who do men tell their stories to?

here's an interesting blog entry by hugo schwyzer on feminism and "liberal white men". my comment (if you take the trouble to scroll down or search for my name in the post) is about my disagreement regarding hugo's idea that men should stop "burdening" their women with their stories, and find men to talk to. not that i think men shouldn't talk to more men - i decidedly wish they would - but i think it's pointless to make gender a deciding factor regarding who to share our hearts with.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
moritherapy
www.moritherapy.com

the therapist as a person - pt 2

this is a continuation from an article started a few days ago …

The influence of the therapist's personality and history on the therapeutic process is recognized in psychoanalysis and is subsumed under the notions of countertransference and counterresistance. However, although psychoanalytic theory recognizes the existence and importance of countertransference, it is not a topic writers of the psychoanalytic persuasion are eager to discuss. The term countertransference is first mentioned by Freud in 1910. Johansen explains that in the controversies over countertransference, there are two main categories of definitions. One sees it strictly as conscious and unconscious responses to the client, the other includes all personal responses to the client, including those that arise out of the therapist's past.

Many writers insist that countertransference consists of "emotional" and "irrational" responses that interfere with therapist objectivity. Racker, an oft-cited writer on the matter, speaks of countertransference as "psychopathological processes" in the analyst, indeed a form of neurosis, which influences the therapist's perception and/or interpretation of the unconscious processes of client and therapist in the therapeutic context. Singer contends that countertransference can be grouped into roughly three categories: irrational kindness, irrational hostility, and anxiety reactions. Robertiello & Schoenewolf, in "101 common therapeutic blunders", a delightful - and sometimes frightening - book of teaching tales, give examples of the following categories: erotic (e.g., "The therapist who feared his sexual feelings"), sadomasochistic (e.g., "The therapist who had to be The Boss"), and narcissistic (e.g., "The vain therapist and the slob").

Robertiello & Schoenewolf also discuss counterresistance, a phenomenon that other writers often subsume under countertransference. While countertransference can be understood as a type of projection in which, for example, the therapist treats the client as if he were her father, counterresistance can be seen as therapist behaviours which influence the therapeutic process through such "blockings" as (hostile) silence, attempting to change the subject, or otherwise preventing unwanted ideas or feelings from rising to the fore. Counterresistance can result from a therapist's colluding with the patient's resistance to explore or work through unpleasant issues but can also originate exclusively from the therapist. Robertiello & Schoenewolf's tales of counterresistance have titles like "The therapist who denied his own obesity" and "The religious therapist and the atheist". All of the titles cited speak for themselves as illustrations of some of the types of countertransference and counterresistance that can be found.

Generally, however, countertransference connotes therapist irrationality and unwanted lack of objectivity, even though many writers stress that countertransference can be used productively. Partly because of this connotation, I will avoid the use of the term "countertransference", preferring in my discussion terms like "the influence of the personal", "social influence", etc. If the influence of the personal is not a favourite topic for many writers, social influence is even less so. It appears that when issues of social influence arise, they are frequently decontextualized or dealt with by tokenism. For example, a therapist's values might indeed be recognized as intruding in the therapeutic process - but implicitly they are HER values. The question of how these values relate to prevailing ethics, politics, or other social contexts, and how THAT influences the therapeutic process is rarely asked.

(stay tuned for the next instalment before the end of this week)

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

psychiatric medication and weight gain: purple prose vs. intelligent talk

a few days ago, big fat blog referred to a story in prospect magazine about a young woman who underwent psychiatric treatment and "tragically" lost her beauty by gaining weight. if you like purple prose,sexism, sizeism, an outdated concept of beauty and other such nonsense, this prospect article is for you!

far more intelligent and interesting are some of the responses to the article, like this one, posted by sjbrodwall:


From experience I can tell you that most patients' and parents' concerns about medication-induced weight gain are far from cosmetic. For most patients, particularly the chronically mentally ill ones, the first med is not going to be the med that turns them back into "themselves". Maybe not even the second or third. The problem is that while the first, second, and third might not help with the depression (or whatever), they still cause weight gain--weight gain that often doesn't go away. And we're not talking a few pounds here, we're talking about turning average-weight people into fat people.

