Tom Hale -Psikoterapia zentroa

More on Forgiveness

    Here is recent video I that I recently watched and is worth sharing.   My daughter briefly considered attending DePauw but eventually chose to go to another midwestern college just down the road from DePauw.   James B. Stewart, an alumnus of the school, gave its Commencement Address this year and it is a knockout.  (Juno Diaz will speak at K.'s commencement this year which we all looking forward to.)  It is a fine example of the practice of forgiveness.

 

 

"As long as this exists ......"

by  Anne Frank

    "As long as this exists," I thought, "and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy."

    "The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles."

excerpt from "The Diary of a Young Girl".

 

    I remember several years ago seeing Carol Gilligan, pyschology professor at NYU whose work on the development of identity in adolescent girls has been monumental in the field, talk about Anne Frank and her relationship with her father.  She describes in the book, The Voice of Pleasure, how daughter's (and son's)  voices, including Annes's, are regularly quited by patriarchal structures; evidence of that is clearly beeing seen in the news every day.    In an analysis of the three different editions of the diary, her father shaped the published book and deleted much of what Anne Frank actually said in her original work.    There was much left, however, and the above quote is beautiful.

    I have never, as many people do, found God in nature.   For me, I find my spirituality in the actual voices, experiences and contacts I have with other people.    My work is based on that belief, not surprisingly.   This video lifts my spirits to the sky every time I see it.

 

    

Post-Prozac Nation

     A wide-ranging group of new books and articles have recently been published challenging the efficacy of the enormously popular new generation of anti-depressant medicines, the SSRI's (Selective Serotonine Reuptake Inhibitors), which include Prozac.  One of the most popular medications in the country, Prozac is currently the third-most-common prescription drug taken in America.

    Siddhartha Mukherjee, assistant professon of medicine at Columbia University, in a recent New York Times artictle, called it "the new villain of modern psychopharmacology - overhyped, overprescribed, chemical sympotmatic of a pill-happy culture searching for quick fixs for complex mental problems". 

    Two books that are raising these issues are, "The Emperor's New Drugs"  by pyschologist Irving Kirsch, "Let Them Eat Prozac", by David Healy, to name just a few.   The use of these drugs and for so many people is being challenged on many levels, not the least being (1)"the very theory (the serotonin hypothesis) for how these drugs work" and (2) the "slippery, seemingly-contradictory studies"  that suggested that 75 - 82% of an antidepressant' effect could have been obtained merely by taking a placebo.   Many researchers concluded that "pharmaceutical companies were exaggerating the benefits of antidepressants by selectively publishing positive studies while suppressing negative ones".

    Mukherjee goes on to cite research done in 2010 when the placebo effect data was reevaluated using six of the most rigorously conducted on antidepressants.   The findings vindicated the early research conclusions for the most part.  First, patients with severe depression tend to respond most meaningfully to antidepressants while those with moderate to mild depression do not.  Second, serotonine probably plays an important role, but not fully understood fully, in cases of severe depression.   Third, the "brain-as-a chemical-soup" theory was "far too naive".

    The author describes much of the new research that is being done.   Many are wondering whether depression might have multiple subtypes - with some responding to treatment with serotinin-enhancing drugs and some not.   Also, could depression be another kind of neurological disorder in which the illness is precipitated by the death of neurons in certain parts of the brain?   A sort of degenerative disease - like Alzheimers or Parkinson's - sort of a "dementia of the mood?"  Depression may be  "emotional pain with context", some believe.   The role of the hippocampus may be to help put the situation with an emotional component into context.   If the hippocampus is working properly, it may act as a conduit to tell our conscious brain, for expample, that the loss of love should be experienced as sorrow or the loss of a job as anxiety.

    All in all,  the author says, "depression is a complex, diverse illness, with different antecedent causes and manifestations."    None of the new theories explain why "talk therapies" work (and the research shows they indeed do) and in some patients and not in others.   Or "why the combination of talk and antidepressants seems to work consistently better than either alone".

What I'm Reading

    Just finished  I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power,  by Brene Brown and while the title says most of it, it doesn't tell you that Dr. Brown teaches and does research in social work at the University of Houston.   Her specialty is "shame" and in this book she talks about the nature and outcome of her work.   She also talks about what we can do to combat the effects of living in a culture that shames people for a variety of reasons, including to motivation and to control.  A great, easily-accessible book.   While her research is important, it really is more of self-help book, which is bolstered by the research.   Highly recommended.

