The Last Asylum
Every twice in a while I read a book that really touches something in me and sometimes even better, such a book touches me both personally and professionally. Recently I had the good fortune of encountering and reading Barbara Taylor’s The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times. I found it via a reference to it in an article in a Jungian journal. I am always intrigued by patient accounts of psychoanalysis so I immediately got the book. And it certainly did not disappoint. Both her account of her analysis and her discussion of the place of the asylum and the consequences of its loss are very well written and engag...
Source: Jung At Heart - September 5, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
One Voice of the Dark Goddess
I often hear patients apologize for complaining about things in their lives, as if complaints are invalid and unnecessary. I carry in mind something I remember from a book I read about 30 years ago, Sylvia Brinton Perera’s Descent to the Goddess. I probably ought to read it again as I don’t remember too much else from the book. Anyway, here is this one very memorable quote:
Complaining is one voice of the dark goddess. It is a way of expressing life, valid and deep in the feminine soul. It does not, first and foremost, seek alleviation, but simply to state the existence of things as they...
Source: Jung At Heart - August 24, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
How long does it take?
I have written before about how long therapy takes because it is a question that comes up fairly often. Recently a patient wrote this to me and I think it captures very well the impossibility of answering that question with any certainty. In fact, “It depends.” is probably the best answer.
I thought today that the effect of therapy sessions is akin to the effect of water dripping slowly on a rock. Any individual drip on the rock may seem to have no impact. Any individual therapy session may seem to similarly have had no or only superficial impact. But add time and repetition and the cumulati...
Source: Jung At Heart - August 15, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
If you are a believer i evidence based...
If you are a believer in evidence based treatment in mental health, here are a couple of links that likely will raise some doubts for you:
Is Evidence-Based Treatment All It's Cracked Up To Be?Where is the Evidence for “Evidence-Based” Therapy? (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - August 12, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Surprise!
I am back. Chapter written. Finishing work on book in progress. Time and inclination to write back.
I came of age when second wave feminism was actively raising awareness of the sexism that was, and sadly still is, rampant in the culture. I got married the first time just weeks before the very first issue of Ms.magazine appeared. The idea of dividing household chores, that all of that should not be my sole province was new and the notion that I could retain my own name was a new one, though that one didn’t come until after I married. It really seemed like we women would arrive at true equality in those heady days. ...
Source: Jung At Heart - August 8, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Weight is the only thing that matters
This week has brought a couple of reminders that weight is the most important thing about any of us.
First, when Colleen Mccullough died, her obituary did not lead with a list of her remarkable accomplishments. As Regan Chastain described them, she
created the department of neurophysiology at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, she served as head of the department for five years. She worked at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street. She taught neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neurological electronics at Yale. She wrote the best selling novels Tim and The Thorn Birds an...
Source: Jung At Heart - February 1, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Treat the diagnosis or the person?
I happily return to Jung. I am reminded of this quote:
It is generally assumed in medical circles that the examination of the patient should lead to a diagnosis of his illness, so far as this is possible at all, and that with the establishment of the diagnosis an important decision has been arrived at as regards prognosis and therapy. Psychotherapy forms a startling exception to this rule: the diagnosis is a highly irrelevant affair since, apart from afixing a more or less lucky label to a neurotic condition, nothing is gained by it, at least as regards prognosis and therapy...The content of a ...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
You may have heard...
You may have heard we had a blizzard here in Maine yesterday. A by-the-book definition of the term blizzard with large amounts of snow OR blowing snow, with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than 1/4 mile for an extended period of time (at least 3 hours). We didn’t lose power at all so we stayed snug and warm in our house and enjoyed watching the snow and listening to the winds which howled around the house.
Looks like we ended up with something around 20-24” of snow. And more forecast for Friday. Ahh, winter in Maine! ...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
The Silent Woman No More
There used to be a restaurant in Waterville, Maine called The Silent Woman.They had a large sign which depicted a decapitated woman serving refreshments on a tray. It was a terrible image, one I am happy to see is no longer there as both restaurant and sign are long gone.In the garden in front of my house I have the figure above. She stands there year round, hair flying, dancing and in my mind celebrating life and herself. She is in her exuberance the very antithesis of the Silent Woman. I was quiet about what it is like being fat and how I felt and what I thought for a very long time. It isn’t say to go agai...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 20, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
On a cold Saturday, Fat Kids
It is cold today — never got above single digits and the wind chill had us below zero most of the day. Cold and beautiful.
That is arctic sea smoke over the water, an indication of how cold it is.
Bright sun aside, I decided this was a good idea to stay inside and read. So I have spent the day reading Rebecca Weinstein’s Fat Kids: Truth and Consequences. If you were a fat kid or have a fat kid or know someone who was a fat kid, I recommend you get and read this book. In Rebecca’s words as quoted on Amazon:
Fat Kids: Truth and Co...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 17, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Where We Meet
I know I promised a post yesterday, but here I am a day late and with another post coming tomorrow.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/22/dr-mark-gerald.html
I have written here several times about where we do therapy and the meaning of that space. Most recently I wrote here about changing my own consulting room. And no doubt I will write about this space again in the future. Today I offer you a lovely piece from The Daily Beast about the ongoing project of psychoanalyst and photographer Dr. Mark Gerard, In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch. To date Gerard has gone to and photographed 70 different psychoanaly...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 16, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Back to One
It is obvious that I have not been posting here for quite a while. This blog will be 8 years old in a few weeks. And it seemed time for me to step back and consider what I want to do here going forward.
I thought about discontinuing the blog altogether and changing my efforts over to Facebook and Twitter. But Facebook, while it is a good place to sort of keep track of things my family and friends notice, it doesn’t feel like an especially good place to put out more serious concerns. As for Twitter, 140 characters just isn’t my style.
You can expect at least two posts every week from me. One more or less r...
Source: Jung At Heart - January 13, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
A Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion
Women's VoicesSpring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, Vol. 91, Fall 2014
Nancy Cater & Patricia Reis, Co-Editors
This volume was inspired by When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by American writer, naturalist, and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams. We are honored that Terry Tempest Williams agreed to be interviewed in this issue. The interview with guest co-editor Patricia Reis opens this issue and sets the tone for the articles that follow.
In When Women Were Birds, Terry Tempest Williams asks, "What needs to be counted on to have a voice? Courage. Anger. Love. Somethi...
Source: Jung At Heart - October 11, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Sometimes the magic works
One of my favorite movie lines comes from “Little Big Man” when Chief Dan George’s character comes down after the mountain after going there to die and says, “Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t.” This line comes to mind when I see the magical thinking in much of what many believe will make everything different for fat people.
For everything problematic, and much which is not problematic, in fat people’s lives the universal remedy is to lose weight. Lose weight and there will no longer be any of the stares or other negative emotional effects of being fat.Therapists routinely urge fat patien...
Source: Jung At Heart - September 14, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
What I did on my summer vacation
Taking the summer off from blogging was not the plan but it does seem to have happened anyway. I didn’t go anywhere. I spent my summer here in Maine enjoying our short but glorious season. This year we had not even one day above 90F — that kind of heat is not the stuff of a Maine summer any year but usually we have a few hot days but this year, we had a lot of rain and nice days in the 70’s and 80’s. Heavenly. This is what greeted me this morning — and even now, at 3 pm, we are pretty much socked in and it is a bit chilly and very very muggy.
Not a great da...
Source: Jung At Heart - September 2, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
