Fourteen year old Venus
No longer plays with toys.
Fourteen year old Venus
Now obsesssed with boys.
Brighter than the others
Prettier than most
Soon without a mother
Her innocence is lost.
Growing up a mourner
Father's favorite toy
Found love in secret corners
Learned ways to bring men joy.
Fourteen year old venus
Tougher than the boys
Writes poems to show her genius
And prove she has a choice.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
I had the strangest dream
The following is a talk given at Bryn Mawr Hospital Newtown Square outpatient facility on March 27, 2008.
Everybody dreams. Dream images are sometimes vivid and exciting, sometimes terrifying, often bizarre. When we awaken, unless we attend to it immediately, the coontent disappears. We remember we dreamed but cannot recall the details. Dream characters may be familiar to us or not Dream sequence may be jumbled, nonsensical, irrational. Although dreams can vividly represent color, shape, depth and movement, they do not accurately measure time. What seems like a long dream encompassing many minutes or even hours, dreams last only a few seconds. Today we know that dreams occur during a deep phase of sleep when there are rapid eye movements occurring and the body is mostly paralyzed (REM sleep) and a characteristic brain wave. Some scientists suggest that dreams play a role in encoding information to permanent memory. Others suggest the dream rids the brain of extraneous information. Some people place a great deal of importance upon dream content. Some believe they are prophetic. Many scientists believe they are merely noise in the system and not worth our time. Many believe they are motivated and some insist they are the workings of our unconscious.. I will attempt to convince you that they often have meaning, although perhaps not purpose, and that sometimes they are revealing about what’s knocking about in your head and even useful in gaining insights. Only you can interpret your own dreams, although psychologists can help. Dreams are the product of a sleeping but not dead or inactive brain.
A little bit of history: The Ancients believed dreams are divinely inspired. Some Native American tribes still accept this idea. Dreams are considered sacred. Tribe members engage in “vision quests” during which they isolate themselves in sacred places and engage in rituals thought to encourage dream formation. The purpose is not only to achieve personal power but to improve the quality of human life. Dreams are believed to free the soul to leave the body and travel around the world at night. Dreams were thought to provide clues about the future. The most famous dream in history was that of the Pharaoh and was interpreted by Joseph. Seers, magicians, witch doctors, shamans professed to be able to guide persons in learning the meaning of their dreams. Dreams may be creative. The 18th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is said to have composed the poem Kubla Khan in a dream. Sigmund Freud saw dreams as “the royal road to the unconscious. He believed that dreams originated in the unconscious but were censored by the ego because of the threatening nature of aggressive, destructive and sexual wishes being exposed. The ego camouflaged dreams by certain transformations as part of the “dreamwork” to allow them access in consciousness in a more socially acceptable form. Carl Jung, Freud’s disciple saw drams as expressing a “collective unconscious” consisting of symbols representing certain inherited, universal archetypes that appear throughout history in literature, myths, and legends. Psychologists today see dreams as having both biological and psychological determinants and as reflecting perceptions, memories, thoughts and emotional components. Neuroscientists use MRIs and PET scans in sleep laboratories to try to identify the area of the brain active in dreams. One study reports the visual cortex active during dreaming. The limbic system may be active providing the emotional component. At the Stanford University Sleep Research Center psychologist Stephen La Barge studies what have been labeled “lucid dreams.” The dreamer recognizes that he or she is dreaming, apparently has some control of the dream content, and can even end the dream.
The work of dreams. The way to unravel the meaning of dreams is through associations to the visual image in the dream sequence. Ideas become associated with each other in several ways. They may occur together in time or place. They may be associated through language or meaning. Often events of the day, sometimes of minor significance, appear in dreams—the “day residue.” Homonyms are words that sound alike but mean different things. Images may represent something quite different than they appear, taken at face value. Freud distinguished between the “manifest” and ‘latent” dream content. Slang terms also influence dream content A “symbol” is an image that stands for something else. Metaphors are a type of symbol. Metaphors occur frequently in dreams, not because we are writing prose or doing grammatical construction but because of common usage. If someone eats ravenously we might be inclined to label him a pig. If we dream of a pig it might well represent a gluttonous friend. Does that mean that a pig in anyone’s dream represents gluttony. No. Dream symbols are personal, based on personal experience. Even Freud denied the use of universal symbols. Yet go on-line and you will find so-called dream experts who will analyze your dreams, for a fee, using such an approach. You can find books that purport to do the same thing. They are fraudulent. Without extensive exploration into the circumstances associated with the dream and the personal associations to dream images and sequence, interpretation is impossible. Of course it is possible that two people in the same circumstances, sharing the same language, and living in the same culture would share the same dream meaning to a symbol. Nevertheless the likelihood of accurate interpretation using so-called “universal symbols’ is little more than the accuracy of reading tea leaves.
That said, let me explore with you some dream processes. The first is “condensation”—the process by which two or more concepts are fused into a single image. A man had a dream in which he is visiting his daughter who lived with her husband in an apartment in a distant city. Suddenly the plumbing pipes began to knock. The landlord appeared and said: “You’d better fix your daughters pipes.” The man replied; “It’s your house; you fix them.” The evening of the dream the man had been to a Christmas party at a friend’s house. He was talking with a co-worker about colloquialisms in language in different locals. The man was from New York City originally. Most of the people at the party were from Philadelphia. The co-worker pointed at that in South Philadelphia, growing up, if you went to a friends house to visit a buddy and his mother answered the door, you would say: “Can you knock up for Joey to come out and play?” The man replied that in New York City the term “knock-up” means to make pregnant. And so it is in Philadelphia but the second meaning also is used. Associations of the dreamer made the dream readily transparent. His daughter was trying to get pregnant but having difficulty conceiving. The man wanted her to have a child. The dreamer had always been over-protective of his daughter and also controlling. The condensation of meanings in this dream was readily apparent. Here was a situation he could not fix. In the dream the house represented his daughter, the landlord his son-in law, and pipes needed to be knocked up but not by him. The dreamer in this story was me. Would you say the dream was noise or meaningful?
One type of condensation produces a “neologism,” a new word that combines two meanings. In the dream the word makes perfect sense to the dreamer. An eighteen year old girl dreamed she was riding an “expressolater” to a date with her boyfriend. Her association to the word was a very rapid escalator. She was looking forward to the date and wanted the time before the date to pass quickly. She often met her date at Starbucks.
The dream condensed her impatience with her favorite beverage, Expresso.
Freud defined “displacement” as the process by which feeling associated to one event is attached in the dream to another, seemingly unrelated event. Actually there may be some perceived similarity between the two events so that the process is not random. A man dreamed he was at a vacation resort with an attractive female employee who was not his wife. In the dream the man felt guilt because he should be working and also should be with his wife. In truth the underlying feeling was guilt that he was working too hard There was a trip planned with the female worker but it was a business trip. There was also work that remained undone in his office. The man’s wife had criticized him for being a workaholic and not taking enough vacations. (Of course, she meant with her, not an attractive co-worker) The guilt was complex; it was over both working and not working. The dream was illogical. It had contradictory meanings. Dreams may have meaning but still not make sense.
I’ve already mentioned metaphors as figures if speech and dream components. Joe is contemplating a change in his insurance carrier. He dreams of changing trains at a subway station He worries in the dream about whether he is making the right decision.
His dream metaphor, a subway train is a carrier. Joes has made an association between an insurance carrier and a people carrier. But why a subway train but not a taxi or a bus? Joe has recently returned from Paris where he rode the subways which in Paris are the Metro. The contemplated new insurance carrier? Met Life.
The dreamer is watching a person in his dream struggle to hold a cylindrical balloon on
Ropes. Someone known to the dreamer had served that function in a Thanksgiving Day parade. The person the dreamer associates with the rope holder was having trouble controlling the sexual aspect of his marriage. The balloon had a sexual connation to the dreamer. The dreamer also felt himself being pulled in several directions, sometimes by the man holding the balloon. The balloon metaphor has multiple meanings. Freud would say the dream was “over-determined.” One theory is that every character represents the dreamer in some way. Again, the dreamer’s associations are the basis for interpretation.
A teenager dreamed of a policeman wielding a large battle axe to destroy a case of beer.
He associated the term battleaxe with a popular expression meaning a forceful, domineering, unattractive but powerful woman. The woman in his dream was his math teacher who was “always on his case.”
