Film Review-In A Town This Size

I recently learned about a documentary, In a Town this Size, by photographer and filmmaker Patrick V Brown. It tells the story of the wealthy, Oklahoma oil town, Bartlesville, in which the pediatrician sexually abused many children over the course of many years. Brown, himself, was one of the victims.

I'm not really going to make this a review, as in, what did I like, what didn't I like, whether it's worth seeing. It is worth seeing, so please do. (That I know of, In a Town this Size is available on iTunes, on DVD from Netflix, and on Amazon Prime.) It addresses very important issues, aside from the obvious one of pedophilia. It addresses what it means to move from being a victim to being a survivor, to finding support, both within oneself and externally. It's also extremely well made, although quite simple-just interviews with a few interspersed pieces of footage and photographs. Mainly, I'm going to relate what it made me think about.

Dr. Bill Dougherty was a pediatrician and a prominent citizen in Bartlesville. He was friendly with the families of many of his patients, and was welcomed into their homes, and joined them on family vacations. Many of the adults considered him an "odd duck", because he had never married. Some assumed he was gay, but in that time and place, this was not a topic for discussion.

In the film, Brown interviews people who, as children, were abused by "Dr. Bill".  He also interviews their family members, including his own parents, as well as a few lawyers and therapists. Everyone who was interviewed was articulate and thoughtful. In part, this is a product of Brown's skillful interviewing-sensitive but appropriately direct. But I suspect it's also a product of the innate selection bias in who volunteers to be interviewed for a film like this, and what parts of the interviews made the final cut.

But the interviews did hit home the point for me that Bartlesville is a wealthy, educated town. There is footage of the Price Tower, the only skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and commissioned by Harold C. Price, of the H. C. Price oil company. There is also footage of the home of Harold Price, Jr., which looks like a Lloyd Wright structure to me. And Harold Price, Jr. is one of the interviewed parents.

The status of the town is what, perhaps, informed the title of the film. I couldn't tell if the idea was, "Who would believe something like this could happen in such a small town with so much money and power?" or, "Who would believe everyone didn't know about what was happening?" I suspect the ambiguity is intentional.

Which brings me to the topic of denial. Brown, himself, told his parents about the abuse after it had happened several times, starting when he was around 6 years old. But a child that young has neither the language nor the emotional wherewithal to describe sexual abuse, and the most he could come up with was, "He leaves his hands down there too long."

In their interviews, Brown's parents comment on their reactions. His father seemed to think he was talking about a normal genital exam, which is uncomfortable and embarrassing for everyone. His mother said that strange as it sounds now, maybe she'd heard of the word, "pedophile", but she couldn't imagine it applied to her family.

I was a bit outraged by their responses. I realize this is anachronistic of me, and their reactions to Brown's revelation were typical for the time, but even if you don't believe your child, don't you wonder? Aren't you at least a little suspicious? Don't you watch to see what your child's reaction is after the next pediatrician visit, or don't you insist on being present for the exam?

In fact, all but one of the parents interviewed say something along the lines of, "This sounds stupid now, but..."

Upon hearing that Dougherty had been accused of sexually abusing children, several of the parents went and comforted him. One ex-marine said he thought, "He's my friend. He'd never do that to me or my children. Besides, he knows I'd kill him."

Years later, after this man's sons revealed the abuse, his wife spent countless hours looking at photographs of her children from that period. The younger son's eyes are haunted. In retrospect, she says, she knew.

By all appearances in the film, Brown has a good relationship with his parents, and is working with his father, who is a lawyer, on changing the laws about the statute of limitations for reporting this kind of abuse. But I found myself outraged once more when he asked his father, "What made you finally believe me?"

The father's answer was that, as an attorney, he had gotten letters from other survivors of Dr. Bill's abuse, asking for legal help. He had to hear it from someone else in order to believe it.

Several of the survivors note that they don't feel angry at Dougherty. Some posit that this is because they don't have the self esteem to generate the anger. I wondered if their anger is threatening to them because it's not just towards Dougherty, it's towards their families, for not protecting them.

Based on the families interviewed, it seems like once it became clear, years after the fact, that the accusations of sexual abuse by Dr. Bill were true, the families did become very supportive of their children and of each other. The film, itself, is a testament to that.

My own reaction to Dougherty was interesting.  Generally, after I get over the initial horror of a story like this, my mind goes to, "What could possibly have happened to this man to have turned him into such a monster?" There's some sympathy involved, even if the crimes are inexcusable.

