The Orange Biographies, The Healing Narrative, and Somatic Techniques

I was delighted to see in Sunday’s New York  Times that David Sedaris read the orange biographies as child.  I  believe I read them all—everything that the children’s library in Marblehead,  MA had to offer.  These were the stories of “great Americans.”   The list that I recall included Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, and Wyatt Earp.

Looking back I think that even in third grade I found the personal narrative captivating and inspiring.  If I was going to be a great American, these were the books to read.

I suppose I have given up my aspiration for greatness.  But I have not relinquished my passion for stories, the stories of a life.  This has sustained me over decades in the practice of psychotherapy.  My job is mostly about helping people tell their stories.  I wrote in a blog several months ago (May 16, 2011 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/may-benatar-phd-lcsw/personal-narrative-healing_b_862285.html) about the value of creating the coherent personal narrative and the role of the therapist in this creation, this construction.  Sometimes it’s like solving a thousand piece puzzle, the story is jumbled, chaotic, fragmented.  Sometimes it is like picking out threads from a weave tangled with other people’s version of our story—“Mom said I was this kind of a child/person.  Auntie M. thought I was better than that.”

Sometimes there are holes as big as a truck in the story of one’s life—the individual seemingly retaining only crumbs of a history.   Figuring out what one’s own story is, from one’s own perspective, is both challenging and fascinating. 

The enterprise of constructing a coherent narrative of one’s life is mostly a cognitive process.    With the support and guidance of a skilled, empathic and alert listener, i.e. the psychotherapist, we come to understand how we got where we are, what has motivated, shaped, and had meaning for us.  We get to claim our own experience, from the inside out.  This is powerfully healing all by itself.

I have recently been learning about another kind of narrative:  the narrative of the body or the “felt sense.”  There are two new-ish techniques in which therapist’s are being trained, adding to their store of tools.  These techniques go beyond the verbal, the cognitive, beyond the prefrontal cortex so to speak.  Developed to work with trauma, Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP) focus attention from the grass roots, so to speak: Pat Ogden (founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute) refers to this as moving from the bottom up, felt experience, versus working from the top down, a more cognitive process.  The basic assumption is that the human nervous system is not unlike other mammalian nervous systems which have a self correcting, self healing potential.  Peter Levine (the developer of SE) reports that wild animals face trauma every day, and seem to bounce back within minutes of surviving a life threatening experience.  Trauma does not de-rail them.  There is no PTSD in the wild.

These new technologies which are being learned and mastered by practitioners around the world, tune in to a very different story:  the story stored in our body, in our “felt sense.”  Interestingly the stories that have been lost to the cognitive narrative, may be stored in the body and be accessible if one pays a certain kind of attention.  The body may have a very different story than the “remembered” story.

Next time you have a back ache, a bellyache, an attack of anxiety:  tune in for a few minutes, place your attention on the sensation and track it with your awareness.  Watch what happens: does it change?  Does it move?  Does it yield any information, image, anything? Does tuning in make you want to move or gesture in a certain way?

 Doing this will give you a taste of what these new techniques are like. 

For more information see www.traumahealing.com and/or www.sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org

THE MIRACLE OF ADAPTATION AND MR. WHITE EGRET

I was on a walk the other day.  The sun was out after many days of rain.  The creek along which I walk so often had become almost a river.  For the very first time, I noticed a white egret standing motionless  by a man-made waterfall on the creek.  The elegant bird looked as if she were trying to figure out how to navigate the cascade.  The creek had been but a trickle all summer.  But this fall had been unusually wet and stormy.  And the water was high and fast.

Strangely the bird was still there in the same spot, standing like a statue, unchanged, 30 minutes later when I passed on my return trip.  I raced home for my camera, sure he/she would be there when I returned.  In the meantime I had an elaborate fantasy (the kind of fantasy only a psychotherapist would have!) about that poor bird.  It went something like this:  The bird, probably young, had adapted to the stream at its lowest ebb during the summer.   Growing up beside a trickle, it was well adapted to those conditions.  When the stream swelled, her/his adaptation style no longer sufficed and he/she could not figure out what to do.

Of course, this reminded me of the essential human dilemma.  We adapt as children,  with brains, nimble and flexible,  to the conditions of our environment:  the family we are born into,  the emotional surround be it one of privation or abundance.  We are veritable geniuses of adaptation.  Problems arise latter when our brilliant adaptation styles no long suffice.  When the floods of later life come, we are often at a loss.  The tools of the earlier years are more than likely useless.