 

    Currently reading The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts, by David McMillan (chef/author), Frederic Morin (chef/author), Meredith Erickson (author), with a foreward by David Chang of NY restaurant Momofuku fame.   The restaurant in the book, however, is located in a working-class neighborhood of Montreal, and apparently is at the center of Montreal’s growing reputation as a culinary destination. Often referred to as the Paris of North America, Montreal is the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, and like France, food is at the heart of its identity.

    I'm just starting it and it's full of stories of their restaurant, many recipes of great "blue-collar" Canadien food including pea-meal bacon, favorite Canadien train trips (we're going on The Canadien this fall to Vancouver), and wonderful pictures of the restaurant,  the food, smokers-to-make, the authors, and much more.   A really fun book.

 

    Am listening to The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach.   A quirky, very modern book about baseball on the college level at a definitely not even AA school.   Very uneven, not particularly plot-driven that rather is focused on the characters in the novel.  One of the characters, Owen (think A Prayer for Owen Meany,  is struck in the head by an errant throw primarily because while he siting on the bench, he is reading a book) but survives.   Certain would not appeal to everyong, especially most American men, because of  several characters who are homosexual, but not overall a bad read.   Charming would be a good word.   My worst complaint is that it's just a little too slow in plot development.  But it's still a baseball book and made me decide to find a friend and play some catch. 

 

Practice Makes Perfect??

    I'm almost nearly finished with a new book, Guitar Zero: The New Musicians and the Science of Learning,  by Gary  Marcus, a professor of psychology and cognition at NYU.    I initially read it because I was hoping it would give me some special insight into developing a new approach to learning the guitar.   My continuing lack of success in achieving a level of accomplishment with the instrument has frustrated me for years.  What I have learned has been interesting and I realized the way we learn music can be generalized to almost anything that we attempt in life.

 

    I came to the world of music relatively late in life although I had sung in school choirs for years but hardly with any level of excellence.   I basically quit when my voice "changed" in adolescence, and although I have been obsessed with music most of my life, it was primarily as a listener.  I began seriously playing the cello as a young adult and played for years, eventually performing in my local college/community orchestra.  That experience is one of the real highlights of my life.   When my hearing began failing and I could no longer hear distinct sounds in an orchestral setting, I put it down.   Not long afterwards and still wanting to make music, I began playing the accoustic guitar which I only intended to do so by myself thinking my hearing, while still a problem, would be manageable.   It was, however still a problem, and eventually I began using hearing aides which were a blessing in all ways.    

 

    Still my music progress with the guitar compared to my growth with the cello, has been slow and I think much of the difficulty has been the result of being originally trained as a "classical musician" which did not encourage creativity and improvisation.  When I choose to play blues/rock/folk guitar, a real shift in my brain use occurred, and I've struggled.  Not many musicians today feel reading traditional musical notation is necessary.

 

    One of the major interests of Marcus in his book, since it is subtitled The Science of Learning, is the way in which people learn music cognitively and he explores this through his and other scientists' research.   The effect of age on learing is a particular interest and he shows in the research that aging people are quite intellectually capable of  learning music.   Age still will slow down some aspects of the learning, especially in tasks having some physical component - like fingering a guitar fret or picking the strings - will be effected.   But under most circumstances, the brain can adapt and continue to learn late into life.  Tom Morello learned to play the guitar in college, well past the time when one is traditionally believed to be in the so-called critical age of learning.   Starting music beyond this critical age rarely, it is believed, results in the student achieving great success;  and yet Morello has become a virtuoso in the field.  The notion of a critical age, for music, languages and sports, seems to be a bit of a myth, it seems.  Much recent research has demonstrated this in many fields.

 

    That's the good news.   Unfortunately, much of the early learning I acquired playing the cello classically does not generalize to pop music.   Brains that are trained to play classical forms appear to develop differently then brains trained to play jazz   -  and the same is true of the brains of people who play different instruments.    Some people can make the adjustment easily but most don't.  It's as if I have a default program  of sorts that I automatically return to when I pick up an instrument, and it seems to hamper my progress.

 

    The issue of innate music instincts vs. training/practice is carefully explored, as well.   Anders Ericsson of FSU is widely recognized as the leading expert on the acquisition of expertise and the notion of "ten-thousand hours" to achieve excellence is part of his research.  The idea is that learning works best when one tackles something that is just beyond his or her reach, neither too easy nor too hard; this concept of a "zone of proximal development" is what we should strive for in our practice.   It seems that continued practice does indeed rewire the brain.  Nobody really knows  whether the brains of those blesssed with genius are really different from others, but we do know that practice does help.   Clearly genius without hard work and discipline to practice, rarely amounts to much.