But I really don't have that much sympathy for Dougherty. There's something terribly opportunistic and psychopathic about him. Some of the survivors suggested that there was premeditation in his choice of pediatrics. My first thought about that was skeptical. I thought he probably felt an irresistible pull towards pediatrics, even though he knew this was a problem for him, and then rationalized the choice by convincing himself that he understood children, and that that would make him a good doctor. Apparently, when he wasn't abusing his patients, he was a good pediatrician.

As the film proceeded, I was less convinced by my argument. Atypically for a pedophile, he abused both boys and girls, although it seemed like there was a predilection for boys. His patterns of abuse also varied, and the choice of behavior seemed to vary with what he thought he could get away with. Several men report having been masturbated by him on the examining table. One woman reports having him take her on his lap and try to get her to masturbate him, while on vacation. On that same vacation he paraded in front of her and her sister in his underwear, showing his penis. It also seems that he sodomized a boy he knew to have psychiatric problems, and to me, that sounds like he thought the boy's story wouldn't be credible.

When Harold Price, who I mentioned above, visited him to offer support after he had been accused of the sodomy, Dougherty said something like, "That's absurd. I would never do that. Besides, he was ugly."

Such was Dougherty's power over these children that Brown seems to be in a minority in telling his parents about the abuse. Most of the kids didn't say anything to anyone. They didn't feel threatened, and they weren't told not to say anything, they just didn't.

Incidentally, after the truth about his abuse had come out, while the statute of limitations for criminal charges had run out, he did lose his medical license. However, he is still alive and living in Bartlesville, leaving his home only in disguise. He recently got married, for the first time, to a woman, at age 81.

The final point that struck me was about forgiveness, and its different meanings. The ex-marine father, who is a religious Christian, was torn for a long time between killing Dougherty and forgiving him. After reading a lot of scripture, and a lot of soul searching, he decided to forgive him. He says it is easier said than done. What puzzled me was the man's description of seeing Dougherty at a church with a woman and her sons, and thinking, There go those kids down the tubes. Does his forgiveness preclude speaking out against Dougherty to protect those children?

Brown's mother says she can't forgive him because he's shown no remorse. She and other's have written him many letters, and he has never responded. And Brown, himself, says he's not interested in forgiving Dougherty. It made me think about whether forgiveness is more for the one being forgiven, or the one forgiving.

In a Town this Size tells a horrifying story in a sensitive way. I think this approach has a further reach than a film that was more graphic and less forward-looking would have. The real strength of the film lies in the question Brown asks all the survivors, "How has the abuse impacted your life?" This simple question places the emphasis on where the survivors are now, and where they're headed, which is why this is a film about survivors, not victims.

One of the most powerful scenes takes place towards the end, where Brown goes to Bill Dougherty's house to confront him. He knocks on the door -forcefully, not timidly-, we hear a dog bark, but no one answers. Brown paces back and forth with his hands on his hips and knocks again. Still, no answer.

There is tremendous pathos in witnessing the courage it must have taken Brown to try to confront his abuser, only to be disappointed. But even if Brown didn't succeed in confronting the external version of Dougherty, I hope that In a Town this Size did succeed in helping him confront the internal version of the monster that is Dr. Bill.

Let There Be Light

One of the things I heard about a couple months ago, in the session I described in Gene Kelly at the Waldorf , and have been meaning to write about, is a 1 hour film by John Huston called, Let There Be Light. Huston went into a psychiatric hospital following World War II, and filmed the treatment of a group of veterans with PTSD.

This took place at an interesting time in the history of psychiatry, when analytic precepts were an accepted and assumed part of psychiatric treatment. 

The servicemen were admitted to Mason General Hospital for an 8-10 week stay. They had individual therapy, group therapy, occupational activities, sports, music and other recreational activities, and training for reintegration into civilian life.

I found the 58 minute film very moving. The men they spotlighted all did well, despite having started out extremely debilitated. One man had repetitive head-shaking, another had developed a severe stutter, another had amnesia, another couldn't walk, still another was suicidal. 

They all completed the program and were shown at a graduation ceremony at the end, walking, talking, and smiling. 

The man who couldn't walk was shown rounding the bases at top speed at a baseball game shortly before the graduation. 