As evolved as most of us fat people here are about the relationship between weight and self esteem, it would behoove everyone to recall that we had to work to accept ourselves, and work hard. When you're just a teenager and first put on meds for your illness, you've got one helluva lot of issues to deal with. First you have the typical issues of self-esteem, peer pressure, etc. that all teenagers deal with. Then your self esteem takes a couple of non-typical, nasty hits--first that you're crazy enough to have to be medicated, second that the meds make you fat. I think that most of us here can remember how standards were different for us when we were teenagers--just think about the last time you looked back at a picture of yourself when you were young. Think about how fat you felt then, and how thin you look to yourself now. So while 30 pounds might seem like a drop in the bucket to some of us now, this is a major, major weight gain for a teenager, and will have serious and real consequences with regard to how she is treated by her peers and how she feels about herself. On top of the physical appearance problem, there's also the issue medicated teenagers face about "If I need a medication to be normal, then doesn't the medication turn me into some who isn't me? Is normal for me fat, then?"

Teenagers are for many reasons likely to be non-med compliant, and the weight gain really doesn't help. Being a teenager is hard in and of itself; being a fat one is even harder. Now imagine being a fat teenager who has such serious mental problems that she has to be medicated.If we were talking about a tradeoff between being fat and being happy, that would be one thing. But that's far from the reality of the situation. It is rarely the case that a person can just start popping pills and be happy, be "cured", be back to their old selves. Often the pills that cause the weight gain only work partially, and then in addition you have these other problems added to your mental load.

I've tried upwards of 15 meds in the course of my depression. The last one I tried got me up to 300 pounds. Despite the fact that it was marginally effective, I decided to stop taking it because the weight gain was too much for me. Yes, cosmetic issues played a part in my decision. I did not like the way I looked. But I also didn't like the way I felt. I had a harder time getting around. My knees hurt more. I started having fit issues when it came to movie theaters and public transportation. These problems were making my depression worse. Despite the fact that I've been involved in the SA movement for over five years, I could not accept this weight gain. It outweighed (cough) any benefits the medication might have had.

I've grown angrier and angrier as I've seen this issue trivialized here and other places around the web. Many psychiatric patients allow the possibility of weight gain as a side effect to affect our choice of medication. To assume that we are superficial in doing so is to grossly underestimate the complexity of the problem. I am frankly insulted by comments such as these. IMO, they're not terribly dissimilar from "losing weight is simple--just eat less and exercise more". I'm not arguing against medication. What I'm trying to do is point out that this issue is far from as simple as many posters here and elsewhere would like for it to be.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

curing homosexuality?

back in january i introduced you to daily dose of queer, one of the blogs on gender identity that i like to follow. today they have an interesting article about a pill that some seem to claim might "cure" young men "in danger" of "becoming" homosexual. check it out. i wonder whether the comments i posted there would seem naive to an endocrinologist?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the therapist as a person pt 1

here's something i wrote a few years ago. it's still pretty relevant, i think. i'll post it in installments.

The psychotherapist in context
Personal life, roles and social environment

The vast majority of the literature on psychotherapy deals with therapeutic techniques and theories - the "what" and "how" of a process that is, ostensibly, aimed at ameliorating suffering and/or adjusting the thoughts or behaviours of persons who are in need of (or are deemed by others to be in need of) such ministrations. Much consideration is also given in that literature to one part of the "who" in that process, namely the "patient" (or "client", which is the identification I will use in this paper), although the scope of those discussions is usually limited to that aspect of the client which constitutes his maladjustment or suffering.

The other part of the "who" is the therapist (and I will use the term "therapist" to stand for a number of mental health professionals, such as psychotherapists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, social workers, and counsellors). But just as the client is usually seen only in his role of carrier of maladjustments and sufferings, the therapist is usually seen only in her role of the one who "has" (i.e., owns) the skills and knowledge to deal with those problems. Other aspects of the therapist - her personality, life experience and beliefs, to name but a few - are usually disregarded or touched on only in the briefest manner. However, just as in any relationship, these aspects come to bear quite heavily on the social interchange we call therapy. The lack of attention to these aspects can be illustrated with a few examples from widely used text books on counselling and psychotherapy: Brammer (1985) dedicates 19 out of 163 pages to "Characteristics of helpers", Egan (1975) spends 2.5 out of 239 pages on "Portrait of a helper", and in his 390-page text book, Corey (1986) has a 33-page chapter on "The counsellor as a person and as a professional". Some writers do not touch on the subject at all, notably behaviourists (e.g., Brown, 1977).

