(In the US, the nickname “March Madness” refers to a historical obsession with college basketball during the month of March.)
Hyper-attuned to invisibility, I perk up abruptly when I hear a remarkable but “dated” story. How could I have missed that? Such was the case when Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf came to my awareness. His name was so unfamiliar I had a hard time remembering it, even as I found the man unforgettable. I happened to hear an interview with the filmmaker of a recent documentary about this forgotten basketball legend. Again, I am no sports spectator. But I am fascinated and compelled by the energy, drive, and exquisite body awareness of talented athletes, and have great admiration for those who use their visibility and influence for larger, humanitarian ends. And I am similarly compelled when they vanish from the public mind. How can the seeming amnesia of neglect be so “easy?”
I found many aspects of Abdul-Rauf to be unforgettable. Born in 1969 in the depths of the still racially segregated Southern US, with the name Chris Jackson, he never knew his father. It was a source of persistent grief that his mother “could” not tell him and never did. Already beset with both poverty and hunger, at an early age, young Chris began to suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome. For years, mysterious and nameless, the illness kept him endlessly driven by unstoppable compulsive movements and rituals. It might take him 45 minutes to put on his shoes as he wildly took them off, put them on, took them off, put them on, over and over again. His already beleaguered single mom would become impatient and angry with his noisy opening and slamming, opening and slamming the refrigerator door, taking forever to get the simplest tasks done. Young Chris desperately prayed for the overpowering agony to stop. Finally, after years of struggle, at age 17, the compulsion had a name. He was diagnosed, and although the tradeoffs of the various psych medications (as many of my readers probably know all too well) were another kind of nightmare, at least to some degree, his shame was alleviated.
Basketball was a wonderful discovery for Chris at the age of eight. He called it a “natural love.” He spent hours alone on the street, as he said “using his imagination.” He would imagine all sorts of plays, huge other players, attempting to guard him, complex basketball configurations. For hours on end, he would respond to those phantom situations, over and over again. He proceeded to at least try to “make basketball my father,” in that it took up a lot of his time, and gave him a sense of belonging. And to his surprise, he discovered he was particularly good at it. He also had the secret wish that “maybe if I got really good at something, my father wherever he might be, would want to know me and be with me…” Although his dream about his father never did come true, he did become that good.
NBA stars from various eras rhapsodize about him. Said Shaquille O’Neal, “watching Mahmoud, was like watching God play basketball.” Phil Jackson said “He was Steph Curry before there was Steph Curry.” And local guy, (the only one whose name I knew,) Steve Kerr said “To watch him have Tourette’s Syndrome and still destroy the best players in the league… I had no chance against Mahmoud.” And he was “barely” 6 feet tall.
About the uncontrollable repetitive drive of Tourette’s, as an adult he himself said “It was definitely a blessing, a major blessing. I would’ve stopped practicing after an hour and a half, two hours, and gone on home. But Tourette’s Syndrome said ‘NO!’ ” the forced repetition honed his exquisite skill.
His name was so unfamiliar I had a hard time remembering it, even as I found the man unforgettablehere are so many dimensions of change and transformation.
So what does Mahmoud’s story have to do with trauma and neglect? Surely going undiagnosed with an agonizing disability is familiar to many survivors, especially as countless unknown or unremembered stories are carried and told by the ailing body. Even more than that, however, I was struck by how at age 30, by then an accomplished professional basketball player, Jackson found a home in Islam, both in the spiritual sense, and most likely in the attachment sense as well. He began by reading, first the Autobiography of Malcom X, and then experiencing the love and welcome of the Muslim community, he discovered a kind of affiliation, a sense of belonging, and a meaning system, that seemed to be what had been missing for him. I have to wonder if it had to do with fatherlessness.