A man was scheduled for surgery after tearing a tendon in his shoulder. The night before the surgery he had the following “worry” dream:
I am riding a motorcycle to an appointment. I must not be late. Now I am driving my
car. Suddenly I cannot see. My hat has fallen down over my eyes. Yet I cannot remove
the hat. I drive blind for a short distance but realize I must stop or risk hitting someone. I
pull the car over and stop. I exit the car and find that I am in a hotel lobby. I leave the
car and do some business at the hotel. When I return I find that my car is gone. The
hotel clerk explains that it has been impounded. The hotel will not give me back my car.
The motorcycle and car were expressions of concern about the surgery and getting to the hospital. Motorcycles were associated with traumatic head injury due to motorcycle accidents. There was ambivalence about having the surgery—fear of the risk and possible complications. The hat over his eyes referred back to previous retinal surgery for a detachment which appeared like a window shade over his eye. Fear of hitting someone referred to the cause of the rotator cuff tear—pitching and hitting a baseball. The hotel was the hospital. Doing business was, of course, the surgery but the man had also noted that the orthopedic surgeon does a good business. The disappearing car was the man’s fear that he would not drive again. When the man told his wife he would drive even with the sling she threatened to hide his car keys.
A woman had the following dream shortly after her mother-in-law died of cancer. The woman was on vacation at a beach resort with her own mother and daughter.
I am walking on the beach in a somewhat remote area where I had not walked before. My mother-in-law was sitting on a bench. It seemed very real. She has her real hair and not the wig she wore after surgery. She says: “Isn’t this a beautiful place?”
The dream was so vivid the woman returned to the same spot the next day. She could still recall the sound of her mother-in-law. Little interpretation is required. The woman missed her loved one and wished that she too was in a beautiful place.
A 40 year old woman had a work related dream.
I am driving my car. In the rear view mirror I see another car approaching from the rear. The car is an Enterprise rental car. I see the big E on the side. The car is weaving all over the road. The car passes me. I keep on driving. The car regains control and slows down as I approach it.
The woman’s immediate work supervisor is a man named Ed. He is a large, intimidating man. He typically rents Enterprise cars for consultants. He has been harassing her. The woman believes that Ed is out of control. She fears for her own mental health and considers a job change but decides to stay (drive) on. The dream is a wish fulfillment that both she and Ed will re-gain control. Fred believed that to some extent all dreams were wish fulfillments.
Collecting, recording, and analyzing dreams are things that can be done by a motivated dreamer. Collecting is the hardest part because we forget dreams almost immediately upon awakening. You might try it with your own dreams if you are adventurous. It is not a substitute for psychotherapy for those who require treatment but it can be useful and can serve as an adjunct to therapy. Recollection of dreams will involve some degree of inaccuracy. Only a small fragment of dreams is actually remembered. Remember it is not the dream itself that is critical but the associations to the dream. Most dreams you do recall will be those that occur just before awakening. A really dedicated dream collector will write them down immediately. If not, tell the dream to someone or rehearse it in your mind before it fades. First write the narrative in the first person, present tense. Then construct a chart to use in analysis of meaning. First give the dream a title that reflects the story, “Lost in the City” for example. List your associations to the images. You should wind up with a string of related associations. When two ideas occur together they are likely linked in some way—they occurred together in time or place or they share some similarity. Ask yourself pertinent question, e.g., what do sunglasses remind me of?” ”What do ice cream cones mean to me?” ‘Did anything related to soccer balls occur to me recently?” It is often the case that a dream fragment refers to some experience during the day, even trial experiences or observations. Freud call these the “day residue.” Which may form the nucleus of the dream. Recall your feelings—either thosel during the dream or what you feel in thinking about the dream imagery. A strong emotion occurring with an insignificant dream may mean the dream was more significant than it appears at first glance. Dream sequence may be confusing since dreams condense events and are distorted.
Analysis depends upon your creativity and capacity for self-awareness. Don’t worry about making false interpretations. The process of self-discovery is valuable in its own right. When you make a meaningful interpretation you will feel that it fits. We call this process “insight.” Emotions may reveal the true meaning of the dream, perhaps the direct opposite of what is being conveyed. Dreams may represent wish fulfillments. They may merely be expressions in graphic terms of some puzzling problem you have been obsessing over during the day. Consider the dream in terms of what is currently going on in your life. Why did you have this particular dream just now?
Dreams allow you to examine contradictions. No one is all good or all bad. Sometimes you play the role of protective parent, sometimes the rebellious child, sometimes the clown. Every character in the dream may be you in different and contradictory roles.
You can accept these roles, discard them or integrate them into your personality. Some dreams mean nothing. Consider your interpretations to be tested in waking life.
So what does all of this mean? What use are dreams to us? Can we use fantasy and dream imagery to effect life changes? Since Freud, therapists have made use of dreams to help patients gain insight. One technique in psychotherapy is the have the individual recreate the dream in a waking state and provide a different, more favorable ending. Despite all our technology the human mind is still a mysterious and largely unknown
entity. Since dreams depend upon memory and associations, since they draw upon our concepts and the way in which we organize perceptions, an infinite number of possibilities exist. We have the capacity to restructure our concepts to alter self-defeating views of ourselves and our world. Planning, problem-solving, decision-making all draw upon creative energy. Why relegate the imagery we produce during sleeping as irrelevant? Dreams may express another dimension of our personality that we have learned to suppress. When we encounter static on the radio we first try to tune the station in better, rather than just turn it off. Why can’t you get that promotion, hit the home run, write the novel, learn to fly, climb the Himalayas, or be the first female president of the United States? Dream it, then make it happen.
Everybody dreams. Dream images are sometimes vivid and exciting, sometimes terrifying, often bizarre. When we awaken, unless we attend to it immediately, the coontent disappears. We remember we dreamed but cannot recall the details. Dream characters may be familiar to us or not Dream sequence may be jumbled, nonsensical, irrational. Although dreams can vividly represent color, shape, depth and movement, they do not accurately measure time. What seems like a long dream encompassing many minutes or even hours, dreams last only a few seconds. Today we know that dreams occur during a deep phase of sleep when there are rapid eye movements occurring and the body is mostly paralyzed (REM sleep) and a characteristic brain wave. Some scientists suggest that dreams play a role in encoding information to permanent memory. Others suggest the dream rids the brain of extraneous information. Some people place a great deal of importance upon dream content. Some believe they are prophetic. Many scientists believe they are merely noise in the system and not worth our time. Many believe they are motivated and some insist they are the workings of our unconscious.. I will attempt to convince you that they often have meaning, although perhaps not purpose, and that sometimes they are revealing about what’s knocking about in your head and even useful in gaining insights. Only you can interpret your own dreams, although psychologists can help. Dreams are the product of a sleeping but not dead or inactive brain.
A little bit of history: The Ancients believed dreams are divinely inspired. Some Native American tribes still accept this idea. Dreams are considered sacred. Tribe members engage in “vision quests” during which they isolate themselves in sacred places and engage in rituals thought to encourage dream formation. The purpose is not only to achieve personal power but to improve the quality of human life. Dreams are believed to free the soul to leave the body and travel around the world at night. Dreams were thought to provide clues about the future. The most famous dream in history was that of the Pharaoh and was interpreted by Joseph. Seers, magicians, witch doctors, shamans professed to be able to guide persons in learning the meaning of their dreams. Dreams may be creative. The 18th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is said to have composed the poem Kubla Khan in a dream. Sigmund Freud saw dreams as “the royal road to the unconscious. He believed that dreams originated in the unconscious but were censored by the ego because of the threatening nature of aggressive, destructive and sexual wishes being exposed. The ego camouflaged dreams by certain transformations as part of the “dreamwork” to allow them access in consciousness in a more socially acceptable form. Carl Jung, Freud’s disciple saw drams as expressing a “collective unconscious” consisting of symbols representing certain inherited, universal archetypes that appear throughout history in literature, myths, and legends. Psychologists today see dreams as having both biological and psychological determinants and as reflecting perceptions, memories, thoughts and emotional components. Neuroscientists use MRIs and PET scans in sleep laboratories to try to identify the area of the brain active in dreams. One study reports the visual cortex active during dreaming. The limbic system may be active providing the emotional component. At the Stanford University Sleep Research Center psychologist Stephen La Barge studies what have been labeled “lucid dreams.” The dreamer recognizes that he or she is dreaming, apparently has some control of the dream content, and can even end the dream.