 

    An interesting book that, like most, is flawed.   Marcus was a student of Stephen Pinker, someone I'm not particularly fond of, but I shouldn't hold that against him.   The book is probably a longish essay that got expanded into book form but I'm glad I read it.

Forgiveness Revisited ....... Again

    Two recent incidents updated in today's media, (1) the shooting of civilians by an American soldier in Afghanistan and his subsequent arrest on multiple charges, and (2) the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., clearly will not be resolved for all involved until the issues of forgiveness are addressed.

    The survivors of the victims in these deaths are rightfully asking for justice to be done, starting with complete investigations and determination of those responsible being held accountable. In cases of death at the hands of others, clearly before forgiveness can occur, the sudden, horrible deaths must be explained and justice served. We know that to do otherwise will result in "complicated bereavement" which stalls and often lengthens the time of closure around the loss.

    We have also seen by the example shown first by South Africans in their Truth and Forgiveness process, that it is greatly facilitated by the admission of guilt at some point by those responsible.

    In our country, "their-in lies the rub". Admissions of guilt are rarely ever seen in the Courts and, in my opinion, our legal process all too often completely sidesteps it.

    In the first instance cited here, the murders in Afghanistan, a trial will not even be held in which family member of the victims will able to participate. It will also be tried in U.S. military courts. And the defense attorneys have already indicated that their defense of the accused will be to "put the war" on trial. If the accused is seen as also having some kind of PTSD, then the defense will probably contend that the U.S. military repeatedly sent him back into combat and should be seen as complicit in the murders.

In the Florida situation, I can sense that the man who admittedly shot Trayvon Martin, if and when he is charged, will probably do much of the same. The Florida legislature that passed the "Stand Your Ground" law may also be on trial, as will the apparent inept law enforcement effort that filed no charges in the case.

    And where and when will "forgiveness" occur?

    It seems to me that our legal process, for the most part, does not consider forgiveness. All too often, we face these challenges in our communities through the trauma of individuals and families.  And do we not, as parents and family members see the face of Trayvon in our own children.

 

Full Circle

 

 

                                                        Full Circle

                                                 by Alden Nowlan

In my youth, no one spoke of love

where I lived, except I spoke of it, and then only in the dark. The word was known

like the name of a city on another continent.

No one called anyone his friend,

although they had friends. Perhaps they were afraid

to commit so much of themselves,to demand so much of others;

for if they'd said,

"We're friends," as they never did,

it would have been a contract.

As it was, they could quarrel,

even hit one another if they were drunk,

and remain friends, never having said it.

Where nothing was sworn there could be no betrayal.

Nor did they touch

casually; their persons seemed to occupy

more space than their bodies did.

Seeing an adult run we'd have looked first for the reason

in the direction from which he came. We never met trains;

my people were like that.                                              It was not enough for me.

                      "I love you," I said.

Whispered it, painfully, and was laughed at;

hid until the wounds healed and said it again, 

            muttered it.

Wanting to be loved, "I love you," was what I said.

And I learned to touch, as a legless manlearns to walk again. 

 

                                  Came to live among people

who called anyone a friend

who was not an enemy, to whom there were no strangers:

because there were so many, they were invisible.

Now, like everyone else, I send

postcards to acquaintances, With Love—

Love meaning, I suppose, that I remember the recipients

kindly and wish them well. But I say it

less often and will not be surprised

at myself if the time comes when I do not say it,

when I do not touch, except desperately, when I ask

nothing more of others, but greet them with a wink,

as my grandfather might have done, looking up

for an instant from his carpenter's bench.

 

"Full Circle" by Alden Nowlan, from What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread. © The Thousands Press, 2000.

Who is Kevin Gordon?

    I recently, and I'm not exactly sure how it happened, came across the music of Kevin Gordon.  I think I heard him on Pandora, liked what I heard, went on-line and bought his most  effort, Gloryland.    Then I actually forgot I had it.   I discovered it again today and was amazed by what I heard and saw (thanks to YouTube).