I generally think of the mother when I think about the survival need to be attached. It seems organic that the parent to whom the child is literally attached for a significant period of time be at least at first, the primary attachment figure. However, affiliation, belonging to a pack, is also a survival need, at least for mammals. When I looked up the origins of the word affiliation, I found it was adapted from the Latin affiliare “to adopt as a son,” for me it has seemed that acceptance, being good enough, belonging in some way to the world, being part of something greater, were associated with my father. I craved my mother’s love and attention, from my father I longed not only for attention but to be known, and for him to be proud of me: acceptance. I wonder if that is what Mahmoud sought and found in Islam.
At age 30, Jackson changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Inspired by other athletes before him, like Mohammed Alli, and by his own conscience, he began to find it impossible to stand during the National Anthem. He could not stand for injustice, for a history of racism and slavery. He knew that a lot of people who had followed and admired Cassius Clay, were not crazy about Mohammed Ali. He was aware that he risked a lot, yet he was willing to utilize his prominence as a public figure in the service of his beliefs. Some 20 years before Colin Kaepernick valiantly took the knee, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, took his stand. And it cost him dearly. Not only was his basketball career dramatically destroyed; he and his loved ones terrorized by death threats, but the “dream house” he was building for his family was dramatically burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan.
Remarkably, Mahmoud has for the most part overcome his anger and bitterness. Although he regrets that he has not done more humanitarian work, like Kaepernick does, he has continued to teach and speak where possible, and his memoir, In the Blink of an Eye: An Autobiography, was published by Kaepernick’s publishing company.
A recent documentary detailing his story, Stand is indeed excellent and worth watching. It is now available on Showtime. Admittedly having researched more and more deeply about Mahmoud, I feel the movie does not convey the extraordinary depth of the man. And when all is said and done, he has no regrets, and Islam has filled in the missing meaning system, the void left by his massive trauma and neglect. Still, I have to wonder, why had I never heard of him? Granted I am not a “sports fan,” but he does indeed belong on the monument with Alli and Kaepernick. I wonder if Ali also had a “missing” father. I will have to look into that.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Warning, this blog contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some readers.
My best friend in kindergarten was Robin Fields. What a great name!
She recently popped into my mind out of absolutely nowhere. Strange how memory is. I don’t recall ever thinking of her. Robin was so pretty and feminine, with shiny strawberry blond hair in a flip. And I loved her mom, Roselyn: she was so “American,” all the things we weren’t. She chewed gum, wore “tennies,” and made those wonderful tuna fish sandwiches on white bread with lots of mayo. She kind of reminded me of Carol Burnett. Best friends are so important to little girls, especially lonely children of neglect. I wonder what happened to Robin. She came to mind when I was thinking about fields.
I have been pondering the vast expanse of energy fields. Admittedly, quantum physics makes my head spin, but I am fascinated by the wordless communication that passes between us energetically and in all sorts of, what are to me, mysterious ways. Einstein taught us that everything is really particles of energy, so that includes the myriad of ways we experience energy in the body. When I first started learning about the brain, I thought mostly in terms of brain chemistry, not electricity or energy transmission, even though that is what firing neurons are. Neurofeedback taught me to start thinking about that.
Now I am learning that everything is energy, including color and music, even emotions and the way they pass between us. Plants also communicate with other plants, and with animals, we humans with both plants and animals, and with each other, if we are tuned in and aware. What a cacophonous babble of conversation swirls around us at all times. This is not “woo woo,” although it does seem rather magical. I even read about how frequencies and botched/misread transmissions caused disastrous casualties in World War II, but that is for another day.
I know when I sit with clients who have histories of neglect, whose stories are unremembered or not stored in the usual cognitive ways, I must keep all my senses wide open and tuned in for transmissions that may arrive through other “media.” If I stay mindful of the vibration, the movement, the frequencies in my own body and system: emotions, sensations, images, my own memories, dreams, and songs in my head, I often get quiet, telegraphed messages that inspire me to ask questions that then may render new puzzle pieces. Of course, I am scrupulously careful to be receptive and not make up their story! Rather, I ask questions, so the story of absence and missing experiences will find its expression as it can.
