Thursday, March 10, 2005
Losing my therapist: peering ahead
In April I'm ending biweekly private therapy sessions with Dr. E & changing to a group environment. I started private sessions in 1999, with some stretches during which I saw my psychologist every week and was also in group therapy. The current situation is that even if I'm still not managing my personal affairs with consistant reponsibility, I have been managing my emotional ups & down. So it's time to get support & encouragement for the things I'm procrastinating on doing, or that just scare me too much. The group environment encompasses psychological, social, & practical concerns; psychologists prefer not giving a lot of weight to the latter in private sessions; one is better off seeking help from social workers, counselors, & peers. Not that the groups I've been in were loaded with peers.
I quit two different groups, both times because a member of the group had problems that I believed were too serious & out-of-control for the format, monopolizing and paralyzing the group dynamic, & making it nearly impossible to bring more mundane matters to the group's attention. People I liked in the groups weren't showing up anymore. One can get good advice in group therapy, from dealing with one's family on holidays to finding a competent optometrist. It's the day-to-day things we can't figure out or won't handle that pile up & finally make us crazy.
Dr. E may be as sad to lose me I am to lose her. I am an interesting client/patient, neither an addict nor court-ordered into therapy; educated, intelligent, articulate, creative, thoughtful, self-deceiving, self-destructive, stubborn, courageous & cowardly, & an accomplished bullcrapper. I "enjoy"our private sessions, but I'm also aware of how much I haven't opened up to her. & I never liked bringing so much baggage of daily difficulties to the sessions; I'd prefer digging deeper into my dreams & childhood memories. It's not the end of our relationship; just a change, perhaps even a hiatus, I like being a "poet-on-the-couch" with a smart, insightful psychologist. That's how Dr. E & I really connected; when five years ago I was able to make her understand that if we together couldn't rescue The Poet, I didn't give a damn what happened to rest of me. & we did, which is why this blog is nearly two years old, I still do the occasional radio show at WFMU, & most remarkably, find myself making a poem once-in-awhile.
"If you blog and are paid by a politician or a corporation or interest group, your readers deserve to know that continuously up front." - Chuck Raasch, USA Today
I quit two different groups, both times because a member of the group had problems that I believed were too serious & out-of-control for the format, monopolizing and paralyzing the group dynamic, & making it nearly impossible to bring more mundane matters to the group's attention. People I liked in the groups weren't showing up anymore. One can get good advice in group therapy, from dealing with one's family on holidays to finding a competent optometrist. It's the day-to-day things we can't figure out or won't handle that pile up & finally make us crazy.
Dr. E may be as sad to lose me I am to lose her. I am an interesting client/patient, neither an addict nor court-ordered into therapy; educated, intelligent, articulate, creative, thoughtful, self-deceiving, self-destructive, stubborn, courageous & cowardly, & an accomplished bullcrapper. I "enjoy"our private sessions, but I'm also aware of how much I haven't opened up to her. & I never liked bringing so much baggage of daily difficulties to the sessions; I'd prefer digging deeper into my dreams & childhood memories. It's not the end of our relationship; just a change, perhaps even a hiatus, I like being a "poet-on-the-couch" with a smart, insightful psychologist. That's how Dr. E & I really connected; when five years ago I was able to make her understand that if we together couldn't rescue The Poet, I didn't give a damn what happened to rest of me. & we did, which is why this blog is nearly two years old, I still do the occasional radio show at WFMU, & most remarkably, find myself making a poem once-in-awhile.
"If you blog and are paid by a politician or a corporation or interest group, your readers deserve to know that continuously up front." - Chuck Raasch, USA Today
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Bob,It's hard finding a good therapist and when you do,very tough to lose them.I live on the water.Bay area.I know how much you enjoy the water.I always liked living next to the Rahway River and going into EM Jays ( the tackle shop) on Irving St.Mike the owner was forced to move and is open for business on West Grand Street.He likes the Irving St.location better.I enjoyed living in Rahway.Why do writers have to suffer?Maybe because they feel and see things differently.Keep the candle burning I enjoy your poems and blog.Hang in.
# posted by 
: 3:06 PM
: 3:06 PM
The funky bait shop always reminded me that the river is a tidal estuary where it passes though downtown Rahway. It is remarkable how few people who live there notice. But those who do are rewarded; white egrets, the runs of eels, fiddler crabs (& fat inedible blue claws), even blue herons.
BTW the photo over there on the right was taken at Sandy Hook, Plum Island (which is not an island) on a bright, brisk April afternoon. No wonder I'm smiling.
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