The work of dreams. The way to unravel the meaning of dreams is through associations to the visual image in the dream sequence. Ideas become associated with each other in several ways. They may occur together in time or place. They may be associated through language or meaning. Often events of the day, sometimes of minor significance, appear in dreams—the “day residue.” Homonyms are words that sound alike but mean different things. Images may represent something quite different than they appear, taken at face value. Freud distinguished between the “manifest” and ‘latent” dream content. Slang terms also influence dream content A “symbol” is an image that stands for something else. Metaphors are a type of symbol. Metaphors occur frequently in dreams, not because we are writing prose or doing grammatical construction but because of common usage. If someone eats ravenously we might be inclined to label him a pig. If we dream of a pig it might well represent a gluttonous friend. Does that mean that a pig in anyone’s dream represents gluttony. No. Dream symbols are personal, based on personal experience. Even Freud denied the use of universal symbols. Yet go on-line and you will find so-called dream experts who will analyze your dreams, for a fee, using such an approach. You can find books that purport to do the same thing. They are fraudulent. Without extensive exploration into the circumstances associated with the dream and the personal associations to dream images and sequence, interpretation is impossible. Of course it is possible that two people in the same circumstances, sharing the same language, and living in the same culture would share the same dream meaning to a symbol. Nevertheless the likelihood of accurate interpretation using so-called “universal symbols’ is little more than the accuracy of reading tea leaves.
That said, let me explore with you some dream processes. The first is “condensation”—the process by which two or more concepts are fused into a single image. A man had a dream in which he is visiting his daughter who lived with her husband in an apartment in a distant city. Suddenly the plumbing pipes began to knock. The landlord appeared and said: “You’d better fix your daughters pipes.” The man replied; “It’s your house; you fix them.” The evening of the dream the man had been to a Christmas party at a friend’s house. He was talking with a co-worker about colloquialisms in language in different locals. The man was from New York City originally. Most of the people at the party were from Philadelphia. The co-worker pointed at that in South Philadelphia, growing up, if you went to a friends house to visit a buddy and his mother answered the door, you would say: “Can you knock up for Joey to come out and play?” The man replied that in New York City the term “knock-up” means to make pregnant. And so it is in Philadelphia but the second meaning also is used. Associations of the dreamer made the dream readily transparent. His daughter was trying to get pregnant but having difficulty conceiving. The man wanted her to have a child. The dreamer had always been over-protective of his daughter and also controlling. The condensation of meanings in this dream was readily apparent. Here was a situation he could not fix. In the dream the house represented his daughter, the landlord his son-in law, and pipes needed to be knocked up but not by him. The dreamer in this story was me. Would you say the dream was noise or meaningful?
One type of condensation produces a “neologism,” a new word that combines two meanings. In the dream the word makes perfect sense to the dreamer. An eighteen year old girl dreamed she was riding an “expressolater” to a date with her boyfriend. Her association to the word was a very rapid escalator. She was looking forward to the date and wanted the time before the date to pass quickly. She often met her date at Starbucks.
The dream condensed her impatience with her favorite beverage, Expresso.
Freud defined “displacement” as the process by which feeling associated to one event is attached in the dream to another, seemingly unrelated event. Actually there may be some perceived similarity between the two events so that the process is not random. A man dreamed he was at a vacation resort with an attractive female employee who was not his wife. In the dream the man felt guilt because he should be working and also should be with his wife. In truth the underlying feeling was guilt that he was working too hard There was a trip planned with the female worker but it was a business trip. There was also work that remained undone in his office. The man’s wife had criticized him for being a workaholic and not taking enough vacations. (Of course, she meant with her, not an attractive co-worker) The guilt was complex; it was over both working and not working. The dream was illogical. It had contradictory meanings. Dreams may have meaning but still not make sense.
I’ve already mentioned metaphors as figures if speech and dream components. Joe is contemplating a change in his insurance carrier. He dreams of changing trains at a subway station He worries in the dream about whether he is making the right decision.
His dream metaphor, a subway train is a carrier. Joes has made an association between an insurance carrier and a people carrier. But why a subway train but not a taxi or a bus? Joe has recently returned from Paris where he rode the subways which in Paris are the Metro. The contemplated new insurance carrier? Met Life.
The dreamer is watching a person in his dream struggle to hold a cylindrical balloon on
Ropes. Someone known to the dreamer had served that function in a Thanksgiving Day parade. The person the dreamer associates with the rope holder was having trouble controlling the sexual aspect of his marriage. The balloon had a sexual connation to the dreamer. The dreamer also felt himself being pulled in several directions, sometimes by the man holding the balloon. The balloon metaphor has multiple meanings. Freud would say the dream was “over-determined.” One theory is that every character represents the dreamer in some way. Again, the dreamer’s associations are the basis for interpretation.
A teenager dreamed of a policeman wielding a large battle axe to destroy a case of beer.
He associated the term battleaxe with a popular expression meaning a forceful, domineering, unattractive but powerful woman. The woman in his dream was his math teacher who was “always on his case.”
A man was scheduled for surgery after tearing a tendon in his shoulder. The night before the surgery he had the following “worry” dream:
I am riding a motorcycle to an appointment. I must not be late. Now I am driving my
car. Suddenly I cannot see. My hat has fallen down over my eyes. Yet I cannot remove
the hat. I drive blind for a short distance but realize I must stop or risk hitting someone. I
pull the car over and stop. I exit the car and find that I am in a hotel lobby. I leave the
car and do some business at the hotel. When I return I find that my car is gone. The
hotel clerk explains that it has been impounded. The hotel will not give me back my car.
The motorcycle and car were expressions of concern about the surgery and getting to the hospital. Motorcycles were associated with traumatic head injury due to motorcycle accidents. There was ambivalence about having the surgery—fear of the risk and possible complications. The hat over his eyes referred back to previous retinal surgery for a detachment which appeared like a window shade over his eye. Fear of hitting someone referred to the cause of the rotator cuff tear—pitching and hitting a baseball. The hotel was the hospital. Doing business was, of course, the surgery but the man had also noted that the orthopedic surgeon does a good business. The disappearing car was the man’s fear that he would not drive again. When the man told his wife he would drive even with the sling she threatened to hide his car keys.
A woman had the following dream shortly after her mother-in-law died of cancer. The woman was on vacation at a beach resort with her own mother and daughter.
I am walking on the beach in a somewhat remote area where I had not walked before. My mother-in-law was sitting on a bench. It seemed very real. She has her real hair and not the wig she wore after surgery. She says: “Isn’t this a beautiful place?”
The dream was so vivid the woman returned to the same spot the next day. She could still recall the sound of her mother-in-law. Little interpretation is required. The woman missed her loved one and wished that she too was in a beautiful place.
A 40 year old woman had a work related dream.
I am driving my car. In the rear view mirror I see another car approaching from the rear. The car is an Enterprise rental car. I see the big E on the side. The car is weaving all over the road. The car passes me. I keep on driving. The car regains control and slows down as I approach it.
The woman’s immediate work supervisor is a man named Ed. He is a large, intimidating man. He typically rents Enterprise cars for consultants. He has been harassing her. The woman believes that Ed is out of control. She fears for her own mental health and considers a job change but decides to stay (drive) on. The dream is a wish fulfillment that both she and Ed will re-gain control. Fred believed that to some extent all dreams were wish fulfillments.
Collecting, recording, and analyzing dreams are things that can be done by a motivated dreamer. Collecting is the hardest part because we forget dreams almost immediately upon awakening. You might try it with your own dreams if you are adventurous. It is not a substitute for psychotherapy for those who require treatment but it can be useful and can serve as an adjunct to therapy. Recollection of dreams will involve some degree of inaccuracy. Only a small fragment of dreams is actually remembered. Remember it is not the dream itself that is critical but the associations to the dream. Most dreams you do recall will be those that occur just before awakening. A really dedicated dream collector will write them down immediately. If not, tell the dream to someone or rehearse it in your mind before it fades. First write the narrative in the first person, present tense. Then construct a chart to use in analysis of meaning. First give the dream a title that reflects the story, “Lost in the City” for example. List your associations to the images. You should wind up with a string of related associations. When two ideas occur together they are likely linked in some way—they occurred together in time or place or they share some similarity. Ask yourself pertinent question, e.g., what do sunglasses remind me of?” ”What do ice cream cones mean to me?” ‘Did anything related to soccer balls occur to me recently?” It is often the case that a dream fragment refers to some experience during the day, even trial experiences or observations. Freud call these the “day residue.” Which may form the nucleus of the dream. Recall your feelings—either thosel during the dream or what you feel in thinking about the dream imagery. A strong emotion occurring with an insignificant dream may mean the dream was more significant than it appears at first glance. Dream sequence may be confusing since dreams condense events and are distorted.