The child Holocaust survivor who starved and had to scrounge for whatever food was available in order to live,  may well have trouble at the dinner table as a middle aged adult now seated at the groaning board of American abundance: obesity and diabetes II ensue. The woman who has witnessed the suffering of older siblings who resisted a controlling parent only to be vilified, and rejected by that parent, learns submissiveness at home and fails to develop the assertiveness she needs to succeed in adult life.

I returned with my camera,  maybe 15 minutes later.  Mr. White Egret was gone.  There goes my theory.  Somehow he had navigated the falls.  Maybe he was just a patient fisherman all along.

Days passed,  no egret.  No egret, but another lesson came my way.

A week or two later, I had the good fortune to reconnect with a client I had known over many decades.  She was in her mid twenties (I in my mid thirties) when we met.  We worked together for many years and then just on and off thereafter.   She was in tough shape in those early years, nearly mute in our sessions for probably two years.  I did the talking, guessing at her pain, her shame, her fear.  She cancelled more often than not.   But often I could talk her into coming.  She had adapted well to an early environment in which it was dangerous to speak up,  it was dangerous to be noticed at all.  From a very large family, dominated by alcohol, violence, including sexual violence,  she was denigrated, humiliated, unprotected.   She felt insignificant, unsafe, and unworthy. 

Most significantly she was separated from herself—to survive  her childhood her essential self had gone into hiding.  What was left was a child hovering in fear, whatever strength there was seemingly defeated.   She was the only one among 17 children who had managed to finish high school,  but there was very little evidence of pride, and certainly no accolade from the family.  Any sign of independence, strength, intelligence was seen as a negative not a positive by her family.

Fast forward 20 years.  In the interim this woman went to college, gave birth and raised a child single handedly  and successfully without a father. She bought a home,  rose in her profession to a role of leadership,  survived a life threatening illness through sheer grit.  On and off she used therapy to help her navigate these crises, at times I was the second parent to her daughter, but for long stretches of time she did not call or come in to see me.

The one longing unfulfilled,  was the inability to sustain an intimate relationship with a man.

Now in her 50’s we are again back in touch and this time because she is in an intimate connection with a man, someone who sounds mature, loving, and accepting and who wants to marry her.  She knows she needs a little extra support until she decides what to do. 

The white egret has adapted to the falls.  A sustaining relationship with me over the years was certainly part of that critical adaptation.  But the real wonder here,  the awesome reality, is that she had the capacity to use that relationship and all other positives in her life, the terrific child she gave birth to,  her teachers in school,  friends, neighbors,  a few members of the extended family that did not put her down—whatever came her way she used to grow and change and reconnected with all that was positive in her. 

She herself has described it as the child within, the one I saw cowering in the early days mute and frightened, has grown up.

This is not the only story I have of the awe-inspiring nature of our ongoing, life-long capacity for change.  It’s just the latest.

taking off for a good new year.

Mourning into Dancing

The other day a Debbie Friedman song popped up on my ipod shuffle. I had no idea it was even on my ipod or how it got there. Debbie Friedman was a singer and composer of songs, many in Hebrew, often reworking prayers from the Jewish prayerbook.

“Mourning into dancing” is Debbie Friedman’s riff on Psalm 30, a song of gratitude.

It was a day or two after I had some terribly sad, shocking news and I took it as a sign. Somehow I needed to transform my mourning into something like dancing, a creative expression of gratitude. I did not get the chance to do this before she died. She failed to give me notice.

The woman who died, suddenly, unexpectedly was my compass for over 25 years. Eda Goldstein was alternately my supervisor, or rather I was her apprentice, she was my teacher, my mentor, a model of professional accomplishment, my guru. She helped me negotiate a good bit of my professional and personal life. I was not in continuous contact with her over those 30 years, but she was always there when I got into trouble and I needed help in sorting things out. She was without peer in both her loyalty and in her wise guidance.

I think I need to say “thank you”

When I first started to go into New York City to get supervision from her, in the early 80’s, a friend and colleague noted that I was awfully quiet about what was happening there. Well I was quiet because it was a humbling experience.