I am also struck by how our energetic tone powerfully influences what comes back to us. This certainly is not to cast blame, especially on those with histories of neglect, as our experience is to have no impact. No matter what we do, nothing comes back, leaving us with a powerful and enduring circuitry of helplessness and futility. This makes for what I have come to call the Three P’s of Neglect: passivity, procrastination, and paralysis. Oy vey. Many of us know them all too well.
However, something I have been surprised to discover in my own life is that often, when we lead with love, the returns may be surprising. Not always, but enough that it is a worthy practice and an at least aspired to default. It can even make forgiveness fruitful and rewarding sometimes. But that, too, is for another day.
I am also struck by how our energetic tone powerfully influences what comes back to us.
One of the perks of my particular brand of insomnia is that I catch late-night BBC broadcasts and often fascinating interviews. I happened to hear an interview with a documentary filmmaker whose 30-minute film Stranger at the Gate was in the running for an Academy Award. I rarely watch movies, being much too stingy with my reading time, but this one compelled me, and inspired, I sent the link to many others.
Richard McKinney, a virtual caricature of the racist, white supremacist hate monger, was a fiercely traumatized Marine Corps war veteran who served many bloody years in combat and participated in numerous horrific and murderous atrocities. He originally joined the marines as a young man in the futile hope of winning his father’s respect, also a Marine Corps veteran. Although he failed in that endeavor, military service successfully removed him from a downhill trajectory of using and selling drugs. McKinney probably would have finished out his sorry days in that bloody world, but injury sent him home to his mid-western state.
Shortly after his return to the states, 9/11 struck. McKinney, in a blast of florid PTSD, was inflamed with a wild resurgence of hatred for Muslims. His ordinarily quiet town of Muncie, Indiana, had become a refuge for a sizeable Afghan community with a well-attended mosque, and McKinney was seized with the idea of committing mass murder and blowing away as many Muslims as he could, even if it killed him. He began to frequent the mosque, to learn the rhythms of its comings and goings so that he could get “the most bang for his buck.”
Upon visiting the mosque, McKinney was surprised to be met with such warmth, such welcome, such generosity, such openness, such love, that it first gave him pause, and then transformed him. Not only did McKinney dispense with his catastrophic plan, but his soul opened, and he became a Muslim. It is a must-see (and available for free on YouTube.)
There are so many dimensions of change and transformation. There is such a range of visible and invisible conveyance of development, devastation, decay, healing, and growth.
So, what does any of this have to do with energy fields? Well, who knows? There are so many dimensions of change and transformation. There is such a range of visible and invisible conveyance of development, devastation, decay, healing, and growth. Becoming mindful and intentional, where possible, of what we emit and what we receive/consume can have a powerful impact. Certainly not always. So much trauma of every kind, is beyond our control or influence. But there is a sphere of possibility. How could the kindly Muslims know that by simply being themselves and practicing their values and beliefs, they were saving themselves from calamity? How can we know? Well, we can’t know that.
My experience teaches me daily that leading with the positive most often brings returns beyond my imagination. In turn, sadly, I observe people who unwittingly, through the pessimistic or resentful energy (or in the grip of depression) they emit, attract a like energetic response. The prophecy is self-fulfilled; sadly, they “make people not like them,” or worse. Not always, of course! But as the Dalai Lama wisely says, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Although certainly not always easy!
Neurofeedback works directly with brain frequencies, actively training and teaching them to “change their tune.” But we work with frequency in countless ways throughout the day, throughout our respective worlds and the larger world. Tune in!
I have often said that one of my most cherished bequests from our mom, starting when I was maybe two in our little slummy apartment in New York City, was Pete Seeger. His upbeat transmissions filled the air, and even though he died in 2014, at the age of 95, in my world, they still do.
Today’s song is a favorite from those days. I wonder if I listened to this with Robin?