    Here's a biographic piece I found on him:

    "Over the course of twenty years of writing, recording and touring, singer-songwriter Kevin Gordon has built an impressively consistent catalog of songs, a critically acclaimed stack of albums, and a reputation for dynamic live performances that make first-time listeners dedicated fans. His new full-length album, Gloryland, released in early 2012 has garnered praise from, among others, highly respected author and American music scholar Peter Guralnick:

    "There's nothing else around today quite like Kevin Gordon’s music. I'm a huge Kevin Gordon fan. Think of John Lee Hooker tied to the hard, imagistic poetry of William Carlos Williams, and you get a little bit of an idea. It’s something like trance blues, I suppose – but then you encounter the tangled, complex story lines of 'Colfax' or 'Trying to Get to Memphis' or 'Bus to Shreveport.' There really is no way to sum it up neatly – you just have to listen. And listen again. For the pure emotional pleasure of it. For the unmistakable, hard-driving passion of words and music, rocking together in rhythm."

    Well, I agree completely with all of the above, but in spades.  How is it possible that this guy is unknown?   And has been recording for twenty years, not in studios but in the homes of his friends.  The song, Colfax, may be one of the great rock songs I have ever heard.   It is just stunning.    Just watch the video below.

 

 

 

        He's going to be playing a small club outside of Richmond, Va on March 31.   The price of admission is $12/head - $17 at the door.    There is no justice in the music world.

Brother Christian's Testament

    At the French Film Festival held recently in Williamsburg, we saw a film released early in 2011, Of Men and Gods.     It is a film of faith.    

 

 

 

    On the night of 26-27 in March 1996, seven Trappist monks from the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria — Dom Christian de Chergé, Brother Luc Dochier, Father Christophe Lebreton, Brother Michel Fleury, Father Bruno Lemarchand, Father Célestin Ringeard, and Brother Paul Favre-Miville — were kidnapped and held for ranson for the release of  rebels of the Armed Islamic Group  being held in prison by the government.   They were held for two months, and were found dead on 21 May 1996.     In the film. their deaths are caused by rebels but in reality, as is often the case, the causes of their deaths remain in dispute.  It may be that the deaths were accidental in a botched rescue attempt by the Algerian army.

    The fate of these monks was the subject of a book by John Kiser, The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria (2003).   The film we saw has received many awards and glowing reviews.   America‘s Fr. James Martin SJ has lauded it “the greatest film I’ve ever seen on faith.”

    One of many themes in the movie, and one that is so relevent today, is the continuuing conflict between the Muslim and the Christian communities.   The Trappist brothers present an example of a working attempt to bridge that conflict and through faith in God form a mutually supportive, integrated community.   Brother Christian, the prior of the monestary, prior to his death which he saw as inevitable, writes a testimory to his work and his asks that the world try to understand that coexistance was possible and necessary.   The movie ends with their deaths and his prayer.

 

 

 

                                                              Brother Christian’s testament:

‘Should it ever befall me, and it could happen today, to fall victim to the terrorism which seems to now want to engulf all the foreigners living here, I would like my community, my church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.

May they accept that the Unique Master of all life could not be a stranger to this brutal departure. May they be able to associate this death to so many other violent ones, consigned to the apathy of anonymity.

I've lived long enough to know that I am complicit in the evil that, alas, seems to prevail over the world and even of the one that would strike me blindly.

I could never desire such a death. In fact, I don’t see how I could ever rejoice in this people I love being indistinctly accused of my murder.

I know the contempt the people of this country may have indiscriminately been surrounded by. And I know which caricatures of Islam a certain Islamism encourages.

This country and Islam, for me, are something else.   They are a body and a soul.

My death will of course quickly vindicate those who hastily called me naïve or idealistic, but they must know that I will finally be freed of my most burning curiosity and will be able, God willing, to immerse my gaze into the Father's in order to contemplate with him his children of Islam as he sees them.

In this THANK YOU, where from now on all is said about my life, I include you of course, friends of yesterday and today, and you as well, friend of the last minute, who knew not what you were doing.

Yes, for you as well, I want this THANK YOU and this FAREWELL which you envisaged.

And may we meet again, happy thieves in paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both 
‘AMEN      INCH’ALLAH!’."

 

Am I Rich Enough?

    I came across this NYT article recently which, in a lively, fun way, poked fun of cultural divide between black and white, "have some and want some" cultures.   In the article Charles Murray, American intellectual and author recent cited in this blog,  and  Baratunde Rafiq Thurston, American comedian, interview each other. As it turns out, both are bright and both are funny.