I remember my  brief case was new (now scruffy, battered, ripped and repaired). The children had reached an age when I felt comfortable working more and my priorities were getting re-shuffled. I was determined to learn from a master. So I cheerfully schlepped into NYC to sit at her feet. And it was overwhelming.

She was a tough task master, she never sugar coated her counsel on cases and frequently I would smart from her observations. Later, much later, she observed that most supervisees just want to be admired, not taught. I’m sure I was one of those, but I stuck it out, nonetheless and ultimately her toughness gave me confidence.

I discovered Eda at a lecture in New Jersey. She was a annoyed with her sponsors.  Nonetheless she was a brilliant presenter at that meeting. My friend E. agreed that she was special. I decided right there that she was to be my mentor

That friend and colleague loved her too. The supervision group of which we both were a part, shared her in a way, even if they never schlepped into New York to see her, they shared her with me, her wisdom, her depth, her clear-eyed respect and compassion for clients. Among her more notable qualities was that clarity. There was a kind of laser-like quality to her thinking (and her writing). She effortlessly peeled back, down right ignored, what was extraneous, not central to the issue at hand.

Social workers all have inferiority complexes. No matter how advanced their training, no matter the length of their experience, no matter their academic credentials they feel and often are regarded as “less” than their clinical colleagues, psychologists and psychiatrists. They are paid less and related to as less, despite the fact that their training may be equivalent or even surpass other mental health professionals.

Being associated with a star like Eda Goldstein did a lot for my own professional self esteem. She is described by the Dean of New York University, School of Social Work where she taught and led faculty and students in many roles for decades: “ Eda was, and remains to the day of her death, the foremost social work scholar of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice. Her loss is a great loss for our community and for the field.” This scholar and brilliant clinician thought I was okay, maybe even bright. That helped a lot.

For decades I was comforted by the certainty that any idea I had, plan of action, or major move I contemplated could be run past her. I could and actually still do comfort myself with that, even though I can only do it in my imagination now. Mostly I know what she would say. But when my imagination runs aground, I am bereft.

I wish I could just send this to her. I would love her feedback. And more importantly, I would want her to know how much I loved and will miss her.

There is really an interesting "chat" on huffington post (link below) on a piece on "inner wisdom" that I wrote for this blog some time ago.  If any are interested, see the comments section.  Others have chimed in with helpful suggestions for deepening the inner conversation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/may-benatar-phd-lcsw/consult-inner-wisdom_b_931374.html

KAFKA AND THE DOLL: THE PERVASIVENESS OF LOSS

Franz Kafka, the story goes, encountered a little girl in the park where he went walking daily. She was crying.  She had lost her doll and was desolate.

Kafka offered to help her look for the doll and arranged to meet her the next day at the same spot.  Unable to find the doll he composed a letter from the doll and read it to her when they met.

“Please do not mourn me,  I have gone on a trip to see the world.  I will write you of my adventures.”  This was the beginning of many letters.  When he and the little girl met he read her from these carefully composed letters the imagined adventures of the beloved doll.  The little girl was comforted.

When the meetings came to an end Kafka presented her with a doll.  She obviously looked different from the original doll.  An attached letter explained: “my travels have changed me…”

Many years later, the now grown girl found a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll.  In summary it said:  “ every thing that you love, you will eventually lose,  but in the end,  love will return in a different form.”

There are many versions of the story of Kafka and the doll.  I heard this one from Tara Brach, psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher in Washington DC.

Only after many tellings am I able to relay this story without crying.  And I have found that when I tell it to others young or old,  my listener is invariably moved, occasionally bursting into tears.

When I went online to find confirmation for the story,  I found one source that referred to it as a “healing story.”  That seems right.  For whether this actually ever happened the story is real and true and provides a template for healing.

For me there are two wise lessons in this story:  Grief and loss are ubiquitous even for a young child.   And the way toward healing is to look for how love comes back in another form.

 I think there are advantages to viewing grief as omnipresent, an inescapable part of being a human being.  Grief encompasses far more than the loss of a loved one,  although that is perhaps its most profound manifestation.   The loss of  the doll in the story is devastating to the little girl. This is what moves Kafka to create the wonderful stories of  travel and adventure.  He perceived the depth of her pain.  It is reported that he put as much time and care into creating these letters for the little girl as he did in other writings.