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Occasionally, I read a book because it has been hanging out on the NY Times Bestseller List for so long that I feel I need to know what “everyone” is reading to keep up with the times. No, I am NOT talking about The Body Keeps the Score, which has been a fixture on the List for seemingly ever! (I was probably one of the first people to read that!) I did read 50 Shades of Gray (all three volumes!) only for that reason. Sometimes I do it also because the book was recommended by someone I am very fond of. Recently a very intelligent, young friend recommended a book that has been persistently hovering out there for quite a while, so I decided to go for it: the memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.
Never much of a TV watcher, and also of the wrong generation to be familiar with her, McCurdy’s story was all new to me. Born in 1992 and becoming a child TV star by eight, I had never even heard of the many shows she appeared in. But I found the book interesting because it is an exquisite portrayal of an often unrecognized and devastating form of neglect.
Growing up in a Mormon household, she was the youngest of four, the only girl, the most adored child, and wildly idealized by her clearly troubled mother. McCurdy’s mother, Debra, had always dreamed of being a movie or TV star herself, and already in early childhood, Jenette was painstakingly molded and sculpted to become the child star of her mother’s own lost aspirational dreams. Right from the start, Debra dressed, coiffed, and shaped Jennette’s appearance and even play, to be Little Debra 2.0, but the deluxe version that had never materialized.
Until her earlyish adulthood, Jennette experiences her mother’s “attention” and focus as the epitome of love. They were “inseparable,” and Jennette lived to please her mother, while her mother busily doted on and prepped her to inhabit the illusion. They did everything together, including creating and sharing perversely disordered eating that would train little Jennette to aspire to anorexic weights and sizes, well before she even received that indoctrination from the larger world. It was their little shared ritual to go out to lunch and split a “chef’s salad,” with the dressing on the side, no cheese, no meat, and no egg. Debra was able to locate and ultimately enlist the connections and the professionals that would connect little Jennette with first extra, then “guest,” and then starring regular roles in ongoing TV shows. Debra was thrilled, triumphant and proud, as well as relieved by the ways that Jenette’s income took the financial pressure off the otherwise struggling family.
Meanwhile, having survived, at least into remission, a serious bout of cancer, Debra was able to utilize the “cancer card” to win sympathy and the occasional “pass,” both inside and outside the family. Debra was the super-nova. Jennette was but a satellite. This kind of neglect, where “there is no you,” is one of the most devastating and insidious. The child is told and imagines she is so “loved” that the annihilation and, in effect, “soul murder,” not to mention the extreme of intrusion, are indiscernible to the young person. It takes a while for the rage to register, the authentic, inaudible voice of “what about me?” Or who is “me” anyway?
It is only when Jennette is sidling into adulthood that she begins to feel tired and resentful of living out her mother’s dream, of being her mother’s alter-ego. By then, she is completely dysregulated, struggling with severely disordered eating, well on her way to alcoholism, and of course, has every kind of relationship and sexual confusion. It is a devastatingly brilliant portrayal of a profound, unrecognized form of neglect/attachment trauma.
It would have been unthinkable for Jennette to imagine herself being neglected, as the attention, preoccupation, and obsession with her was unrelenting. Like many who are nominally “loved” even with less extreme of intrusion, it is challenging to identify the loss of self and the profound destruction of not being known, understood or seen.
Like many who are nominally “loved” even with less extreme of intrusion, it is challenging to identify the loss of self and the profound destruction of not being known, understood or seen.
Although Jennette rarely had a moment free of Debra’s towering invasion into any space she found herself in, her mother was never present with her. That invaluably vital developmental ingredient of being truly there with her never happened. Many clients I have seen bear all the scars of neglect but are hard-pressed to recognize, let alone name, their experience of nonexistence, of not being seen or known. They can’t understand why they feel so bad, shamefully calling it a failure of gratitude or some other sort of personal failure. Sometimes, their only identifiable (to them) and barely “legitimate” complaint might be in bodily symptoms.
