THE EXPERT

The Expert

Janet Farrell Leontiou, Ph.D.

I took a wonderful writing course this past week offered through the organization called  The Op Ed Project. The word expert was presented and the facilitator asked if we see ourselves as experts and the majority of the participants offered a resounding: “No.” The facilitator then asked: do you see yourself as a resource?  The answer was then a resounding: “Yes.” A slide was presented showing that expert and resource hold the same definition but why is it that we are comfortable claiming the label as resource for ourselves and not the label of expert? The audience was then asked if we encountered a person with cancer and we knew of a cure, would we not share it? Everyone then responded that it would be morally irresponsible if we did not share what we knew. 

The discussion left me thinking about the word “expert.” I have created a communication theory called logostherapy which means attending to the word. The theory has three parts: attending to the etymology, attending to the words that I speak, and the attending to the words that others speak. I am an expert at logostherapy because it is a theory that I have created. 

In keeping with the theory of logostherapy, I looked up the etymology of the word expert. We sometimes think that the word etymology means the study of the roots of words but it is so much more. In Greek, etymology means the truth regarding the word. Words have denotations (dictionary definitions) which are abstractions and do not go to the heart of the matter. Words also have connotations which are the understandings we have of the word either through personal or cultural experience. Etymologies, on the other hand, offer us the truth. 

The definition of expert is authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area. As the writing workshop participants revealed, the connotation would sound like this: “the expert is someone other than me.” This impression is formed within us through what we tell ourselves, what others tell us, or through representation within the culture. The facilitator told us to do a Google image search to see what pictures came up for the expert and the drawings were all white men. As the instructor said: “they are all men, all white and they are not even real –they are cartoons.” 

So through the definition and the connotation, we are not led to the truth. We need etymology. The etymology of the word expert is Latin. It comes from expeiri which means tried, tested, or known by experience. It could also be seen as a verb, as in to try. This understanding of the etymology does such a better job of placing us on the path to truth. One of the main reasons why the course participants did not see themselves as experts is because we tend to see the expert as serving himself whereas we see the resource as serving others. But if we take another look at the word expert, we understand that it is offering what we know in service to try to help others. The idea of the self and the other is baked into the etymology. Our connotations and denotations are inviting ourselves to engage in a false dichotomy that does not serve ourselves, the other, or the world. 

Wisdom that is handed down through philosophies or faith traditions teaches us that when we offer anything with love to another, we always receive back in ways we could not have predicted. When we share our expertise with another, our intention is to make the other’s life better in some way and invariably in doing this, the speaker’s life becomes better. 

The words that help me to frame what I am talking about are giving vs. getting.  In moving the response from the participants in the class forward, we tend to see being a resource as giving whereas being an expert is focused on getting. The etymology helps us to see how we have it all wrong. Being an expert is also focused on giving and everyone suffers if people self-censor and do not put themselves out into the public realm because they do not see themselves as experts.

I have been teaching Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning for the last thirty years. I wrote a book called Viktor E. Frankl Goes to Community College: How Creating Meaning May Save Your Life where I outline my theory of logostherapy and pay homage to Frankl’s theory of logotherapy and the Stoic philosophy that inspired both me and Frankl to create our own theories. Frankl states that love (or agape which is a word much bigger than our word love and suggests a way of being in the world), is our highest purpose. Giving to others is what we are here for. Frankl states that when we give to others, we become more self-actualized and we become more human.¹ Then, claiming our expertise and offering what we know to others is both the way to reach our own potential and it is a way to become a more fully formed human being. Communication is a co-creation. When I speak, I create something for myself but I also create the possibility for the other. When I shine, I create the space for others to shine too.

To return to the writing workshop, there was a game we played in small groups where we were asked to introduce ourselves and name our expertise. I did not name that I had created a theory of communication during that exercise. I spoke something vague and abstract about my expertise having to do with the power of spoken word. It was not until I looked up the etymology of expert that I was able to move onto the correct path of the concrete and the specific. For myself, I rewrote my introduction claiming my own authority (to be the author) and expertise. 

I love the Greek word metanoia meaning to thoroughly change one’s mind. I hope that we all could change our way of seeing the word expert and I hope that knowing the etymology helps us to change our minds. I have written two books on medical communication and I have attempted (unsuccessfully) to bring my expertise to medical schools to try to advocate for a reframing on how we see medical communication. One physician said to me after I had spent several days with his faculty, that my book was “just my own experience.” The books are based on my own experience…as a mother, as the mother of a child with disabilities, as an academic, as a person with three degrees in Rhetoric, and as the creator of my own communication theory. They are based on my expertise and there is nothing “just” about it. Could you imagine the outcome if Frankl was told that his writing was “just” his own experiences within the concentration camps? It sounds absurd because it is and what was told to me was equally as absurd. I cannot force others to accept my authority and expertise. The physician has lots of reasons for rejecting my authority and expertise. But just because others question my expertise, does not mean that I need to doubt it for myself. 

1. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006): 110-111.