This paper attempts to sketch some elements of the influence the person of the therapist has on the therapeutic process. An example of this influence would be a therapist steering a musically inclined client towards attending law school because the therapist harbours great admiration for lawyers but not for musicians. This example also shows that not only does the therapist bring her own personal issues into the therapeutic process, but also her social environment, which, to varying degrees, she shares with the client.

In this case, the preference of lawyers over musicians might also occur in the social environment common to client and therapist - and we must also note that because the therapist may have higher social status in this environment than does the client, her values might weigh heavier than the client's. In the title of this paper, I speak not only of the "personal" (i.e. private) aspects of the therapist but also of her roles (in our example, she might have taken on the role of an adviser). Roles can be seen as expressions of accommodating the personal (i.e., "private") aspects of the therapist, of her interactions with the client, and of social conditions and demands.

Thus, one aim of my discussion is to pay attention to the particularity of the person of the therapist and not only to the universality of skills and theories which can be learned by all; and to pay attention to the subjectivity of the therapist and perhaps to lessen the emphasis of the objectivity she is often admonished to preserve, sometimes at all costs. Another aim is to attempt to make explicit the interplay between social environments and therapists' personal needs and attitudes.

(a continuation of this article can be found here)

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

today: ice

hi everyone

you may have noticed that i haven't posted very much these last few days. i am busy contemplating moving my blog somewhere else, that's why.

in the meantime, i do not wish to leave you un-entertained. so here's some interesting tidbits. they're all about ice.

why? how does that tie in to a blog that's generally concerned with psychotherapy and the ... errr ... let's say "interesting" experience of being a human primate?

how about this one? curiosity. curiosity is one of the main reasons why i'm a psychotherapist. it's also one of the reasons why people come to see me. they want to investigate what's going on, what's underneath and between the layers that everyone can see.

so ... ice ... yes, ice is one of those strange layers. it can seem so impenetrable. and scary. and hard to get at if you don' thave the right tools. but then all you need is some warmth ...

here we go:


ice worms
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002818691_iceworms21m.html

bacteria in toilet bowls? try ice cubes!
http://www.sugarshockblog.com/2006/02/cmon_toilets_ic.html

The collapse of a giant ice shelf in Antarctica has revealed a thriving ecosystem half a mile below the sea. Despite near freezing and sunless conditions, a community of clams and a thin layer of bacterial mats are flourishing in undersea sediments. More?
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/050718_antarctic_life.html


isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

about words

word again - the broken word;
deep in the stomach it sits
and is afraid:
so little has it been out in the open,
and it will look shabby and disoriented when it surfaces.
it creeps up into brain, eyes and hands
and makes the passages tremble,
stirs the memory of tears behind the eyes,
shakes the hands,
but only inside
(nobody sees).

and word thinks,
what if -
what if i'm a volcano?
and it asks,
what if -
what if i'm a song?
as it sticks to and disappears in the roof of the mouth
like a voice hurled into the empty space of a church deserted by its believers

but word cannot, would not help it,
word zigzags its sounds, its thoughts, its pictures through
the huge cave of a human being
- is it more than a fly in a glass, captured?
word cannot, would not care because word
must,
it must
zigzag, stagger, roam
endlessly it seems, and without aim;
yes - it is a fly captured, a moth drunk with artificial light,
a bird lost in a human house,
and it must
it must
out -

word needs contact with air,
it must breathe, fly, multiply and decay,
it must oxidize, must gather rust, it must rot,
it must become compost.
it must turn stones into water.

word: a feeble worm in the pit of a soul
must uncoil, make its way
into the world
and turn stones into water.



isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

more on sexual identity: asexuality

one of the sexual orientations that seems to often fall between the cracks in the discussion on sexual identity is asexuality. some people have no sexual desire, or no desire to act on it. whether there is something "wrong" with that or not is a matter of controversy. be that as it may, more people than one would think (about 1% of the population, according to new scientist) see themselves as asexual, and that's enough for me to count that as a sexual orientation.