Jennette’s eating disorder is florid and undeniable, and she portrays the mysterious swings between anorexia and terrifying, uncontrollable binge eating as well as I have ever read. Although I never “graduated” to bulimia the way she did, I remember that runaway train, being out of control in both directions and not in control of which. It is a nightmare I hate to remember. How courageously and graphically she exposes it! And it helps her to recognize that something is truly wrong. Sometimes only the body can communicate this, or force it into awareness, as we are all finally starting to understand.
I was recently reminded of the unspeakable power of simple presence. I had a minor surgery that required anesthesia, and I was still pretty drugged on the car ride home and our return to the house. Apparently, it was early afternoon when my husband delivered us safely home. My memory is spotty to blank for most of it. I floated through the afternoon in a deep sleep and woke up somewhat disoriented about what day or time it was. But opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was my husband and our little dog, Angel. He had been reading, and she was keeping him company while I slept. I began to cry. Presence. Perhaps the most precious expression of love, and so tragically missing in the neglect experience. In awe of the experience, I was, of course, (gratefully) reminded of the tragedy of its lack.
Presence. Perhaps the most precious expression of love, and so tragically missing in the neglect experience.
Another brutal police murder of a young Black man, Tyre Nichols, shatters the headlines. Although it is hardly a shock anymore, it is still unbearably shocking, this time, the wild beating perpetrated by five cops of his own race. That part is another whole subject for another day. What struck me, yet again, was how in his final moments, with his final breaths, young Nichols cried out “Mama, Mama…” much as George Floyd had. Attachment is a survival need for us humans, as all mammals. It is what we immediately grasp for and cry for in those moments of agony or terror when survival is at stake. More fundamental than even food, or almost air, its absence is like a slow suffocation. Often we don’t even know, or don’t know for a long time, like Jennette, just how airless the space is and maybe always has been.
Moments like waking up from anesthesia to a loving presence can bring simple but unutterably profound healing. We can all give that in big and small ways. So many reasons why we must wake up to the quiet devastation of neglect.
Today’s song:
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Back when I was in college, I remember the Maoists used to say, “Women hold up half the sky.” Although I was never a Maoist, I always loved this image of women, muscled arms upstretched, supporting at least half of this wide world of ours. As we approach International Women’s Day, it continues to shock me that girls and women can still be prohibited from going to school; imprisoned and even killed over what they wear, or their reproductive decisions in 2023. In some parts of the world, perhaps more than others, the sky is falling.
In honor of International Women’s Day, I want to memorialize a quiet and powerfully important woman who equally quietly slipped away on February 3, 2023. She was only 79, and I say only because the numbers seem smaller and smaller as I approach them myself. And I say quietly because after hearing through the grapevine, that she had passed, I systematically combed the web and all my accessible resources, turning up nothing: no obituary or substantial biographical material. Finally, an article written by her husband made the rounds and landed in my inbox. The woman is, or was, Sue Othmer, the valiant matriarch of neurofeedback.
I am moved to write about Sue, not only because neurofeedback is so powerful as a way of working with developmental trauma, neglect, and many other afflictions, but also because she epitomizes the polar opposite of the neglectful mother. Her life and career were inspired, shaped, and compelled by her fierce attention and commitment to the thriving, healthy, and safe development of her children.
Born in Boston, Sue, then Fitzgerald, grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and later Bethesda, Maryland. A superior achiever in school, she later studied physics and then neurobiology at Cornell and then at Oxford, where she met her husband and later professional partner, Siegfried Othmer. They were married for 52 years. In 1968, their first child, Brian, was born, followed in 1973 by their daughter Karen, and then in 1975, their youngest, Kurt.
Neurofeedback has continued to evolve and grow into an increasingly comprehensive, complex, and effective methodology beneficial to so many people (and some animals!) with a broad spectrum of somatic, emotional, and behavioral symptoms.
Grief was both the context and the catalyst of Sue’s life, certainly her professional life. Baby Karen died at 14 months of a brain tumor. By the time of his sister’s death, Brian had already been suffering from painful mental and behavioral problems for five years. As time went on, Brian’s complex problems evolved further into a difficult-to-treat seizure disorder.