Analysis depends upon your creativity and capacity for self-awareness. Don’t worry about making false interpretations. The process of self-discovery is valuable in its own right. When you make a meaningful interpretation you will feel that it fits. We call this process “insight.” Emotions may reveal the true meaning of the dream, perhaps the direct opposite of what is being conveyed. Dreams may represent wish fulfillments. They may merely be expressions in graphic terms of some puzzling problem you have been obsessing over during the day. Consider the dream in terms of what is currently going on in your life. Why did you have this particular dream just now?
Dreams allow you to examine contradictions. No one is all good or all bad. Sometimes you play the role of protective parent, sometimes the rebellious child, sometimes the clown. Every character in the dream may be you in different and contradictory roles.
You can accept these roles, discard them or integrate them into your personality. Some dreams mean nothing. Consider your interpretations to be tested in waking life.
So what does all of this mean? What use are dreams to us? Can we use fantasy and dream imagery to effect life changes? Since Freud, therapists have made use of dreams to help patients gain insight. One technique in psychotherapy is the have the individual recreate the dream in a waking state and provide a different, more favorable ending. Despite all our technology the human mind is still a mysterious and largely unknown
entity. Since dreams depend upon memory and associations, since they draw upon our concepts and the way in which we organize perceptions, an infinite number of possibilities exist. We have the capacity to restructure our concepts to alter self-defeating views of ourselves and our world. Planning, problem-solving, decision-making all draw upon creative energy. Why relegate the imagery we produce during sleeping as irrelevant? Dreams may express another dimension of our personality that we have learned to suppress. When we encounter static on the radio we first try to tune the station in better, rather than just turn it off. Why can’t you get that promotion, hit the home run, write the novel, learn to fly, climb the Himalayas, or be the first female president of the United States? Dream it, then make it happen.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Residential treatment center
America's treatment of at-risk, emotionally disturbed children receives attention periodically in the media as well as at national conferences, workshops, task forces, and the the professional literature. Solutions are offered, successful programs reported. Sensitivities of educators, child welfare workers, clinicians, and the general public are aroused. Yet the problem continues. Today's solutions become tomorrow's failures. Thousands of cast off children are referred each year to foster homes, residential treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, or juvenile detention.
Some of these children somehow survive and become responsible adults. Others remain on the fring of an affluent society, trapped within the bonds of drugs, poverty, unemployment, and a welfare system designed to help them but often perpetuating their problems from one generation to the next.
Five years ago I left a residential treatment center which I had helped to structure. It was typical of other centers funded nationally by child welfare agencies. Many of the children were streetwise kids from the inner city. Most were the products of broken homes and dysfunctional families. Most had suffered physical and sexual abuse. All had psychiatric diagnoses. All were emotionally vulnerable, damaged, easily led, scared, tough, belligerent, "in-your-face" children, old beyond their years. The vignettes, poems, and stories which will ensue were written at the time I worked in the program. I did not publish them at the time because the children might have been identified. That seems highly unlikely now. I will pepper this blog with some of these now dated but still relevant pieces. Today I help provide mental health services to a school district in a somewhat economically distressed area. I see the same problems that I became familiar with before. Perhaps in a few years I will present these stories as well. Today I remember Tommy.
He shakes down older folk for cash.
He stole a twenty dollar bill
And Mary hickeyed up his neck.
Abused repeatedly by men,
Just fourteen but he too has become An abuser
Passing the baton to future toughs,
An endless relay race.
Toughest kid on the wing,
Mom visited today
Broken toothed crone with four broken kids.
(Four too many for her to cope.)
So he cried when she left
And clutched his teddy bear at night.
Some of these children somehow survive and become responsible adults. Others remain on the fring of an affluent society, trapped within the bonds of drugs, poverty, unemployment, and a welfare system designed to help them but often perpetuating their problems from one generation to the next.
Five years ago I left a residential treatment center which I had helped to structure. It was typical of other centers funded nationally by child welfare agencies. Many of the children were streetwise kids from the inner city. Most were the products of broken homes and dysfunctional families. Most had suffered physical and sexual abuse. All had psychiatric diagnoses. All were emotionally vulnerable, damaged, easily led, scared, tough, belligerent, "in-your-face" children, old beyond their years. The vignettes, poems, and stories which will ensue were written at the time I worked in the program. I did not publish them at the time because the children might have been identified. That seems highly unlikely now. I will pepper this blog with some of these now dated but still relevant pieces. Today I help provide mental health services to a school district in a somewhat economically distressed area. I see the same problems that I became familiar with before. Perhaps in a few years I will present these stories as well. Today I remember Tommy.
He shakes down older folk for cash.
He stole a twenty dollar bill
And Mary hickeyed up his neck.
Abused repeatedly by men,
Just fourteen but he too has become An abuser
Passing the baton to future toughs,
An endless relay race.
Toughest kid on the wing,
Mom visited today
Broken toothed crone with four broken kids.
(Four too many for her to cope.)
So he cried when she left
And clutched his teddy bear at night.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Super
A Polack they called Mr. Rock,
Captain of the 3280 vessel,
Fixer of stopped up sinks, trimmer of hedge,
Rent collector.
To us a fixture, like some old cellar pipe,
Indestructible.
The day the furnace exploded, spewing steam
He emerged, blackened, bruised, silent, unbent.
A stern chisel of a man, and yet
He shaped of rifle for me
From some some old cast off board.
A beautiful thing, smooth to touch.
Then, without notice, he died.
Alex, his son, in Navy blues,
Stood solid by the door
Shaking hands,
Continuing the line of stone.
Captain of the 3280 vessel,
Fixer of stopped up sinks, trimmer of hedge,
Rent collector.
To us a fixture, like some old cellar pipe,
Indestructible.
The day the furnace exploded, spewing steam
He emerged, blackened, bruised, silent, unbent.
A stern chisel of a man, and yet
He shaped of rifle for me
From some some old cast off board.
A beautiful thing, smooth to touch.
Then, without notice, he died.
Alex, his son, in Navy blues,
Stood solid by the door
Shaking hands,
Continuing the line of stone.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Home movies, 1938
Pedaling the shiny three wheeled Ivy Johnson
A five year old from a flickering past
Aimlessly traces circles on the rug.
Silver-haired matriarch on high backed chair
Crochets by incandescence and H. V. Kaltenborn,
As waning sun through slotted blinds
Sketches snake leaves on the wall
And I wave shyly to a future self.
A five year old from a flickering past
Aimlessly traces circles on the rug.
Silver-haired matriarch on high backed chair
Crochets by incandescence and H. V. Kaltenborn,
As waning sun through slotted blinds
Sketches snake leaves on the wall
And I wave shyly to a future self.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Of bugs, bats, and barn swallows
We spent the weekend with Joyce's brother and sister-in-law in a little known hamlet in western Pennsylvania. Shinglehouse, about 22 miles from a larger little known town called Coudesport, is the home of Joyce's father and stepmother. The highlight of the weekend for Joyce, Verne and Cathy was spotting a blackbear feeding itself from a corn crib left for it by hunters. In a previous trip Cathy had encountered and photographed close-up a twelve point bull elk. Not being an animal lover, and lacking the visual acuity to be a bear spotter in the woods, I was not terribly impressed but feigned mild interest. More exciting to me was the cookout we engaged in that evening on the many acred spread where our bed and breakfast was located. Verne had managed to start a fire despite rain-sogged wood from a storm that afternoon. The wood burner, a metalic cage-like contraption, was in a shelter near the entrance to the property. I was a little wary about the lightning strikes I saw to the west but the attraction of the cheese, nuts, marschmallows and wine prevailed. Making our way down the now darkened road we found the shelter and the light switch. Once the light was on and with Verne heroically chopping wood for the fire, we were attacked by an army of moths, and various other unnamed flying creatures. Before I could complain, the cavalry came to the rescue in the form of several bats and two barn swallows. With alacrity and great skill they made short work of the bugs, grabbing them in mid-flight until in a few minutes we were bug free. Not to be outdone I made short work of the Camenbert, cashews and Savignon blanc. Before we could break out the marshmallows for roasting, a lightning bolt, followed immediately by a monster thunder clap announced the arrival of the storm directly over us. The rains began--not gentle, warm, summer rain but monsoon-like driving torrents. Cathy, traumatized early in life by a lightning bolt striking close by her, immediately made for the car. Verne and Joyce, wanted to stay and watch the storm. I, more prudent than the others, insisted we return to the farm house. We had two unbrellas for the three of us.