here's a clip from AVEN, the asexuality visibility and education network:

The important distinction between sexual and asexual people is that sexual people's attractions tend to include the desire for sex, whereas asexual desires tend toward other kinds of intimacy. Of course, sexual people can form asexual relationships and attractions and asexual people can realize that they are asexual or become asexual after they have had sexual experiences or even when they are involved in a sexual relationship.

partly because since this orientation flies so much under the radar, it is also, like most invisible phenomena, not entirely acceptable in our society. (of course another reason is that sexuality is such an easy hook for anyone who wants anything - so understandably, nobody wants to give up this great tool of manipulation). this invisibility and lack of acceptance only adds to the difficulty in relationships where only one of the partners is asexual.

what are the solutions in such situations? as an incorrigible polyanna, i think that there are solutions to just about everything. but how easy are they to find, and how can they be put in practice? i think of one of my all-time favourite books, alice walker's the temple of my familiar, where such a situation slowly, over many, many painful years, turns into a loving friendship; or of the french solution, where it's quite acceptable for people to be married and have other relationships on the side.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

fat acceptance

i just stumbled across a surprisingly thoughtful discussion of the matter of fat acceptance, in hugo schwyzer's blog. an excerpt:

I've struggled for years and years with addictive eating habits and compulsive exercising. I do spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about my body and seeking to control it. Yet my neuroses are sanctioned and rewarded by the culture because they lead me to have a body that more closely approximates a contemporary ideal. I frequently have responded to stress by exercising until I'm too tired to think. (I've gotten better at that over the years). Others I know respond to similar levels of stress by eating and eating. My body bears the signs of my neuroses, so do the bodies of my "fat" friends and family. They get heavier; I get a resting heart rate of 42 - which is nice, but I also get deteriorating knees and aching joints. I'm not at all convinced that my approach is, ultimately, any emotionally healthier than theirs, but I do receive considerably more praise for it.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

if you meet the buddha on the road, kill him!

this is the title of a book sheldon kopp wrote 30 years ago. i just picked it up again, and it still holds so many truths and so much inspiration for me. some excerpts:

no meaning that comes from outside ourselves is real.

in every age, men have set out on pilgrimages ... wishing to learn, and confusing being taught with learning, they often seek out helpers, healers and guides, spiritual teachers whose disciples they would become.

at first, the [client] tries to use the therapist, as many over the centuries have tried to use the i ching ...

we are all tempted to view ourselves as men on horseback ... too often the pilgrim [kopp's metaphor for the person on the life journey] lives as though his goal is to become the horseman ... [or] he believes that his only option will be either to live the lusty, undirected life of the riderless horse, or to tread the detached, unadventuresome way of the horseless rider ... he does not see that there will be no struggle, once he recognizes himself as a centaur.

the protective efforts of the self-appointed sane influence the whole field of psychiatry and psychology. the clinical diagnosis of psychopathology is too often a form of social control. if other people make us nervous by the foreignness of their queer talk and odd behaviour, we give them tranquilizing drugs, lock them away in custodial institutions.

[people's] image of me [as psychotherapist] is the fantasy that i represent ... salvation ... to this image they impute characteristics that not only do i not possess, but to which i do not even aspire. often for a time i am seen by the patient as being beyond anxiety, without conflicts, free of weaknesses, never foolish, incapable of evil, and always happy. i experience this idolization as a terrible burden, rather than as the gift of admiration that its wrappings imply.

and then there is his famous laundry list, which containts sayings such as, "love is not enough, but it sure helps", "it is most important to run out of scapegoats", and "how strange that so often, it all seems worth it."

wonderful, insightful words. thanks, sheldon.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

manjushri - fierce buddhism

often, we associate buddhism with kindness, gentleness, compassion. but buddhism is about the whole human experience. manjushri is the bodhisattva who engenders the human experience of fierceness and determination. here is an excerpt about him from a blog on e-sangha. (a bodhisattva is an enlightened being who has vowed not to enter nirvana until all beings have become enlightened, and who has dedicated her or himself towards this goal).