Holding the  perspective of  the universality of loss,  helps us with shame and loneliness.  If a profound grief reaction to divorce or children leaving home or the loss of a pregnancy,  or unemployment, or retirement,  or having to confront the limitations of our children, or aging, or the loss of health is something I share with my fellow beings, I am less alone.  And I don’t have to be ashamed that I feel the way I do,  for shame is part of the legacy of isolation.

And love coming back,  in  a different form?  I believe it was Kafka’s letters that were the real gift of love, and what was ultimately healing for the little girl was the relationship that that was the balm.  Someone cared enough for her pain to write her lovely stories of the lost doll’s adventures.  A great writer at that. 

How healing it is to hold this conviction, that love will return. It is our job to recognize it in its new form.

CONSULTING YOUR INNER WISDOM: PART 2

 Last October I wrote a post on listening to your inner wisdom (Oct. 1, 2010

http://postsfromtheunconscious.blogspot.com/2010/10/consult-your-inner-wisdom-it-has-all.html)

The post was based on experiences from my practice with a visualization technique that seemed helpful to people and furthered the ends of the psychotherapy treatment.  It often helped us cut through confusion, obfuscation, denial, and conditioned thinking and got us quickly to the heart of whatever matter we were wrestling with.

This work was especially helpful with and for individuals who relied heavily on “dissociation”  a coping mechanism we all resort to at times, but is particularly important for individuals who have experienced childhood trauma.  I have experimented with the inner wisdom technique with others whose “traumas” were less obvious or less extreme or even non-existent and found it useful in a lot of situations.  Inner wisdom is wise and I think universal.

I’m revisiting this issue, after reading an article by Martha Beck in this month’s Oprah Magazine,  (yes, Oprah) on a very similar topic which reminded me of some other issues related to implementing this practice which might be useful to comment on.

The existence of “inner wisdom” is based on the assumption that there is something in all of us that, unimpeded, will right us when we wobble.  Maybe “inner gyroscope” is more accurate.  A gyroscope will always get us back in balance if we just let it.

I think of inner wisdom as right-brained, body-based, nor necessarily verbal.  It’s that still small “voice” within which may not be a “voice” at all, but arrive in the form of images, kinesthetic sensation, or even sound. 

I sat with a client once on the same morning I had received some awful news about a dear friend.  I tried to set this aside and set to work with this client.  I thought I had. Very quickly, I got drawn into a confusing, chaotic, tumultuous session.  It wasn’t until she reported “hearing”  a loud bang that we began to get some clarity.  The bang, it turned out, was the dreadful memory of the sound of a car hitting and killing her best friend, an event that she had witnessed decades past.   Her “inner wisdom” was telling her something very similar was happening to me.  And it was.

We live in an extremely left-brained culture.  By this I mean we value words, logic, socially conditioned values.  We more often make choices based on “shoulds,” “oughts,” the evaluations of others, negative judgments.   We don’t let the gyroscope do its work.

We also live in a culture brimful of distraction. 

To “hear” your inner voice you have to get quiet, you have to learn to cultivate and tolerate silence.  The blackberry, iphone, NPR, gmail, twitter, facebook all have to go away for a little while everyday.  Processing experience comes more naturally when you are walking in the woods, taking rhythmic breaths in the pool, doing yoga without the radio on (my personal downfall).

Taking note of our dreams, by keeping a log of them,  sitting with them for at least a few minutes every day, increases clarity. There very well may be meaningful cues that are coming through our dreams that can be guiding us.  A patient reports that as she was sifting through old journals she found notes of a dream that almost exactly predicted the location and manner of detection of a malignancy in her breast, a malignancy that would be discovered many years later.

Meditating on a regular basis also increases the accessibility to cues, often within the body, that are signaling us as to which moves are prudent, and which imprudent.

Sometimes I have the experience of feeling upset without really know why.  I know my nervous system is buzzing, my body is sending signals of distress, but I haven’t a clue as to what this is about.  I have to get quiet to have any chance of getting a handle on what is really going on.  More than likely,  sitting quietly, patiently (for it may take awhile) with the question of what is it that is upsetting me,  what is calling for my attention, will yield some clarity.   The upset doesn’t disappear, but its power does diminish and I am less likely to be reactive to it, reactive in a way that will neither benefit me nor those around me.

Cultivating this inner voice yields great benefits.  I think we all instinctively know this.  I wonder what keeps us from actively listening.