As Joyce and I found our way down the now treacherous gravel path, I encouraged her to walk a little faster before the next lightning strike. "What are you complaining about?" she screamed. "I'm carrying the metal umbrella." Arriving at the covered bridge leading to the farrm house she asked me to release my tight grip of her arm. I was holding the wine bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. "You're holding me" I pointed out.
As Joyce and I found our way down the now treacherous gravel path, I encouraged her to walk a little faster before the next lightning strike. "What are you complaining about?" she screamed. "I'm carrying the metal umbrella." Arriving at the covered bridge leading to the farrm house she asked me to release my tight grip of her arm. I was holding the wine bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. "You're holding me" I pointed out.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Park
Shaded oasis in a concrete world
Where I marked my milestones.
Benches worn thin as mothers rocked carriages.
Grassy knolls cushioning first steps.
Sandpiles to shovel.
I pedaled three wheels down earthen paths,
Touch tackled on the green,
Sledded around trees,
Encountered girls smoking Chesterfields.
Woodlands of the Bronx
Mother of parks,
Archetype of all that grows.
And still I seek the green leaves of time.
Where I marked my milestones.
Benches worn thin as mothers rocked carriages.
Grassy knolls cushioning first steps.
Sandpiles to shovel.
I pedaled three wheels down earthen paths,
Touch tackled on the green,
Sledded around trees,
Encountered girls smoking Chesterfields.
Woodlands of the Bronx
Mother of parks,
Archetype of all that grows.
And still I seek the green leaves of time.
Hallway boys
We boys at twelve,
Rowdy, loud, aggressive,
Riding elevators, punching buttons, scratching grafitti.
Who will let us in?
Playful boys, hiding Luckies in secret places
Rubbing fingers with privet leaves to hide the odor.
Sharing obscene humor, punching shoulders.
Basement to roof, we owned the building.
We boys of 3280,
Hallway boys now grown.
The halls remain as
Voices of a thousand pretenders
Mask echoes of our youth.
Rowdy, loud, aggressive,
Riding elevators, punching buttons, scratching grafitti.
Who will let us in?
Playful boys, hiding Luckies in secret places
Rubbing fingers with privet leaves to hide the odor.
Sharing obscene humor, punching shoulders.
Basement to roof, we owned the building.
We boys of 3280,
Hallway boys now grown.
The halls remain as
Voices of a thousand pretenders
Mask echoes of our youth.
Monday, June 23, 2008
My problem with school psychology
I have worked most of my professional life as a clinical psychologist but when, after six months of retirement, an opportunity arose to work part time one summer doing evaluations for a school district, I seized the chance. Somehow I was already certified. The position continued year-round for the next five years, providing me with a lclose-up look at school psych from the inside. By the fifth year I was able to re-structure my position to avoid testing and concentrate for the most part on the provision of soreely needed mental helth services. My comments here admitedly are jaundiced by the bias that school psychs should be bettter trained clinically. Qualify that statement by the admission that I was a lousy school psch, at least insofar as my report writing, because I refused to follow the state -dictated format. I think my test interpretations, clinical judgement, and interactions with students and families were fine.
That said, let me clarify that it is not school psychs that I am criticizing so much as their training, the programs they graduate from, the state mandates, amd the roles they are relgated to within schools. School psychs are for the most part hard working, conscientious,
caring persons. Unfortunately, they are overloaded with testing demands and at the mercy of administrators, students, parents and their advocates and attorneys.
So what's my gripe? My most general complaint is that there is a disconect between school psycholgy and psychology as a discipline. School psychs deal with thorny issues concerning the parameters of thinking and perception-issues that have a long history of philosophical relevance and psychological background. School pychs make judgements based upon statistical and psychometric principles. They deal with significant issues of test reliability, predictive validity, constrruct validity, statistical significance and power, clinical prediction (including probabilities of Type I and Type II errors), and neuological underpinings. Yet they apply weak and hackneyed models of inference and make judgements based on relatvely unreliable tests and subtests. They make use of concepts of functional analysis of behavior without applying accepted procedures for doing functional analysis. They employ hypothetical constructs unanchored to antecedent conditions or outcomes. They fail to test the utility of their interventions. They over-test because parents demand it.
My second criticism is that school psychs run scared. They qualify any potentially meaningful conclusions with "weasel words" such as "may" or "possibly" or "test results are similar to those found in children who..." They are afraid to express opinions for fear that they will be required to testify in due process hearings and face cross examinations. They learn to behave this way in graduate schools. For the same reason they are afraid to diagnose.
In Pennsylvania, school psychs are required to use a standard ER form for a comprehensive
assessment. Periodically, Department of Education officials revise this form--usually making it longer and more cumbersome. Each paragraph requires that certain questions be answered,
e.g., "Was the testing procedure performed under typical testing conditions?" Rather than asking for a unified intergated report describing a whole person, theER elicitis a chopped up Mickey Mouse report. Nowhere does the ER form ask about personality and emotional characteristics.
School psychs have acquired an image as testers. This not by design. Many would prefer to do counseling with students or develop programs or even to do research and writing. There just isn't enough time. The State mandates that reports have to be submitted with sixty work days of referral in order for the district to remain in compliance with regulations. So school psychs test and test and test. They are considered to be little more than technicians. That is not necessarily bad. There was a time when psychometricians were more respected in schools.
But when any activity is engaged in exclusively, it becomes mechanized, dull, routine, and often boring.
Facilitation of meetings by a leader is not taught in school psychology programs. It ought to be. Business schools give it more significance. School psychs are often asked to conduct ER meetings
since their report takes up the major part of the meeting time and forms the basis for individual education plans (IEPs). A good facilitator starts a meeting on time, explains goals for the meeting, keeps the meeting moving to accomplish those goals, sets an ending time and sticks to it. I have seldom seen an ER/IEP meeting run by those standards. More typically people walk into a metting at any time, say their piece without benbefit of hearing what has already transpired, and leave when they are through. Some meetings are interminable.
Tests themselves have deficiencies and areoften not the last word in presenting a profile for the child. WISC subscale scores are not as reliable as the overall factor scores. Furthermore the constructs formulated often have little validity. The concept of specific learning disability is both fuzzy and circular. One approach is based on alleged strengths and weaknesses, using WISC profile analysis. Subtest differences are normal. A straight line profile does not occur. and it is only the extreme difference scores that may be meaningful. Another rationale for LD is a discrepancy between testing cognitive functioning and school achievement tests--usually reading ir math.The thinking is circular. A child who is not reading is labeled as having a reading diusability. How do we know he has a reading disability? Because he is not reading. The diagnosis justifies additional costs incurred by special education but the process of diagnosis is lame.
Interventions occur in the form of resource rooms, LD or ED classrooms, special accommodations during testing and perhaps motivational schemes in the form of positive reinforcement. Sophisitcated behavioral interventions are rare. Data collection and evidence-based procedures are even less frequently used.
This critique may be unfairly exaggerated to make a point. It certainly will not win me friends amomg my school psych colleagues. A similar examination of clinical psychology practice may be equally critical. Yet, if it stimlates some thinking and discussion it will have served a purpose.
Improvement in some of these areas would be a step in the direction of reclaiming professional identy of school psychologists.
That said, let me clarify that it is not school psychs that I am criticizing so much as their training, the programs they graduate from, the state mandates, amd the roles they are relgated to within schools. School psychs are for the most part hard working, conscientious,
caring persons. Unfortunately, they are overloaded with testing demands and at the mercy of administrators, students, parents and their advocates and attorneys.
