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.