 

    FEBRUARY 10, 2012, 1:41 PM

    Black and White: Charles Murray and Baratunde Thurston Quiz Each Other

    By GREGORY COWLES

    Charles Murray’s book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” about the class     divide in white America, hits The New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-seller list at No. 9     this week. Mr. Murray — whose previous book, “The Bell Curve,” spent 15 weeks on the list in     1994-95 — devotes a chapter in “Coming Apart” to a quiz measuring how much his     upper-middle-class readers know about “the rest of America.” (It includes questions about     domestic beer, Nascar and “Desperate Housewives.”)

    As it happens, Baratunde Thurston’s book “How to Be Black,” at No. 24 on the e-book nonfiction     best-seller list (and No. 21 on the extended hardcover list), also features a set of questions about     cultural identity, including “Where did you get that name?” and “How black are you?”

    In the spirit of journalistic mischief, Cowles invited Mr. Murray to answer Mr. Thurston’s     questions and vice versa, letting Mr. Murray substitute “white” for “black” where appropriate.

 

    Now, I'm not going to print the interviews on this page but you can see them here.

    What I am going to do is to print the interview questions here and you can answer them for your selves.  I'm sure that's what you wanted to do anyway.

 

                            Thurston's Questions For Murray (White People or 1%'ers)

Q.Where did you get that name?
A.

Q.When did you first realize you were white?
A.

Q.How white are you?
A.

Q.Do you know what an Oreo is?
A.

Q.Have you ever wanted to not be white?
A

Q.Can you swim?
A.

Q.How’s that postracial thing working out for ya?
A..

 

                Murrays's Questions for Thurston (Black People or Working Class Whites)

 

Q.  Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American neighborhood in which the majority of your 50 nearest neighbors probably did not have college degrees?
A.

Q.Did you grow up in a family in which the chief breadwinner was not in a managerial job or a high-prestige profession (defined as attorney, physician, dentist, architect, engineer, scientist or college professor)?
A..

Q.Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American community under 50,000 population that is not part of a metropolitan area and was not where your college was located?
A.

Q.Have you ever lived for at least a year in the United States at a family income that was close to or below the poverty line? 
A.

Q.Have you ever walked on a factory floor?
A.

Q.Have you ever held a job that caused something to hurt at the end of the day?
A.

Q.Have you ever had a close friend who was an evangelical Christian?
A.

Q.Do you now have a close friend with whom you have strong and wide-ranging political disagreements?
A.

Q.Have you ever had a close friend who could seldom get better than Cs in high school even if he or she tried hard?
A.

Q.During the last month, have you voluntarily hung out with people who were smoking cigarettes?
A.

Q.What military ranks do these five insignia represent?
A.

Q.Choose one. Who is Jimmie Johnson? Or: Have you ever purchased Avon products?
A.

Q.Have you or your spouse ever bought a pickup truck?
A.

Q.During the last year, have you ever purchased domestic mass-market beer to stock your own fridge?
A

Q.During the last five years, have you or your spouse gone fishing?
A.

Q.How many times in the last year have you eaten at one of the following restaurant chains? Applebee’s, Waffle House, Denny’s, IHOP, Chili’s, Outback Steakhouse, Ruby Tuesday, T.G.I. Friday’s, Ponderosa Steakhouse.
A.

Q.In secondary school, did you letter in anything?
A.

Q.Have you ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club or Rotary Club, or a meeting at a union local?
A.

Q.Have you ever participated in a parade not involving global warming, a war protest, or gay rights?
A.

Q.Since leaving school, have you ever worn a uniform?
A.

Q.Have you ever ridden on a long-distance bus (e.g., Greyhound, Trailways) or hitchhiked for a trip of 50 miles or more?
A.

Q.Which of the following movies have you seen (at a theater or on a DVD)? “Iron Man 2,” “Inception,” “Despicable Me,” “Tron Legacy,” “True Grit,” “Clash of the Titans,” “Grown Ups,” “Little Fockers,” “The King’s Speech,” “Shutter Island.”
A.

Q.During the 2009–10 television season, how many of the following series did you watch regularly? “American Idol,” “Undercover Boss,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Lost,” “House,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Two and a Half Men,” “The Office,” “Survivor.”
A.

Q.Have you ever watched an Oprah, Dr. Phil, or Judge Judy show all the way through?
A.

Q.What does the word Branson mean to you?
A.

    As you can tell, this is done in fun.   Murray's questions are some of ones he actually uses in his reseach.  I've left the answer key out but you can get a sense of where they both are going with it. Go and read their answers.    Murray, in his responses, comes across as very human, funny and complex, more then I would have thought.   Not that Thurston doesn't but that's his job.

 

    Here's another way of asking the same questions.