The Othmers set out on a fervent quest in search of help and relief for Brian, in the course of which Sue happened upon a quirky, then new procedure developed by Barry Sterman at UCLA: neurofeedback. Sterman had been experimenting and succeeding at curing seizures in cats. The Othmers were heartened to find that neurofeedback proved helpful to Brian as well. And although it was not sufficient to save him, it gave him six good years, enabling him, almost, to graduate from college before his death in 1991. By the age of 47, the Othmers had lost two children. By then, however, Sue had studied and created an evolving mental health treatment option of neurofeedback. Transforming her own tragedy, she made a tremendous contribution to the world and certainly to my life and work.
I only had the occasion to meet the real woman once. It was probably in 2009. I was a new, starry-eyed neurofeedback practitioner, fresh out of my beginners’ training. For some strange reason, neurofeedback did not seem to have caught hold on the West Coast of the US: strange because I have always thought of my coast, particularly the San Francisco Bay Area, as being in the vanguard of the new and groundbreaking of whatever discipline. For whatever reason, that did not happen with neurofeedback here, and my impression is it still hasn’t, much to my dismay (despite my humble efforts to disseminate it.) So, in those days, I traveled wherever I had to and wherever I could to learn more. When the Othmers, Sue and her husband Siegfried, offered a weekend workshop in Los Angeles, I was on it in a hot minute.
Sadly, the neurofeedback field, mighty but small, has been fractured by factionalism and “in-fighting.” As my consultant once said, “The polar bears get on well when there is plenty of salmon. However, when there is not enough salmon, they fight among themselves.” So unfortunately, this quirky “new” discipline suffered from a senseless “otherism,” which, while needing numbers and unity to garner attention and research funding, could not settle on a unified purpose enough to work together. So be it; I did not know that then. When I enthusiastically found myself in the Othmers’ training, I did not know I had “crossed lines.” But it did not matter.
I don’t remember that weekend well, but I do remember that I loved it. Sue was a towering, if somewhat quiet, exquisitely smart, strong, precise, and no-nonsense presence. Although not warm or approachable to my taste, I liked and admired her, and she was a fine teacher. And she gracefully held up her half of the sky alongside her powerful and imposing husband and professional partner. Indeed they were the highly effective neurofeedback “power couple.”
Neurofeedback has continued to evolve and grow into an increasingly comprehensive, complex, and effective methodology beneficial to so many people (and some animals!) with a broad spectrum of somatic, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. It combines science, art, and perhaps some magic: brain and heart. All in a sea of hope, tireless conviction, and hard work, all of which epitomized Sue Othmer.
Again, not religious; I have little puffs of memory that float up from my childhood of “compulsory” religious school. I remember the song, the quote from Proverbs: “A woman of valor who can find? Her price is more precious than rubies…” That does sound like Sue.
In many ways, a simple procedure, simple enough to originally utilize with cats, it is also vastly complex, and learning it is endless. It works on the principle of “operant conditioning,” which seems utterly obvious, but can be so easily “forgotten.” Essentially, positive feedback is re-enforcing: reward, encouragement, acknowledgment, appreciating all the positives, strengthening and increasing whatever behavior or change is being rewarded. It seems like a “no-brainer.” I will resist the urge to rhapsodize about neurofeedback here, but I will surely return to it repeatedly. And there is much information to be found about neurofeedback!
From the ravaging flames of grief, from the depths of her broken heart, Sue Othmer summoned the mythical phoenix of neurofeedback.
From the ravaging flames of grief, from the depths of her broken heart, Sue Othmer summoned the mythical phoenix of neurofeedback. She and Siegfried continued to experiment, study, evolve, and teach it all the days of her life, until she could not, creating new and even more mysterious iterations, but never flagging in her curiosity, vision, and energy. I know how much neurofeedback has regulated, healed, and enhanced my own life, and my many clients over the past 14 years, countless suffering people around the world. It certainly guided the direction my own practice has taken, and I am so grateful.
