[Above photo: The aftermast of the USS Portland, a much-decorated cruiser in WW 2, Fort Gorges, and a tugboat shouldering its way across the roads between Portland and Peaks Island on a sunny January day.]
9 January 2023
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life!” Ulysses by Alfred—Lord Tennyson
I have booked the house and the flight to Thailand and obtained the required (by the Thai government) health insurance to cover me in case I contract covid and require hospital care while there. I have begun to search for papers, books, and videos, as well as to assemble my curriculum and lectures. Since I am not certified in PCIT (Parent-Child Interaction Therapy) and our time is limited, we’ll focus on Play Therapy and Facilitating Play Between Parents and Children. The whole idea of assisting parents to recalibrate their relationships with their children is transparently sensible. I am amazed that in the 100+ years since Hug-Hellmuth and Melanie Klein began to use play to assist unhappy children to express the roots of their troubles, which in most cases lay in their relationships with their parents, that we have been primarily focused on the child, rather than on their relationships.
To understand this failing, I look to my own training and practice. I learned to look at the child, to attempt to understand and relieve their conflicts and confusion. Working with the parents was definitely of secondary importance. In part this may have been because it was the more difficult work.
There are instances, of course, where the focus needs to be primarily on the child. I think of a child who has experienced trauma outside of the family, for example, or whose development has been arrested by unconscious wishes and consequent guilt and conflict. However, since they are imbedded in their families and relate to their parents—who are of much greater valence to them than the therapist— most of their days, how the parents listen to and behave with them is of greater consequence than “insight”. These are the issues we’ll be looking at. I suppose the rub occurs when parents are unwilling to engage in a change process. But that is always a challenge in working with children. As always, I am excited to learn for myself, even if I am not directly doing therapy.
I had given up on a visitor to the feeding station that I established hanging from a tree limb facing my writing desk. I’ve now seen several feathered things nibbling away at the seed-impregnated suet. The one I’ve observed most frequently is a black and white bird. He, for I think it is a male, is quite skittish. I’ve noticed him going up and down tree limbs looking for insects, like a nuthatch. My conclusion, after studying Birds of North America, is that he is a Black and White Warbler. Now that I have seen the pictures of him in the book, if he re-appears I can note his markings with more discernment. My brother and sister-in-law are nurturing a group of Bluebirds at their feeder in Brunswick. Birds are captivating!
My hernia repair is healing remarkably well. I took a 5+ mile walk yesterday with some hills and experienced no pain—well, minimal. Most surprising to me is that I had no fatigue and my legs weren’t the least tired. In addition to a 4 day cross country skiing outing among the Hut To Hut cabins in the Carrabassett Valley of Western Maine with my friend, Harold, the last week of February, I’ll do another for 3 days the prior week at an Appalachian Mountain Club hut with a friend, Lindsey. Praying for snow!
Watching Kevin McCarthy contort himself to achieve—what?—recalls the Gary Larsen cartoon of the Boneless Chicken Ranch. Even as schadenfreude suffuses me with its bitter warmth, I’m aware that while this bodes ill for the GOP, it promises to be bad for our country. As the current administration attempts to address serious issues facing the people of our country, including climate change, voting rights, crumbling infrastructure, economic inequality, pandemics present and future, child poverty, immigration, and racial/sexual discrimination, not to mention a full portfolio of foreign troubles, a feuding House of Representatives led by Speaker McCarthy will focus on issues like voter fraud, banning abortion, crushing Big Government, placing religion into schools and government, demonizing LGBTQ rights, book bans, and fear-mongering about immigrants. Plus, trying to strike back at the Democrats for the magnificent (and popular) job they are doing, as well as for the January 6th Committee investigation.
Recall that there were 10, count ‘em, investigations of Obama and Hillary Clinton for misdeeds re. the Benghazi tragedy pushed by the “outraged” GOP. 6 of them emanated from congressional committees. NONE of them found wrong-doing. What an incredible waste of time and resources—the money I pay in taxes each year, for example. Kind of like DT’s 62 voter fraud suits, of which 61 were lost and 1 succeeded on a minor technicality having nothing to do with voter fraud. And we’ll see more of the same, since the GOP’s aims—-small government, no regulation of corporations, eliminating Social Security and Medicare, and tax relief for the wealthy—are a hard sell to the American public. So it’ll be 2 years of stirring up fear and confusion, not unlike what Mao did in facing unhappiness at home: distract by starting a border war.
I purchased a copy of the Jan. 6th Committee report. It seems like a remarkably consequential document, related as it is to our only attempted coup. Anyone who says we cannot get our act together should look the text over. David Remnick’s Forward and Jamie Raskin’s Afterward make it a worthy purchase. And, as much as I disagree with her politics and certainly think her father was quite evil in his self-serving ways, Liz Cheney is a bright, courageous, and principled woman who deserves a medal. She has said that her work on the committee is the most important thing she’s done in Congress, despite losing her place at the table.
In a lighter vein:
Church Bulletin
“Thursdays at 5:00PM, there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers’ Club. All wishing to become Little Mothers will please meet with the minister in his study.”
It is sunny and cool. Reminders of our first actual snowfall are still visible, although most streets and sidewalks are clear. C’mon, Maine, do your Winter thing!
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 