In determination, perhaps there are words like this: "I can" or "I can't." Courage, uncertainty, fury, consent, patience, doubt, love, terror, confusion, reluctance ... everything gets wrapped in an increasingly tight ball.

"I can."

"I can't."

What is it like when "I can?" Can I really?

What is it like when "I can't?" Can't I ... really?

It takes some fireceness to face such questions, to lift the sword, to cut the last strands, to find a home that isn't missing.

The goal is never far away. Everyone knows it, but a lot of time is spent claiming we don't. How do we know? What evidence is there outside the beckoning bullshit of religion or philosophy? What exactly is anyone being fierce about in the first place and what is the reward, what is the 'attainment,' what is the prize?

Evidence: Sneeze.
Evidence: Laugh.
Evidence: Kiss
Evidence: Smile.
Evidence: Weep.
Evidence: Walk
Evidence: Talk.
Evidence: Think.

Who could possibly do such things? Who could possibly fail to do them? In fierce determination, we raise the sword. It's not a joke and it sure isn't holy. Raise the sword! ... this is it! ... no turning back! ... ready...set... and

Smile.

smile.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

booze and writing

i'm in the middle of reading parched, by heather king, about her 20-year stint as an alcoholic.

what i find interesting is the disconnect between her tight and truly "witty and entertaining" (publishers weekly) language on the one hand and on the other hand a storyline that now, that i'm at page 149, is still not going anywhere.

the fact that she eventually sobers up is pretty clearly hinted at in the beginning: there is a family intervention in the end and she gets "saved" (partly via religion, as is hinted again in the bible verses that are liberally used at the beginning of each chapter). so no story line and no surprise. just an endless recounting of being blue, lonely, drunk and unpleasant, of screwed-up friendships, lots of screwing, of working and drinking in countless restaurants, and lots of reading and lots of hangovers. that's kind of interesting for 20, 30 pages but then it gets boring and you start wondering, sooooo .... when are you going to get to the point? is there a point?

but when you look at it page by page, this is really great stuff, like here, where she leaves her friend's beauty parlor:

"Take this shampoo, Heathah, it's a sample," Sylvia said, handing me a full-size bottle of Pantene. "Brucie, wrap up those chocolates for her, we'll never eat them all." She was combing out and spraying one of her clients, an exhausted-looking soul with an Ace bandage wrapped around her elbow who left just before me. I trailed the woman downstairs. Just before hitting the street she paused to girlishly admire, in the reflection of the plate-glass door, her shapeless coat and work-worn face topped by a spun-glass halo of bright, pretty hair.

heather king, in a way, is the opposite of someone like robert a. heinlein, who is really not a very good writer in terms of language use but boy, are his stories ever full of twists and turns and ideas, ideas, ideas.

while there is humour in much of how heather king writes, a darker and more droning theme that runs through it is how she constantly berates her former alcoholic self. there is little tenderness, little compassion for that love-starved, lonely, lost little girl who just can't find anything but booze to soothe her soul.

i wonder whether she is so stuck in this idea of "i was a bad, bad, bad person" that she cannot weave a story that reaches out and beyond, a story that might hold this reader's interest? is she still in a stage of recovery where being riddled by guilt, remorse and disgust looms so large that there's little else she can pay attention to? (errr ... should i mention that she has become a catholic?)

nevertheless, it's an elegant and easy read, and perhaps a good intro for someone who wants to learn what it's like to be in the grips of addiction.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

philosophy, passion and thresholds

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

... says good old d.h. lawrence.

i have a passion for philosophy. the word "passion" is quite useful here, and it's the type of passion that makes me think of the covers of harlequin romances. rakish, charcoal-eyed pirate with roving hands on bosomy, full-lipped ueber-blonde. it's a very heady passion but one for which i may have as much mediocre talent as the creator of that front cover has for painting.

but that doesn't prevent me from indulging. for example, in the philosopher's cafe last monday at the vancouver art gallery, claudia ruitenberg, inspired by jacques derrida, waxed and waned philosophically on issues of identity, hospitality and thresholds.

here's a few tidbits of these topics:

on identity:

“Be the person the chatroom thinks you are.” This was the text of an advertisement I saw posted on a wall in New York several years ago. The line suggests that one can reinvent oneself, come up with a new, desirable identity, and purchase the goods” — a car in this case — to back it up. It is the epitome, the most direct and unapologetic example of a public curriculum that says, “You are what you buy.”

on hospitality in education:

How hospitable is education? What does it mean to be a good host ... consider the positions of both host and guest ... learn as well as teach how to be good hosts and guests in the "home" of education.


on thresholds

this ties the two together, in a way. i approach a house and ring the bell. the door opens, and in the moment of door opening and greeting, the possibility opens that we might become guest and host. an interesting question is, what happens when the host and i agree that i will stay at that threshold or, say, become a regular at the bench right by his entrance but never enter the house? the threshold widens. i become a not-this-but-also-not-that, and at the same token, the host will not be a, how should we say, "full" host. he may bring me coffee and cookies but i may never use his bathroom.

funny, writing this last paragraph brought exactly that excited feeling of romance to me ... just thinking about the possibilities of thresholds, as concepts as well as imaginary places (... there's the door, and that little space between outside and inside ... there's the bench, like the benches by the farm houses where i grew up ... aaahh ... and there's this feeling of being suspended between possibilities ...)

hmm ... interesting. this reminds me of bell hooks' fascinating article on the place of eros in education. there needs to be passion and excitement in learning, the stuff that gets you going and makes you forget about everything else for a moment. is that what a "hospitable" teacher does?

what do you think?

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

happy happy happy

hello!

i’ve had a few days that were definitely on the blah and dudsy side. then along comes my friend ken walker, the happiness guy, with his new web site! thanks, ken. i love the way you sit on top of the world, so to say.

check it out here, guys!

so i figured, are there any other good web sites on happiness?

i can’t say i found anything that bowled me over (is that because i still feel grumpy?), but here are a few that are worth checking out:

krishnamurti on happiness. an east indian philosopher who i admire greatly.

and then some jewish thoughts on this, like:

An eyeball is worth at least five million dollars.

You have two of them? You're rich.

dr. martin seligman is the father of positive psychology. he’s very well known from his work on learned helplessness. fortunately, he figured he’d also look at the other side of the coin and wrote a book on learned optimism. his site also has a few interesting tests. in 1997 he was elected president of the american psychological association by the largest vote ever – you mean even other psychologists like the idea of happiness?

moving right along – here’s a view on happiness by psychiatrist and buddhist mark epstein.

then, looking at my personal and professional interests, i looked for web sites that spoke intelligently and positively about chronic pain and happiness. gave up after about 10 minutes. that’s too bad.

fortunately, i found something nice on happiness in the recovery from anorexia

and a somewhat interesting happiness list for alcoholics getting sober at st. jude’s, an alternative to AA-style recovery houses.

what’s out there for the not-so-heterosexual world? i kept on coming across a book entitled queer journey – a man’s search for happiness – unfortunately i couldn’t find any interesting reviews on this book, although it sounds interesting. being gay is challenging enough, but being gay and non-white (rodriguez is the son of cuban immigrants) adds another layer of difficulty. anybody read it?

and finally, how could we have a list of links without what wikipedia has to say! this here has a whole bunch of interesting quotes on happiness.

take care everyone, and have a happy day!

isabella
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

peace - with and without caricatures

i just received an email from a friend of mine in germany about the arab caricatures that were posted in the danish newspaper jyllands-posten back in the fall. apparently, the german-speaking web site www.hagalil.com, which is mostly about antisemitism, was completely destroyed by someone – supposedly from qatar – who didn’t like that hagalil had posted the caricatures. the fact that they had also posted arab caricatures about israel and america didn’t seem to faze the attackers (or maybe it infuriated them even more, who knows).

this is not enough. the same thing apparently happened to france-soir, a major french newspaper. i tried a number of different ways to find its internet presence today – nothing.