So what's my gripe? My most general complaint is that there is a disconect between school psycholgy and psychology as a discipline. School psychs deal with thorny issues concerning the parameters of thinking and perception-issues that have a long history of philosophical relevance and psychological background. School pychs make judgements based upon statistical and psychometric principles. They deal with significant issues of test reliability, predictive validity, constrruct validity, statistical significance and power, clinical prediction (including probabilities of Type I and Type II errors), and neuological underpinings. Yet they apply weak and hackneyed models of inference and make judgements based on relatvely unreliable tests and subtests. They make use of concepts of functional analysis of behavior without applying accepted procedures for doing functional analysis. They employ hypothetical constructs unanchored to antecedent conditions or outcomes. They fail to test the utility of their interventions. They over-test because parents demand it.
My second criticism is that school psychs run scared. They qualify any potentially meaningful conclusions with "weasel words" such as "may" or "possibly" or "test results are similar to those found in children who..." They are afraid to express opinions for fear that they will be required to testify in due process hearings and face cross examinations. They learn to behave this way in graduate schools. For the same reason they are afraid to diagnose.
In Pennsylvania, school psychs are required to use a standard ER form for a comprehensive
assessment. Periodically, Department of Education officials revise this form--usually making it longer and more cumbersome. Each paragraph requires that certain questions be answered,
e.g., "Was the testing procedure performed under typical testing conditions?" Rather than asking for a unified intergated report describing a whole person, theER elicitis a chopped up Mickey Mouse report. Nowhere does the ER form ask about personality and emotional characteristics.
School psychs have acquired an image as testers. This not by design. Many would prefer to do counseling with students or develop programs or even to do research and writing. There just isn't enough time. The State mandates that reports have to be submitted with sixty work days of referral in order for the district to remain in compliance with regulations. So school psychs test and test and test. They are considered to be little more than technicians. That is not necessarily bad. There was a time when psychometricians were more respected in schools.
But when any activity is engaged in exclusively, it becomes mechanized, dull, routine, and often boring.
Facilitation of meetings by a leader is not taught in school psychology programs. It ought to be. Business schools give it more significance. School psychs are often asked to conduct ER meetings
since their report takes up the major part of the meeting time and forms the basis for individual education plans (IEPs). A good facilitator starts a meeting on time, explains goals for the meeting, keeps the meeting moving to accomplish those goals, sets an ending time and sticks to it. I have seldom seen an ER/IEP meeting run by those standards. More typically people walk into a metting at any time, say their piece without benbefit of hearing what has already transpired, and leave when they are through. Some meetings are interminable.
Tests themselves have deficiencies and areoften not the last word in presenting a profile for the child. WISC subscale scores are not as reliable as the overall factor scores. Furthermore the constructs formulated often have little validity. The concept of specific learning disability is both fuzzy and circular. One approach is based on alleged strengths and weaknesses, using WISC profile analysis. Subtest differences are normal. A straight line profile does not occur. and it is only the extreme difference scores that may be meaningful. Another rationale for LD is a discrepancy between testing cognitive functioning and school achievement tests--usually reading ir math.The thinking is circular. A child who is not reading is labeled as having a reading diusability. How do we know he has a reading disability? Because he is not reading. The diagnosis justifies additional costs incurred by special education but the process of diagnosis is lame.
Interventions occur in the form of resource rooms, LD or ED classrooms, special accommodations during testing and perhaps motivational schemes in the form of positive reinforcement. Sophisitcated behavioral interventions are rare. Data collection and evidence-based procedures are even less frequently used.
This critique may be unfairly exaggerated to make a point. It certainly will not win me friends amomg my school psych colleagues. A similar examination of clinical psychology practice may be equally critical. Yet, if it stimlates some thinking and discussion it will have served a purpose.
Improvement in some of these areas would be a step in the direction of reclaiming professional identy of school psychologists.
School upon the parkway
New York City Schools, numbered not named,
Brick boxes and yards behind chain link fences,
Backboards and baselines.
P.S. 80 was the queen
Columned facade on tree-lined boulevard,
Funneling from ghettos
Like ink into wells on wooden desks.
Cursive letters over slate,
Father George above the flag.
Throught fifth story windows I watched
A thousand stickball games until
Snow purified the coarse concrete.
I heard the whistles as classes filed
Through grafittied doors.
Inside the tyrants and crones banged heads
While more gentle souls gave silver stars
As we traced arcs in Pennmanship.
Fridays we sat assembled,
White shirts and blue knit ties Girls in middy blouses
Singing of our school upon the parkway
In voices full of glee...e...e.
But not Donald Black who cursed a teacher
And made her cry,
Or Mr. Roche who threw a chisel,
Or crazy Shuman who
Prepared my tooth for root canal
And never left Miss Martin's "ungraded" class.
I could not skip in kindergarten
But I skipped 1B
But couldn't do cordwork.
Boys went to shop and girls did cooking
And we learnbed Amarylis and Country gardens
And planted a tree on Arbor Day,
And sang "Holy, holy, holy"
I was a "listener."
I worshipped Arlene Messinger
From across the eighth grade room Took her to the senior prom and gave her tea roses,
But never spoke with her again.
Graduation and my friend Siegel signed my album
"May your face never turn the color of this page
As I said goodby to our school upon the Parkway.
Brick boxes and yards behind chain link fences,
Backboards and baselines.
P.S. 80 was the queen
Columned facade on tree-lined boulevard,
Funneling from ghettos
Like ink into wells on wooden desks.
Cursive letters over slate,
Father George above the flag.
Throught fifth story windows I watched
A thousand stickball games until
Snow purified the coarse concrete.
I heard the whistles as classes filed
Through grafittied doors.
Inside the tyrants and crones banged heads
While more gentle souls gave silver stars
As we traced arcs in Pennmanship.
Fridays we sat assembled,
White shirts and blue knit ties Girls in middy blouses
Singing of our school upon the parkway
In voices full of glee...e...e.
But not Donald Black who cursed a teacher
And made her cry,
Or Mr. Roche who threw a chisel,
Or crazy Shuman who
Prepared my tooth for root canal
And never left Miss Martin's "ungraded" class.
I could not skip in kindergarten
But I skipped 1B
But couldn't do cordwork.
Boys went to shop and girls did cooking
And we learnbed Amarylis and Country gardens
And planted a tree on Arbor Day,
And sang "Holy, holy, holy"
I was a "listener."
I worshipped Arlene Messinger
From across the eighth grade room Took her to the senior prom and gave her tea roses,
But never spoke with her again.
Graduation and my friend Siegel signed my album
"May your face never turn the color of this page
As I said goodby to our school upon the Parkway.
Friday, June 20, 2008
One tooth less
I take good care of my teeth.I brush after meals. I floss. I visit my dentist, Dr. G. twice a year. He is a perfectionist, to a fault. He never quits. Two hours is a typical session with me. He has large hands. I have a small mouth. I call him Dr. Relentless. He doesn't understand why I complain. "How long would you keep someone in the chair?" I ask. "As long as it takes."
Last week I suffered through an hour and a half of scaling and x-rays. I thought I was home free until he examined the films. He pulled no punches.
"Oh my gosh. This is terrible. You've got a cavity on the root of your last molar. I can't even get to it. I don't know if I can do this."
"You're really instilling confidence. I guess I'll have to have it pulled."
"No, no, no. We'll try. It's always good to try."
He shoved the x-ray in my face.
"I don't need to see it."
It was in a food pocket where I couldn't brush or floss well. He jammed a probe inside and I elevated.
"Why did you do that?"
"I wanted you to see it was really there."
"I believed you."
Yesterday I was back for what I knew would be an ordeal. He took another x-rtay to search for an abscess or nerve involvemenmt.
"If I can save this it will be a miracle."
True, he anesthetized me but an hour and a half of drilling is still no fun. His nurse, Martha, arrived late as usual.
"What are you doing to Marvin?"
"Darned if I know. I can't see a thing in here."
Ten minutes later, despite the anesthesia, I became intimately acquainted with my tooth neurons--every cell body, axon, and dendrite.
"OK, I've exposed it. It's got to come out right away. You really don't need that tooth."
"I don't need my ear lobes either but I prefer to keep them."
He walked me across the hall to the oral surgeon, carrying the x-ray. I asked for a local because I'm a control freak and I might have to fight back.
"It's a tough extraction," Dr. Yankum explained, "right up against a filling in thge next tooth. It's hollow from all the drilling you've just had. It'll probably crack. Several roots. I've got to drill some more and then cut the gum. Very difficult."
