learned," he says. "The people who can connect tend to be okay in life. Those who don't tend not to be okay."

THE HUMAN MOMENT
The salutary effect of connections isn't Hallowell's theory alone. He reports in Connect on studies of high school students, adults and the elderly; for each group, a sense of commitment to something larger than oneself had a direct, beneficial impact on everything from scholastic performance, to job satisfaction, to life span.

In Connect, Hallowell lists the most important spheres of connection and devotes a chapter to each. He has given a name, the Human Moment, to the meaningful face-to-face contact that seems increasingly supplanted by technology — beepers and email, the Internet and cell phones, anything that makes us stare into a screen or off into space instead of meeting the eyes of another person.

"Technology is such a double-edged sword; it can work for us or really work against us," Hallowell says. "There are a lot of young people who are being seduced out of connections by the 'net or by television. It becomes a great sink hole. Chat rooms don't make for very good friendships."

Hallowell believes Americans' stock market- and technology-stoked rush through the '90s has created a "pseudo-ADD," a cultural rather than clinical form of Attention Deficit Disorder.

"A lot of people who look like they have ADD don't have it — they're just over-stimulated, going too fast," he says. "I treat people who say they spend half their day just doing turn-around from email and voice mail, and they don't get to the project they're supposed to be working on."

He isn't surprised that more companies are trying to retain employees by emphasizing a warmer work atmosphere through extras like child-care, dinner service, and company excursions.

"I've said that high-tech requires high-touch," Hallowell says. "The way the world is moving, connections are going to be key, whether you're talking about Harvard and Exeter or General Electric and IBM. The name of the game in the business world is holding on to good people, and one of the best ways to do that is by creating a culture of connectedness in the company and an atmosphere of connectedness in the workplace."

Hallowell has consulted with the Harvard chemistry department since the 1998 suicide of a graduate student. His suggestions, says Professor Jim Anderson, have led to a loosening of student-faculty relations at the department, more emphasis on social get-togethers, even a redesigned student center.

"We're saying the most creative research is done by those with links to family, friends and hobbies, who stay mentally healthy and in good physical condition," Anderson says.

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