"we are the only french newspaper with an internet portal" said someone at the newspaper, according to the german tv station n-tv. but "we’re gone, indeed … this is not normal. i can’t imagine that this is a technical problem. probably, pirates have wiped our site."

i’m posting this here because i haven’t found any english language reference to this on the internet yet – but also because yesterday i came across something on a forum that reaminds me of it. it was a discussion of the big book (see yesterday’s post). i just couldn’t believe how many people took an earnest, respectful, sober and objective attempt to have a friendly talk about some aspects of the big book as complaining, distracting and unhelpful.

this scares me. this is what happens in dysfunctional families. someone comes along and tells us what we are allowed to talk about, write about, and ultimately think. this is abusive. this is what happens in wars.

please, please, please, let’s be tolerant of each other. let us hear each other out. let us laugh together, not kill each other.

peace. shalom. salem aleikum.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

take what you like and leave the rest

"take what you want and leave the rest"

originally, this saying comes from 12-step programs (although i’m sure that many people have said this or something similar waaaay before AA got started). btw, this saying does not appear in the "bible" of 12 step programs, the "big book".

i have always been intrigued by the nuances of this saying. the main reason for that is, i think, that it has helped me not only to be more tolerant but also to open myself up to more resources in my life.

like many of us, i was brought up in a home where certain stereotypes existed. this is funny, because my parents were quite aware of stereotypes and tried to counteract them – but of course they had their own blinders. one of the stereotypes that was quite ingrained in me – and i think i still have bits and pieces of it lying around inside of me) is that people who can’t spell (and i don’t mean making types – that was ok – but somehow not knowing the rules of spelling) are uneducated and people who are uneducated are … well … there’s something wrong with them. (that’s a hallmark of stereotypes, i think: when you follow their trail, you’ll soon get to a real wishy-washy spot).

and it seems to me that the more stereotypes i have, the more preconceived notions i nurse, the less i am open to the world – and the less i am open to the good things that might flow into my life.

to me, the idea of "take what you like and leave the rest" is the opposite of preconceived notions. it makes it really easy to walk into a situation, open a book, meet a new person with an open mind. then i look, listen, sense, feel and am free to say, "oh, this is interesting!" and "well, i think i’ll leave that part alone." it frees me from making up (=closing?) my mind, allows me to walk through a new door and move on from there.

it also allows me to interpret anything i encounter any which way i choose. that’s a tricky one, though. doing this requires quite a bit of honesty, especially self-honesty. it only works if i leave my little ego aside and let my big self talk.

this all sounds very abstract. let’s have an example.

let’s take the first few opening lines of the quran or koran (i’m choosing this because i have no background in islam)

Praise be to God, the Lord of the World, (1)
the Merciful, the All-merciful, (2)
the Master of the Day of Recompense. (3)
Thee we serve, and to Thee we pray for help. (4)

now if i had preconceived notions, i could immediately take offence to words like "the lord of the world" (what about the lady? and who says this god is the lord of the world – what about jesus or rasta, or how about nobody is the lord of the world?) or "thee we serve" (that sounds pretty slavish). "the master of the day of recompense" sounds pretty suspicious, too – by "recompense", do they mean "revenge"?

on the other hand, i can see if there is anything useful in these lines. for example, i kind of like the idea of there being an all-merciful entity. yeah, yeah, it’s supposed to be a "lord" but to my mind what they mean by "lord" is some overarching entity. "all-merciful" works for me because that way i feel that i have a) a model in mercifulness and b) i don’t have to shoulder the world’s mercifulness (that’s important to me because, as someone once pointed out to me, i suffer from a "morbid sense of responsibility").

now what about "thee we serve"? if i wanted to make this phrase useful for me, how would i do that? in situations like that, i often get the sense of walking around the phrase, the way i would walk around a house in need of renovation ("hmmm …the stairs seem ok but oh my gosh, look at the windows"), or maybe the way i would look at an intriguing found object from all sides.

is there a "thee" that i would like to "serve"? yes, there is. a "thee" or "thou" is anything that i don’t entirely and immediately associate with myself. and if we keep things in context (that’s part of the honesty i mentioned earlier, btw) the "thee" in question needs to be something or someone who i can in some way associate with the idea of "lord". ok. so one overarching entity or principle that has these lordish qualities is the idea of good will. of wishing only good upon the other creatures populating this earth, and acting according to that wish as well as i can. and i gladly serve that "thee"! by serving i mean that i am willing to make that principle, that "thee", a priority in my life.