"I've heard enough difficult today, doc. Just do it and tell me later. Besides I'm tough. I'm Dr. G's patient."
His nurse laughed but he didn't see the humor. Another hour and a half and the last root was removed. He kept asking how I was doing.
"Marvelously. Just finish. I'll handle the emotional part."
As I left the surgeon's office Dr. G's nurse stopped me.
"Do you want to schedule your cleaning now?"
"Martha, go far away and leave me alone."
Last week I suffered through an hour and a half of scaling and x-rays. I thought I was home free until he examined the films. He pulled no punches.
"Oh my gosh. This is terrible. You've got a cavity on the root of your last molar. I can't even get to it. I don't know if I can do this."
"You're really instilling confidence. I guess I'll have to have it pulled."
"No, no, no. We'll try. It's always good to try."
He shoved the x-ray in my face.
"I don't need to see it."
It was in a food pocket where I couldn't brush or floss well. He jammed a probe inside and I elevated.
"Why did you do that?"
"I wanted you to see it was really there."
"I believed you."
Yesterday I was back for what I knew would be an ordeal. He took another x-rtay to search for an abscess or nerve involvemenmt.
"If I can save this it will be a miracle."
True, he anesthetized me but an hour and a half of drilling is still no fun. His nurse, Martha, arrived late as usual.
"What are you doing to Marvin?"
"Darned if I know. I can't see a thing in here."
Ten minutes later, despite the anesthesia, I became intimately acquainted with my tooth neurons--every cell body, axon, and dendrite.
"OK, I've exposed it. It's got to come out right away. You really don't need that tooth."
"I don't need my ear lobes either but I prefer to keep them."
He walked me across the hall to the oral surgeon, carrying the x-ray. I asked for a local because I'm a control freak and I might have to fight back.
"It's a tough extraction," Dr. Yankum explained, "right up against a filling in thge next tooth. It's hollow from all the drilling you've just had. It'll probably crack. Several roots. I've got to drill some more and then cut the gum. Very difficult."
"I've heard enough difficult today, doc. Just do it and tell me later. Besides I'm tough. I'm Dr. G's patient."
His nurse laughed but he didn't see the humor. Another hour and a half and the last root was removed. He kept asking how I was doing.
"Marvelously. Just finish. I'll handle the emotional part."
As I left the surgeon's office Dr. G's nurse stopped me.
"Do you want to schedule your cleaning now?"
"Martha, go far away and leave me alone."
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Country Roads
Cities consist of sidewalks and manicured parks and tall apartment buildings. This was all I knew as a child in the Bronx except for the marvelous two week vacations each summer in the Jewish Catskill Mountains. We looked forward, my sister and I, to our annual escape from New York City heat and humidity to the hills and lakes and simple villages of what we referred to as "the country." White Lake (later renamed to overcome the stigma of Al Capone using it for a burial ground for his hits) Konionga Lake, Kiamescha Lake, Loch Sheldrake, Middletown, Ferndale, Monticello, Livingston Maner meant small hotels (we couldn't afford Grossinger's or Brown's)with Kosher cooking, nightly entertainment, and walks to town on country roads. Later I went to summer camp on Lake Como, Pennsylvania, near the New York border. College brought me to Ithaca which was less interesting to me than the surrounding rural farms. I was a camp counselor near Lake Placid. I bought property in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, made my own lake (all right pond) and walked more roads. John Denver sang to me of "Rocky Mountain High" but I cherished my own images. Recently I moved to a rural Chester County address, a development to be sure, but a five minute walk to horse farms, cattle, chickens, even alpaca and buffalo, almost in my own back yard.
My grandchildren, on the other hand, have grown up in suburban and now rural areas. Except for a few brief visits to Radio City or the Philadelphia Zoo they know little of city life. This fact was brought home clearly last week. I realized that our three year old grandson Reagan had never seen a sidewalk. When my wife, the world's most sought after baby-sitter, was walking him to our commuity pool he became enchanted with the sidewalks, throwing his gear, running ahead in pure delight. "I love your long white roads here, grandmom."
We are comfortable with what we have always known, I suppose, but true excitement is aroused by the novel, the unique, the unexpected, and unfamiliar.
My grandchildren, on the other hand, have grown up in suburban and now rural areas. Except for a few brief visits to Radio City or the Philadelphia Zoo they know little of city life. This fact was brought home clearly last week. I realized that our three year old grandson Reagan had never seen a sidewalk. When my wife, the world's most sought after baby-sitter, was walking him to our commuity pool he became enchanted with the sidewalks, throwing his gear, running ahead in pure delight. "I love your long white roads here, grandmom."
We are comfortable with what we have always known, I suppose, but true excitement is aroused by the novel, the unique, the unexpected, and unfamiliar.
Olinville 2-2547
Forever engraved on some deep cerebral sulcus,
More than a number, a name, an exchange, an identity,
Not to be punched robotically on some enmaciated pocket toy,
But caressed with gentle rotary care,
Feeling each digital click
Kinesthetically in some deep mucle sense
Connoting Home.
Still today on ancient closet relic,
Secretely I dial up visions of lives long gone.
More than a number, a name, an exchange, an identity,
Not to be punched robotically on some enmaciated pocket toy,
But caressed with gentle rotary care,
Feeling each digital click
Kinesthetically in some deep mucle sense
Connoting Home.
Still today on ancient closet relic,
Secretely I dial up visions of lives long gone.
Bronx love rite: 1940
Together they sortie,
Young mother with cart,
Whitened matriarch behind pushing two year old.
Wheels click over concrete squares.
Hurry past 205th, terminal to the underground,
Hang-out of vagrants.
Down Bainbridge, the Avenue of Plenty.
Fill the basket. An unseeded twist from Hanscoms,
A quarter pound of Daitches lox, slice it thin.
Ground chuck from the butcher Olash, Kosher Bosher.
Saunter by the marqueed Mecca,
Celluloid escape from Rinso White.
Check out the double feature.
At last the Great Atlantic and Pacific.
Plain milk a penny cheaper.
Scoop out the cream.
A sacred ritual this,
Maternal devotion,
Foraging mission abroad,
To nourish and sustain.
Young mother with cart,
Whitened matriarch behind pushing two year old.
Wheels click over concrete squares.
Hurry past 205th, terminal to the underground,
Hang-out of vagrants.
Down Bainbridge, the Avenue of Plenty.
Fill the basket. An unseeded twist from Hanscoms,
A quarter pound of Daitches lox, slice it thin.
Ground chuck from the butcher Olash, Kosher Bosher.
Saunter by the marqueed Mecca,
Celluloid escape from Rinso White.
Check out the double feature.
At last the Great Atlantic and Pacific.
Plain milk a penny cheaper.
Scoop out the cream.
A sacred ritual this,
Maternal devotion,
Foraging mission abroad,
To nourish and sustain.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
3280
Imperious bastion of respectability,
Six levels of arrival to the middle class,
After the Great Depression,
Dumbwaiter deliveries to families encased in steel,
Observing the world through peepholes,
Incinerating waste in basement crypts.
We scratched obscenities on elevators to the roof,
And dared to lean over.
Where babies rocked
And single girls bent sunrays to face.
We roamed the dark recesses of the underground
In awe of furnace furies
And tagged each other in back alleys.
Our lives, time-limited, expendable, Defined brief moments ago, it seems
In this eternal fortress of forever.
Six levels of arrival to the middle class,
After the Great Depression,
Dumbwaiter deliveries to families encased in steel,
Observing the world through peepholes,
Incinerating waste in basement crypts.
We scratched obscenities on elevators to the roof,
And dared to lean over.
Where babies rocked
And single girls bent sunrays to face.
We roamed the dark recesses of the underground
In awe of furnace furies
And tagged each other in back alleys.
Our lives, time-limited, expendable, Defined brief moments ago, it seems
In this eternal fortress of forever.
