Catch-up

I've been negligent in maintaining this blog of late for a variety of reasons. "Shrink," my first novel, was published by Eloquent Books and, embarrassingly, and despite my many editings, was launched with dozens of my typos. These are now being corrected and a short sequel titled "Finding Jackson" is being published by PublishAmerica, so far painlessly, on my part. On the other hand, my attempt to self-publish Bronx Lyric, a short book of poetry about growing up in The Bronx, has hit a snag. My terrible computer skills do not enable me to meet the formating dermands of CreateSpace, the publisher. I wasted hours enmeshed in the vaguaries of PDFs, jpgs, and a 6X9 format, without success. All of this is my lame excuse for not maintaining this blog. I read, with some awe an almost daily blog of a writer who documents her writing and reading progress. The author is verbose to a fault, but her ability to grind out words nonethelss impressive. I am a fast write--too fast it seems to detect errors, but I don't have daily blogwrite words and never will. I'll continue to do this blog, mostly with a psychology spin, but not always, and only when I have something to say.

Nomenclature

When my father became ill in Florida with what turned out to be liver cancer and terminal he remarked, "It came on me an imblic." My sster and I interpreted the
word to be Yiddish for "devil." In my novel "Shrink" I used the phrsse with a fictionalized father of the protagonist, when he became similarly afflicted.
My long term friend Abe, more versed in Judaism than I, pointed out the error. There is no such word as "Imblic" in Yiddish. What my father likely meant, Abe suggested, was "imglik," which means accident or misforture. I disagree with Abe. My father was personalizing the evil that consumed him. The word he was probably trying to come up with was "dybbuk," which means demon. I am presently re-editing my novel which was published, due to my poor editing skill, with many typos. Imblic--occurs at least a dozen times in the book. I was going to substitute dybbuk each time but it doesn't sound right to me. Instead of making the change each time I will add an explanation at the end of the volume explaining the confusion. This error in my book is only one of many that derived from my use of autobiographical material in a fictional story.

Identity

Any writer interjects in hus work a part of his own personality and experience. This applies to any expressive behavior and is the basic assumption of projective tests of personality such as the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Test. Those who write autobiographical material reveal themselves consciously and willingly. However there are risks involved.

In my recent novel "Shrink: Odyssey of a Therapist," the beginning section describes the early life, education and training of the psychologist hero, Morrie Schwartz. I reveal in the Preface that much of the material is based on my own life, although changes were made to fit the story that ensues, which is totally fictional. I chose not to reveal which is real and which is fabrication. Once I opened the door, however, I became vulnerable. My sister was upset thatI described Morrie's parents as "cold." My own parents were not cold but I had raised doubts in my sister's mind about my true feelings and incurred criticism. In the last section of the book Morrie has a series of paranormal experiences that lead to his own psychological breakdown. My sister worried that perhaps I also was having such experiences. My wife was somewhat upset that Morrie's love interest in the book, and subsequently his wife, resembled a younger psychologist friend and colleague. In truth, the fictional character was a composite of both friend and wife. In an earlier version of the story I had killed off the hero at the end. My wife was so upset I rewrote the ending, which was good thing for I left the door open to a sequel, also to be published.

Such are the risks involved in revealing. While anyone masochistic enough to attempt to write for publication risks criticism, autobiographical references bring on a particularly personal type of censure. While I will not stop writing, I hope to be sufficiently creative in the future to seek creative inspiration in non-personal material.

Remembering the Dodgers

Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Wait 'Till Next Year is a great read for baseball fans who grew up in New York City in the late forties and early fifties. Goodwin was indoctrinated as a rabid Brooklyn Dodgers fan by her father and suffered with them through multiple seasons as National League pennant champions only to lose to their nemesis, the New York Yankees. She relates play-by-play of key games in which her heroes Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gill Hodges, Peewee Reese, and Duke Synder were outstanding stars. She attributes the origins of her historical interest to her compulsive and meticulous keeping of Dodgewr's box scores. The book also brings back the halcyon post-WWII days,blotted by the McCarthy era, the execution of the Rosenbergs, and the Korean War, none of which interfered with her mostly happy suburban childhood in Rockville Center, Long Island. Perhaps it is merely an illusion that goes along with old age, but it is refreshing to reminisce about a time when the most important concern was the outcome of a baseball game. Yes, the Phillies won the World Series and the Eagles went father than anyone dared hope but it just ain't the same.