i don’t know about the "we serve". i can only speak about myself.

so i take the mercifulness, i take the "thee i serve" and, for now at least, i leave the rest.

good night!



isabella mori

moritherapy

counselling in vancouver

www.moritherapy.com

brokeback mountain

yesterday mindemoya and i finally went to see brokeback mountain. of course, it'(nothing aginsts been absolutely impossible not to hear about the movie, and of course everyone thinks it's great. so my expectations were positive but a bit on the lukewarm side. it seemed that i was supposed to like it, which doesn't really incline me favourably (remember how i feel about prompts?) it reminds me of back in the sixties, when people thought geoge harrison was the best guitar player around - but that was because he was part of the beatles and everyone know that beatles are good. (nothing against george harrison but there really wasn't anything special about his guitar playing, not when there were people like jimi hendrix and baden powell and andres segovia around).

but my benevolently lukewarm feelings changed to, oh! wow! pretty much the second the movie started. i loved the photography, the scenery, the acting, the slowness of the movie. and most of all, i loved the story. it kind of reminded me of dr. zhivago and anna karenina and romeo and juliet - a bittersweet story of an impossible love.

most of all, in its quietness it made me think of all the people in the world who were and in so many places of the work are not allowed to love who they love. just think about it. even the sentence sounds crazy: "not allowed to love who they love". it doesn't make any sense, does it? i guess that's what got to me, this jarring, this unbearable tension between needing to love and be with the person one desires, and not being able to because of the terror and isolation that would almost certainly come with it. gay and lesbian couples in the middle east, mixed-race couples in south africa before mandela, a mormon girl in utah loving a catholic boy - and there's lots more "bad" combinations.

and think about all the mundane, everyday things. can you imagine falling in love with someone and not being able to tell your friends about it? always having to keep it secret, never being able to tell your story? god, that would kill me. i guess they don't call it "the love that dare not speak its name" for nothing.

i know, if you're queer, maybe you're rolling your eyes right now, irritated at one more person who needed to see brokeback mountain to have their eyes opened. and it's true - even though i knew the story of homosexuality before i saw this movie, and was familiar with many of the sad and difficulty nuances of living in a homophobic world, it did take watching it to open not only my eyes and mind but to give man education that apparently hadn't quite reached my heart yet. so thanks, jack and ennis.

and thanks, many thanks, that we live in a country like canada, where these problems are minimal compared to other countries. may it remain so.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

poetry therapy pt 2 and the removal of blinders

yesterday i said i was going to talk more about playing with the poetry therapy process. the poem about my grandfather happened following a prompt in the national association for poetry therapy newsletter which went like this

Choose one of your grandparents and write a poem honoring how you were
influenced by this relative, living or dead, for better or worse. Consider
how your life both reflects and deviates from your grandparents’.

this was one among five or six such prompts and it immediately jumped out at me. i love writing and talking about my grandparents.

what also interested me was the matter of prompts.

according to www.dictionary.com, prompting means

To move to act; spur; incite: A noise prompted the guard to go back and
investigate.
To give rise to; inspire: The accident prompted a review of
school safety policy.
To assist with a reminder; remind.
To assist (an
actor or reciter) by providing the next words of a forgotten passage; cue.

now isn’t that interesting. what i most heard in the word “prompt” is probably the “spur” part – the rider digging spurs into the horse to make it follow a command.

if that’s all i read into the word “prompt”, maybe i have a problem with authority??? what do you think?

what i heard very loudly, to the almost-exclusion of other interpretations, is, “do what i tell you and things will proceed as they should”. which is why the only prompt i felt inclined to follow was the one about a grandparent – i guess my enthusiasm was louder than the irritation that i felt coming from the prompt. i guess i was, well, “inspired”.

maybe i will continue thinking that there is something not quite kosher, not quite empowering, something unnecessarily authoritative about these prompts. but i also want to acknowledge how much i fell into the trap of reactivity. nothing but my own blinders prevented me from seeing the idea of the prompt as something neutral or positive. i had choices that i did not want to acknowledge and therefore couldn’t explore. thank god, my blinders were removed.

take care, and i wish you all light and awareness for today!

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com