Bird altar
I'm not much of a carpenter but I'm a wannabe. I like to use old fashioned hand tools. Not as fast but I don't cut my fingers off. So when we moved to our new home in the boonies I was itching to build something. My wife, away on a business trip, fed birds in our old house. On arriving, I erected her feeders on a hill where we could watch them from the side porch. It was adjacent to a wooded area and a thicket of berry bushes. We immediately attracted scores of finches, jays, cardinals, mourning doves, chicadees, even some bluebirds. I thought I would surprise her with a feeding table, similar to one I had seen in a bird book. In an hour I had completed the project. I nailed it to a wooden stake left by the builders on the property line. I sat down with my binoculars that evening to observe the feeding frenzy I was confident would ensue. Nary a bird went near my creation. But that wasn't the worst of it. I didn't need magnification to see that I had erected, not a bird feeder, but a crucifix. The much too narrow feeding tray made a perfect cross on the upright. It resembled a gravesite...as if I had killed my absent wife and planted her on the hill. I have nothing against religious symbols but I am Jewish and this edifice made me somewhat uneasy. Hastily, I pulled down the cross, widening the feedtray. After re-erection I added dead branches and brush to disguise the base. Still no avian takers, though a chipmonk showed some interest.
My wife returned the next day and questioned why I had built an altar on the property. My son thought it resembled the preparation for a Klan meeting. That night I removed my masterpiece and relegated it to the scrapheap. "Must be Jewish birds" I lamented to the chipmonk.
"La chaim" I thought I heard him reply.
My wife returned the next day and questioned why I had built an altar on the property. My son thought it resembled the preparation for a Klan meeting. That night I removed my masterpiece and relegated it to the scrapheap. "Must be Jewish birds" I lamented to the chipmonk.
"La chaim" I thought I heard him reply.
No substitute
My blog name-Psychwrite-has two meanings. The most obvious reference is that I am by profession and training a psychologist and I like to write. The second meaning is that much of my writing is psychological. This blogsite will deal with everyday issues encountered by a practicing clinical psychologist. Yet this particular psychologiost also spends a considerable amount of time engaging in what he hopes is creative writing. So expect to see efforts in both directions.
In retrospect, writing traces back to my earliest years. Neither
of my parents were college educated. Yet my mother, a bookkeeper in her earliest working years, prided herself on her ability to write--not creatively but for practical, everyday purposes. In those pre-antibiotic days we were prone to various minor illnesses requiring a parental note to return to school. The "grippe" would require ten days in bed. "Please excuse my son Marvin for having been absent on March 13th. He had a slight cold and had to remain at home." Grammatically correct but also carefully worded for precision. Mom had to convince the teacher that this was no capricious absence but one necessitated by genuine illness. "From a cold anything could come" my mother would warn us. Yet the illness couldn't be sufficiently serious to require a doctor's note. "Slight cold" would serve the purpose.
My college years at Cornell are largely a blur. I hated my chemistry major
courses but was turned on to writing essays in freshman Enmglish and loved English literature
my junior year. In grad school my dissertation adviser scrawled over the first draft of my doctoral thesis "Marvin, there is no substitute for a simple declarative sentence. Read Strunk & White." I never wrote another run-on sentence. The years I served as Assistant to the President at the residential treatment facility were stressful but I learned some important lessons from very bright and talented people. Dr. C. frequently asked my to write some of his reprts. "If you can't say what you have to say on one page" he commanded, "it's not worth saying." I began to appreciate good poetry.
I began serious writing shortly after receiving my doctorate. Although I was a clinical psychology major at Penn, the program was largely a training ground for experimental psychologists and academdicians. Empiricism was the prevailing zeitgeist and publication the sole road to success. Research training eclipsed clinical pursuits. During my early professional career I remained true to my training and performed research investigations in mental retardation, building my vita with publications, mostly in mental retardation journals. After several years I began to realize it wasn't the research that intrigued me but the writing. I worked on two books. The first was a compilation of historical papers dealing with the origins of programs for teaching and training mentally retarded persons. It was published as a two volume "History of Mental Retardation." The second was a small volume, largely autobiographical, dealing with my work as a psychologist. "Notes and Blots" was a fun book to write. It sold 43 copies when published in 1976 but used copies are still kicking around on Amazon's book list. I purchase some myself to give to friends. I began writing everyday. When my children were small I tried, unsuccessfully to be Dr. Seuss. I wrote annecdotes that sometimes found their way into the Sunday Supplement of the Philadelphia Bulletin. My collection of unpublished writings grew into a closetfull of manuscripts that I carry with me from one move to the next, to the chagrin of my more tidy spouse. All of this is preamble to a variety of future blog ramblings in diverse directions.
In retrospect, writing traces back to my earliest years. Neither
of my parents were college educated. Yet my mother, a bookkeeper in her earliest working years, prided herself on her ability to write--not creatively but for practical, everyday purposes. In those pre-antibiotic days we were prone to various minor illnesses requiring a parental note to return to school. The "grippe" would require ten days in bed. "Please excuse my son Marvin for having been absent on March 13th. He had a slight cold and had to remain at home." Grammatically correct but also carefully worded for precision. Mom had to convince the teacher that this was no capricious absence but one necessitated by genuine illness. "From a cold anything could come" my mother would warn us. Yet the illness couldn't be sufficiently serious to require a doctor's note. "Slight cold" would serve the purpose.
My college years at Cornell are largely a blur. I hated my chemistry major
courses but was turned on to writing essays in freshman Enmglish and loved English literature
my junior year. In grad school my dissertation adviser scrawled over the first draft of my doctoral thesis "Marvin, there is no substitute for a simple declarative sentence. Read Strunk & White." I never wrote another run-on sentence. The years I served as Assistant to the President at the residential treatment facility were stressful but I learned some important lessons from very bright and talented people. Dr. C. frequently asked my to write some of his reprts. "If you can't say what you have to say on one page" he commanded, "it's not worth saying." I began to appreciate good poetry.
I began serious writing shortly after receiving my doctorate. Although I was a clinical psychology major at Penn, the program was largely a training ground for experimental psychologists and academdicians. Empiricism was the prevailing zeitgeist and publication the sole road to success. Research training eclipsed clinical pursuits. During my early professional career I remained true to my training and performed research investigations in mental retardation, building my vita with publications, mostly in mental retardation journals. After several years I began to realize it wasn't the research that intrigued me but the writing. I worked on two books. The first was a compilation of historical papers dealing with the origins of programs for teaching and training mentally retarded persons. It was published as a two volume "History of Mental Retardation." The second was a small volume, largely autobiographical, dealing with my work as a psychologist. "Notes and Blots" was a fun book to write. It sold 43 copies when published in 1976 but used copies are still kicking around on Amazon's book list. I purchase some myself to give to friends. I began writing everyday. When my children were small I tried, unsuccessfully to be Dr. Seuss. I wrote annecdotes that sometimes found their way into the Sunday Supplement of the Philadelphia Bulletin. My collection of unpublished writings grew into a closetfull of manuscripts that I carry with me from one move to the next, to the chagrin of my more tidy spouse. All of this is preamble to a variety of future blog ramblings in diverse directions.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Psychwrite
This is my first blog so bear with me. I am a semi-retired, doctoral level clinical psychologist with opinions. I have a rich background in clinical work, teaching, research, and administration.
I did my doctoral training at The University of Pennsylvania. I have wroked in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics, residential treatment settings for adolescents, and private practice.
I currently work half time for a school district, providing therapeutic and counseling services to high school students. I have maintained an interest in writing on psychological topics and have published twelve textbooks in psychology, habilitation, and mental retardation. Six books were written at the secondary school level for Chelsea House publishing on variousa topics including anxiety disorders, hypnosis, and dream interpretation. I have written a psychological novel called "Nightmare" and a sequel titled "Soul search." The first have been with an agent for almost a year and remains unsold. I will probably combine them in a book titled "Psychologist" and self -publish shortly. I am married, living in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and have seven grandchildren, five and below. So much for biography. Hereafter this blog will consistof opnions, experiences, and ruminations.
I did my doctoral training at The University of Pennsylvania. I have wroked in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics, residential treatment settings for adolescents, and private practice.
I currently work half time for a school district, providing therapeutic and counseling services to high school students. I have maintained an interest in writing on psychological topics and have published twelve textbooks in psychology, habilitation, and mental retardation. Six books were written at the secondary school level for Chelsea House publishing on variousa topics including anxiety disorders, hypnosis, and dream interpretation. I have written a psychological novel called "Nightmare" and a sequel titled "Soul search." The first have been with an agent for almost a year and remains unsold. I will probably combine them in a book titled "Psychologist" and self -publish shortly. I am married, living in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and have seven grandchildren, five and below. So much for biography. Hereafter this blog will consistof opnions, experiences, and ruminations.
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