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Anxiety

21 May

Seneca: There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more in apprehension than in reality.

This observation made in the first century AD still holds true.

Paradox

19 May

Hegel (Phenomenology of spirit, 1807) recognized that the more we try to control others, the more alone we become because they are not able to be fully present as themselves while they are being manipulated into being what we want them to be.

Teachers, Beware

9 May

Teachers across the USA report high exposure at their schools to student violence and harassment that is directed to them personally, according to an article in the American Psychologist, 2013.

More Literary Boredom

6 May

In J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy (2012), a middle-aged woman, remembering a promise made in their youth by her husband to travel the world, bemoaned that he was backing out. She had always expected that someday they would leave “in search of heat and freedom” to escape “the pettiness and the sameness.”

Again I protest the everyday life must be boring. Perhaps it would have been better for her to have sought psychotherapy than to have gone traveling, which can also become tiresome if one is prone in that direction.

Boredom

2 May

In both Edith Wharton’s The Age Of Innocence (1920) and Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus (2011) there is an important young male character who feared a potential future immersed in routine and boredom. Ms. Wharton’s young man speaks of the “haunting horror of doing the same thing everyday at the same hour…’sameness-sameness.'” Ms. Morgenstern’s adolescent’s family expected him to stay on the family farm where he anticipated a life “always the same, year after year.” Both feared, in Ms. Wharton’s words, “being buried alive under a static future.”

These books are set in the latter 19th, early 20th centuries. The Wharton novel renders the the culture of New York’s moneyed society. Ms. Morgenstern creates a circus of Merlinesque magic placed in that time period but transcending actual time.

The young men handle the fear of a boring future quite differently. Wharton’s character gives into society’s pressure and chooses the conventional life. He experiences much boredom as the years pass. Interestingly in his fifties, when another chance comes to be unconventional, he does not take it: “Looking about him, he honored his own past and mourned for it. After all, there was good in the old ways.” In contrast, Morgenstern’s youngster ran away and joined the circus. The novel ended before we know much more than he became the circus director. I assume that he was never afterwards oppressed by routine in a world of magic and illusion.

Neither choice do I find particularly appealing. It seems that it is worth the struggle to find variety and meaning from one’s choices in the real world.

Aside

“The universe is made up of stories, not

29 Apr

“The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.” (Poet Muriel Rukeyser)

Children and Divorce

26 Apr

The good news is that only a small minority of children have serious problems after parental divorce and become troubled adults as a result of it, according to Scientific American Mind (2013, 24, 1, pp 68-69), Those who have experienced psychological damage have probably been exposed to high parental conflict and poorer parenting during and after the divorce as well negative post divorce outcomes such as decreased economic stability and social support. 

ADHD Epidemic

23 Apr

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the diagnostic rate for ADHD has increased by 41% in the USA over the last 10 years. One explanation is that physicians too freely prescribe for mild behavioral and concentration problems. (The Week, April 19, 2013, p.21)

Another possibility was presented in the April 12, 2013, conference at the University of Indianapolis: “Because your mind has a brain of your own.” It seems that many young animals display behaviors similar to children with ADHD when they are play deprived. Perhaps the long hours spent sitting in the schoolroom plus the time spent studying at home plus the time spent in front of computer and TV screens at home are contributors. Outside play time, especially rough and tumble play for boys, might help.

Mind-Brain Connection

19 Apr

Last Friday, April 12. I attended a day’s workshop entitled “Because your mind has a brain of its own: The relevance of neuroscience for psychodynamic theory and practice.” It presented the latest information and speculations about the relationships between brain, mind, and emotional problems. Most interesting to me was the growing evidence that psychotherapy, more specifically psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapies, can change the brain itself.

More about teens in Casual Vacancy

16 Apr

In J.K. Rowling’s Casual Vacancy (2012), there are five major adolescent characters. There is Andrew who is physically abused by his father and unprotected by his mother’s denial of the brutality. His best friend, Fats, leads him astray by his seemingly sophisticated cynicism and intellectualized underestimation of the pitfalls of real life, which he pursues in the name of authenticity. Fats grew up without challenged by peers and parents. His peers were too impressed and intimidated by his biting tongue; His overprotective mother blocked his emotionally ill father’s attempts to set limits. Gaia is left out by her social worker mother’s devotion to rescuing others and efforts to hook a husband who doesn’t want to be hooked. Her cry to her mother,” What about me?,” said it all. Her beauty is both and asset and liability with peers, especially boys. Sukhvinder’s lack of beauty is a definite hindrance, especially with Fats, who turns his virulent wit relentlessly toward her. His verbal abuse and the coldness of her parents, her mother in particular, were instrumental in her self-injurious cutting.

The most central teen is Krystal, who is trying to find ways to grow up under the influence of her drug- addicted , promiscuous, and abysmally inadequate mother. In spite of her valiant attempts to save herself and her little brother and connect, however marginally, with others, she fails and commits suicide after her brother drowns. He dies after wandering off while she was trying to make a baby with Fats so that she might receive community financial support to make a home for herself, her baby, and her brother.

What came of the deaths of Krystal and her brother were turning points for the other teenagers. Gaia’s mother finally paid attention to her. Fats found out the real life could be cruel and was able to use his father’s parenting.   Anthony found hope for the future .Sukhvinder , who had dived into the water to try to save the little boy, gained status with her mother and peers because of her courage and attempts to follow through with tribute to Krystal’s strengths. 

Too bad it had to happen that way.

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