The Power Of Words
My client had just finished describing a situation and I posed the question, ‘How did that strike you?’ That was 30 years ago and I’m grateful my clinical supervisor cautioned me that my choice of the words ‘How did that strike you?’ made it a leading question; ‘strike’ assumes a hit, an offense. It is not an open question. Words can have an aggressive quality and sometimes this is an important, almost desirable, trait. In his book, The Brain’s Way of Healing, Norman Doidges quotes prominent health professional Abraham Fuks on the use of language in medical practice:...
Read MoreThis Is Not A News Item
I have always liked clicking on the news at 5 or 6 pm and seeing what is happening off our small island in Canada. A while back, there was a horrible earthquake in Nepal that killed thousands and injured more. And while I might have seen this as a problem ‘over there’, my sister was in contact with many of the survivors for months and even still, having lived for 20 years in Kathmandu. This is not a news item. A whale watching boat capsized near Tofino killing six and leaving Jamie’s Whaling Station to wonder what went wrong. This might have been something too distant to touch us in...
Read MoreA Good-Hearted Man
My mom married a good-hearted man because she was used to that in her father. Both men were an interesting blend of mind and heart. My grandfather, Dr. Isaac Erb, was a pathologist and a colleague of doctors Banting and Best, the Canadian medical researchers from the University of Toronto who discovered insulin a century ago. Grandpa testified in the few murders that occurred in Toronto back in the 1920s and was revered by many (my mom used to joke that he – a pathologist – had been told that he had an excellent bedside manner). He also had a soft heart. In a 1907 letter, he wrote...
Read MoreGeneral Malaise & Colonel Sloth
Inertia – noun – the state of being inert; inactivity; in physics – the property of matter by virtue of which any physical body persists in its state of rest or of uniform motion until acted upon by some external force. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion. It comes from the Latin word, iners, meaning idle, sluggish. So there you have it: a perfect description from Funk and Wagnall and Isaac Newton that aptly describes the frequent dips in energy that characterize the 50s – not the decade, but the age. (I was...
Read MoreWhat’s Our Stance?
Recently a speaker asked his audience to consider what it would be like if all of our ‘what ifs’ came true. I took a few moments to imagine fantastic ‘the sky is the limit’ possibilities, and then he continued: “I’m sure a lot of you are thankful that your dreaded ‘what ifs’ don’t often happen”. I was astounded to discover that the general consensus seemed to be dread, not hope. ‘What if’ is a frightening thought for many. And it got me thinking. I thought back to the story of Air Florida Flight 90 crashing into the Potomac...
Read MoreEverybody is I
“Everybody is I” … I read this phrase decades ago in the autobiography The Growing up Pains of Adrian Plass. It resonates even more deeply now as I attempt to be understanding of my mom’s skewed world. Her panic is rooted in dementia not reality, but it is not unfounded in her own mind and its effect is extremely challenging for me, the ‘I’ in my world. I am a therapist but I never have it ALL together. I’m not sure this is a bad thing – not sure that as a client, I would want to be sitting across from a chair in which sits someone who has it easy or is...
Read MoreMy Mom and Michael J Fox
I was surprised years ago by Michael J. Fox’s skill as a writer. I read ‘Lucky Man’ when it first came out in 2002 and wondered if the creative piece that informs his acting also contributes to his engaging writing. What was most notable, however, was his outlook: this was a grateful man. Years after his initial diagnosis of Parkinson’s, he is still feeling fortunate. Upon hearing that there might be what the media is calling an ‘optimism gene’ (based on research by psychologist and neuroscientist Elaine Fox [no relation to Michael]. See article in Maclean’s, August 7,...
Read MoreThe Eyes of Grace
Once in a while my daughter and I find ourselves standing in front of the bathroom mirror at the same time. She is 21; I am 53. She looks beautiful; I look older. When there is a different mother/daughter duo in front of the mirror, the reflections tell the same story, only I get to be the younger face. Objectively my mother looks more worn than I do; well-earned age spots and laugh lines. But I realized, as I observed my mother alone recently, eyeing herself without the consciousness of comparison, that the sense of age and agelessness cycles through the generations. Melissa...
Read MoreA Cautionary Tale
It would not have occurred to me that the Canada Post change of address form signed by my 87 year old father was not enough: the clerk said they required his presence at the post office unless I had proof of power of attorney. I had just come from the hospital where my mother is recovering from a pelvic fracture. I got back in the car and picked up my dad from their seniors residence and drove for the second time that day to the Post Office. The new directive was that his birth certificate and his photo ID health card and his presence was still not enough: they would need a passport or a...
Read MoreThe Things They Carried
Decades ago I bought Viet Nam war veteran Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried because I was intrigued by the title. I was a teenager in the 70’s and had always been moved by what young soldiers had gone through. The title resonates with me now as I am a 52 year old psychologist with aging parents. Having done a workshop recently on the topic of family dynamics and caring for parents, and having an increasing number of clients who are struggling with this difficult mix of emotions and logistics, I am more keenly aware of how the issues which may emerge at these crossroads are...
Read MoreCarving new paths
“The gunfire around us makes it hard to hear.But the human voice is different from other sounds. It can be heard over noises that bury everything else, even when it’s not shouting, even when it’s just a whisper. Even the lowest whisper can be heard over armies when it’s telling the truth.” This quote, from the excellent script of “The Interpreter”, is about the desire for peace in war-torn lands. This picture also represents to me the battle that may be ongoing in our minds. Sometimes the gunfire is not across the ocean in a different land but coming from...
Read MoreThe Range of Self
I recently read Sidney Poitier’s book The Measure of a Man — I’d been thinking already about a similar theme so was struck by his thoughts: “…I’m so many different things. …. The things I don’t like about myself, the things I do like about myself, the things I‘m not but I’d like to be, the things I am but don’t want others to know about – these are all percolating inside. All these contradictory aspects are the basic me. Courage and cowardice, strength and weakness, fear and joy, love and hate…” This resonated with me. At 53 I am thoughtful and level and...
Read MoreBFFs in our 50s?
The upside of having old magazines kicking around is that they have lists of recommended books that do not have 127 holds at the library. My recent discovery was Zaslow’s non-fiction “The Girls from Ames”. Only a few pages in I was immediately intrigued: Eleven girls grew up in Ames, Iowa and although all have moved away, they still get together every year to share joys and sorrows. At the time of the 2009 release, they were in their 40s. I had already been thinking of writing an article about the friendships of women so the premise of this sounded interesting. As I got...
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