Privatize the Post Office

When I first moved to Chester Springs I quickly located the nearest post office. It's not where my mail comes from which is 15 minutes away but only 5 minutes distant. Doesn't make much sense but good enough tomail things and I'm a frequent user. What immediately caught my attention wasthe name of the tiny office--Uwchland, P.O. The township and all the street signs read Uwchlan. No "d."
"Interesting" I thought. "This area was probably once called Uwchland. They
must have dropped the "d" to fit on roadsigns more easily." No! I checked the history of the area. It was always called Uwchlan. The post office, it seems, made a mistake in 1932 and no one bothered to correct it.

I learned yesterday that a check for $200 that I sent to a mutual fund a week ago never arrived and was not cashed. I went to the post office to learn if they knew of any mail being lost. While I waited my turn in line a woman came up behind me and asked if the post office had a stamp machine. "It doesn't," I replied "butit should." The clerk overheard the conversation and explained that there is no need for a stamp machine since every food store now sels stamps. Unable to contain myself, I interjected: "That's like the supermarket not selling milk because it's sold in the local convenience store." God forbid the post office should be convenient. The lady had to wait 10 minutes to buy a book of stamps. Oh, did I mention they new nothing about mail being mislaid and gave me a number to call?

Reductionism and neuroscience

Continuing my last blog on voodoo and neuroscience,it occurs to me that the attribution of conscious thoughts, memory, emotions and percptions solely to neural activity represents the height of arrogance by neuroscientists. All psychological processes can be "explained" on many levels--subjective, neurological, chemical, genetic. How can any one level be considered as a primary cause of these processes?
Attempting to attribute any level as the the origin of a psychological process would be equivalent to solving the chicken or the egg riddle. It can't be done. How do you explain the fact that new brain areas sometimes assume the function previously handled by damaged areas? Neuroscientists perform an important function in putting one piece of the puzzle together, but they are not psychologists. As we have already noted, nor are they statisticians.

Of neuroscience and psychology

Recently I've been going through Calvin & Ojemann's "Conversations with Neil's Brain." A neurosurgeon and neurophysiologist describe the stimulation of the brain of an epileptic brain to identify specific areas for sensation,language memory etc.
Their basic premise is that all of our cognitive, personality, and emotional functions can be "explained" or understood as nervous system activity. 'Don't waste
time trying to interpret dreams,[ they advise. 'It is merely noise in the nervous system.' The book is interesting but leaves me somewhat disturbed by its dismissive atttiude toward 150 years of psychological science. Like many in the medical sciences, they are just not interested in subjective events, let alone the philosophical implications of the mind-body problem. Even my retinologist who, saved my sight over fifteen years ago, never asks what I actually see. His examination is focussed solely on the flatness of my retina. Several years ago I wrote several books for Facts on File, a publisher of books for middle and secondary school students. The consulting editor for their Gray matter series insisted I devote half of each book to the brain. I complied reluctantly in order to get the books published but turned three well-written and interesting texts into rather boring and repetitive expositions on brain structure.
Sharon Begley's Feb. 9 "On Science" article in Newsweek offers me some hope that neuroscientists are waking up. Titled "Of Voodoo and the Brain" it describes criticism from within the neuroscience community that the correlations reported
in neuroscience journals are inflated (0.9? Come on!)and due to the misuse of statistical reasoning. She didn't also explain that correlations don't imply cause and effect. Nevertheless, BRAVO to the maverick neuroscientists and to Sharon Begley.