Obstacles as Opportunities

We don’t look for obstacles; they find us. They are inherent in La condition humaine. Some lie outside ourselves in the real world, like a detour on a highway that takes us five miles off our designated route. Many obstacles are mind-made, created by us with a spontaneity akin to the heart beat. We psychotherapists often say or think to ourselves: “More grist for the mill.” We anticipate that benefits will emerge from dealing with these matters. I propose taking the point a step further to consider if obstacles and opportunities can be compared to Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For each action (obstacle) there is an equal and opposite reaction (opportunity).

For example, as a young man in Germany, Viktor Frankl was tortured with fellow prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp. He realized that through sheer mental power, he could lift himself above the horror through the spirit of love. He became a psychiatrist and founded the school of logotherapy-a theory based on the belief that human nature is motivated by the search for a purpose.

When I encounter an obstacle I think of Frankl and by comparison mine is, not surprisingly, infinitesimal. Here’s an example of obstacle followed by an opportunity: I imagine holding a dinner party. I become anxious. I explore the roots of my anxiety. My house is cluttered. I’ll de-clutter. Great. I’ve found a way to diminish my anxiety and increase the comfort of my home.

We can’t measure forces in a psychological field but I think this question provides food for thought.

Conclusion: We can look upon obstacles with the potential to offer opportunities to improve our lives, whether they are created by our minds or extant in the world.

Dear Reader, Please offer your experiences and opinions. Jsimon145@gmail.com

Change: Perceptions and Repercussions

The psychotherapeutic process can be risky. Most people don’t begin the process unless plagued with a symptom or a problem.

M. Scott Peck, a minister and psychiatrist (1935-2004) acknowledged that the path to psychological insight is uncommon; he compiled his observations in his self help book titled The Road less Travelled (1978). Only after the author toured and lectured for a few years, did his tome sell millions of copies.

Why does a self-help book become a best seller? I think we both fear and want to understand the enigmas of the mind. Peck found some appealing, credible answers to explain our behavior.

At the beginning of my career, a psychologist told me a story about himself.

“When I began psychoanalysis, I said to my analyst, ‘I don’t want therapy to mess up my happy marriage.’  And what do you think happened? That’s right. I divorced.” He continued, “Although my family experienced a difficult time of upheaval, the outcome proved to be better for everyone.” His experience, although tumultuous, endorsed the value of pursuing the road less travelled.

Sometimes one person in a relationship changes and is frustrated when his partner doesn’t. For example, Mr. O. made progress with his addiction. When an increasingly rare slip occurred, he gained insight about how to avoid trigger points.  His partner, however, persisted in seeing the problem, the occasional slip rather than following the road less travelled to help her appreciate Mr. O’s progress.

I empathized with Mr. O. assuring him that the desire for recognition was natural and that it was regrettable that his partner wasn’t able to perceive the change.

Changes often occur within us and in our world even when we don’t follow the road less traveled. Often we close off perceptions, as if wearing blinders like a street horse, in order to guard against disquieting perceptions of change.

Poet Sara Teasdale (1901-1933) sums up the danger and joy of change:

“Never fear though it break your heart-

Out of the wound new joy will start…”

Conclusion: The journey of increasing awareness of ourselves and our world exposes the unexpected and challenges our relationships. Improvements may not be recognized by our friends or relatives, but a more authentic existence is the reward.

Dear Reader, As always, your comments are welcome: jsimon@gmail.com.

Post-Traumatic Stress, Some Themes & Variations

We don’t commonly think of the home environment as causing post-traumatic stress disorder. But Sam Shepard’s latest play, Heartless, running at the Signature theatre explores this theme.

Set in the Murphy home Heartless distinguishes itself from Shepard’s other plays in the predominance of women. Each of the five characters suffers trauma and subsequent symptoms of PTSD. Mother Mabel is wheelchair bound, having jumped or fallen from a pine tree after being abandoned by her husband. Her older daughter, Lucy, is tied to her disabled mother. Her younger daughter, thirty year old Sally, suffers survival guilt for receiving the heart of a murdered ten–year-old girl twenty years earlier. Roscoe, a sixty-five year-old ex-marine and child of the ‘60’s drug culture, has split from his wife of many years is making a video with Sally. A beautiful mute nurse tending to mother Mabel relives the murder of the heart donor, which she plays out through horrid grimaces and blood curdling screams.

(I think that the nurse is the incarnation of the dead girl, but this detail is open to interpretation).

Pulitizer Prize-winning Shepard has approached the topic  of PTSD in several of his plays, including Buried Child, and has acted in movies featuring PTSD (the 2009 movie, The Brothers, that deals with the aftermath of war and the family). Shepard’s own father, a WWII bomber pilot and an alcoholic, suffered from symptoms of PTSD and the playwright has modeled characters after his father in his other plays, including Curse of the Starving Class (1976).  His work has increased my awareness about the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Heart transplants and military service have something in common. The heart is drastically altered when confronted with death. This anxiety disorder develops in some people after seeing or living through an event that caused or threatened serious harm or death. It is characterized by:

Unwanted memories

Bad dreams

Emotional numbness

Intense guilt or worry

Angry outbursts

Feeling “on Edge”

Avoiding thoughts and

situations that bring up the trauma.

Before 1980, people with PTSD were labeled as “weak” and sometimes discharged from military service. PTSD, was officially recognized as a disorder in 1980.  The Diagnostic Statistical Manual describes the sufferer as manifesting:

 “…deliberate efforts to avoid certain thoughts, feelings, or conversations about the traumatic event and to avoid activities, situations, or people who arouse recollections of it.”

Contrary to the common tendency of the victim to deny the source of pain, the trauma must be confronted. Anti-depressant medication, especially the serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been found helpful in conjunction with talk therapy.

Conclusion: “Homelessness is the primary existential condition in Mr. Shepard’s universe, even when you’re at home,” Ben Brantley writes  (“All the Discomforts of Home,” New York Times, August 28, 2012). In the final analysis I think it’s fair to say that home is an internal psychological state. Home lies in the heart. In Shepard’s Heartless, no one is at home; everyone is rootless. Shepard continues to search and question and I think, asks us to do the same. The theme is especially relevant now, the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.

Dear Reader: Please offer your comments. Jsimon145@gmail.com