I was powerfully struck, and rendered tearful, by how young they all were. And yet, this is after the war, and even though some of them are maybe 19 or 20, none of them looks like a boy, the way they probably did when they entered the service. These were all men who had been through some terrible experiences. 

I was also struck by how articulate and thoughtful they were, despite some obvious differences in socioeconomic, educational, and intellectual backgrounds. 

It's interesting to watch a film made pre-privacy concerns. The men are told to ignore the camera, that they're simply having their progress tracked. At least one full name is used. The men seem to take it as a given that they have no say in what the military chooses to do. 

I wondered about the effect of the camera. In the scenes with individual therapy, the soldiers tend to avert their eyes from where the camera is positioned.

The psychiatrists, all male, of course, are interesting. They speak like something out of a 1940s movie, and at first I thought they were a bit callous, but after watching for a while, I could see the kindness coming through.

There was one doctor, in particular, who seemed to be the hypnosis expert. He was remarkably skilled. He conducted an amytal interview with the young man who couldn't walk, and after determining that the paralysis started after the soldier heard that his mother was ill, he proceeded to get him to talk about his mother, who was a difficult, angry, critical woman. He was then able to stand the man up and have him walk across the room.

He also used an amytal interview to cure another soldier of his stutter, which rendered him practically speechless. It started when he was talking to his buddies on their boat, saying something about the port side, and he got stuck on the "s" sound. During the amytal interview, the soldier is overcome by the realization that his speech has returned to normal. He then goes on to relate that the "s" sound reminded him of the sound of a, "German 88 high explosive shell coming in." His speech returned to normal after the interview.

This doctor treated a different man suffering from amnesia with hypnosis. I got the impression that it was the doctor's assured tone that made the young man believe he could remember. He got the man to speak about how terrified he was when the shells were coming in, and how he just wanted to forget everything. Then the doctor told him he didn't need to forget, because it was all over, and he could let himself remember. This was effective.

The narration is quite fascinating, at least from my analytic perspective. We are told that the paralyzed man's symptom had been treated, but that his neurosis will require time and therapy.

We hear that the amytal interview is, "Like hypnosis, a shortcut to the unconscious mind. It brings to the surface the emotional conflict that's the cause of the symptoms. And it removes through suggestion those symptoms that impede the patient's recovery."

And also, that, "Modern psychiatry makes no sharp division between the mind and the body."

At the beginning of the film, when we first see the individual interviews, the men make comments like:

I was the first scout. My buddy was second scout, but he got ahead of me, and I couldn't get back to him.

I was just hoping I would die.

I was told I was gonna die, so I thought I was dead.

I'm jumpy. I used to have fun, but now I don't like to do nothing no more.

I never was nervous before. I was a solid man.


The diagnosis given is, "Anxiety Reaction, Severe," and in group therapy, the men refer to themselves as "psycho-neurotics".


In an early group therapy session, they're asked, "Do you feel changed? Not the same boy as when you went away?" They're told that the purpose of therapy is to get them out of their feeling of isolation, to show them that they're like other people. That they will use a core of treatment methods, to help them develop knowledge of themselves. That underneath, "I can't," you usually find, "I won't." That a stutter or inability to speak reflects an underlying anger and resentment. That their sense of personal safety, or lack thereof, stems from their childhood sense of safety, and that, in turn, from their parents' senses of safety. They are encouraged to talk about childhood experiences, and they do.

I thought the last two examples smacked of "wild analysis", of jumping very rapidly to conclusions about the patient without a lot of data. But the soldiers seemed to be helped by it.

A later group therapy session is much different. They openly discuss their concerns about reintegrating into civilian life. They worry the public will think they're crazy. That the hospitalization will be perceived as shameful. That there needs to be an education program for the public. The psychiatrist asks, "Would you make it a point to tell your employer that you're a psychoneurotic?"

One man points out that there are plenty of wealthy civilians on Park Avenue who are more nervous than they are, and who rely on pills to help them cope. He's proud of what they've accomplished, and the doctor comments that they have nothing to hide or be ashamed of, that they've learned a great deal.

Another man, the one who couldn't walk, says, "We just wanna show people we can be as good as anyone else. They just have to give us a chance."

I don't know what they long-term outcome of this treatment was, or if there was even follow-up done. I suspect not all the men were able to maintain the progress they had made, once they left the hospital setting. I also don't know how extensive the program was. But it was so moving to see how much genuine care and effort the military put into helping these men, in the best ways they knew how at the time.