So often, tragedy and grief, pain and suffering spawn and catalyze immense creativity and inspiration. This is not to minimize or somehow cancel out the impact of loss, violence, or destruction, but perhaps to give them meaning. I have always said, “everything I have ever been through serves me.” That certainly cannot be said of all trauma. But I am vastly grateful to all the many who have made a gift to us all of their own agonies. Thanks, Sue, and Happy International Women’s Day to all!
Today’s song: Mujeres by Silvio Rodriguez. Says Silvio: “Me han estremecido un monton de mujeres:” I have been ‘shaken’ by numerous women…
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
What a strange and wacky concept, finding and hiring a stranger with certain credentials, telling them everything about myself, and paying them huge amounts of money to sit and listen to me. The icing on the cake: calling it a relationship? Oy vey. To an extra-terrestrial, and a lot of other beings, really, it would sound insane. When I first started therapy, back in the stone age (when I was so traumatized as to truly be something of a Neanderthal,) a well-meaning friend who could see I seriously needed something recommended that I try seeing her person. I was 23.
After several years of sessions, the blur in the distant chair in the corner of the office actually coagulated into a person. I have no visual memory of her other than a blob of color. I was so convinced that she would forget about me completely when I was out of her sight, that I did not exist outside of those hours. I tried giving her things so evidence of me might remain to jog her memory. And she encouraged me to come several times a week – a good idea because every single session, for a long time, was for me, starting all over from scratch. It rather astonished me when she actually remembered things I had told her.
What kept me going back, day after day, week after week? Who can say? All of my money went straight to her, and I did pretty well as a waitress, back in the day when tips were not taxed. But I had “nothing” to show for it until years later, I realized that all that money had been a bonanza-like investment in myself. All those years of my unthinking feet walking the half mile to that little building on Berkeley Way simply felt like do or die. There was nothing to decide. I remember when she relocated to a “nicer” office up the hill. I was afraid she was moving up in the world and would leave me behind. Now that I think about it, I wonder how she got through those hours with me. I imagine it was like sitting with someone who was underwater, with a mouthful of marbles. I have no idea what I talked about. I had even less idea of what was wrong with me.
Many years later, when I became a therapist, I had a client with a devastating trauma and neglect history. I recall her saying, “I don’t remember anything about my childhood, really, just bushes. Bushes and the dog.” Perhaps I was like that? Our dad had a drastic and graphic story. I did know some of that. In those days, we mostly had “the talking cure.” I do remember some talking to empty chairs; I have no memory about what. And my therapist, always ahead of her time, got me to some adjunctive body-oriented work as soon as she could. Eating disordered and driven by numerous compulsions, I was definitely a candidate.
I voraciously read self-help books and, when I got into alcohol recovery, 12-Step books. However, I continued thinking, “Self-love is a crock…” Only years later did I learn from my therapist that one becomes able to love through the experience of feeling loved. Before that, it was the stuff of fiction and dreams. What I knew best was self-hatred, never being good enough, categorically un-likable. Those beliefs were the very air I breathed, an unconscious default. Default. Little did I know then, that that was the word.
What I knew best was self-hatred, never being good enough, categorically un-likable. Those beliefs were the very air I breathed, an unconscious default.
The first thing I successfully read, after a magical one session wonder with Peter Levine transformed my brain, was Allan Schore’s monumental Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self. It is a dense read (and similar themes are somewhat more accessible in Daniel Siegel’s The Developing Mind, which appeared close to the same time.) Both transformed my thinking even further.
The essence of both is that the infant’s brain develops in resonance with the mother’s brain. We might say primary caregiver, but given that the mother houses and often nourishes the infant with her own body, she is primary. The “resonance,” a fluid dance between them, is through the gaze, right hemisphere to right hemisphere. Ideally, the mother sees the child through that gaze and learns to discern the spectrum of signals, many of which are needs or distress, of course. She learns to recognize which is hunger, cold, thirst, fear, pain, need to be held, need to be left alone, joy, and pleasure.
Through learning to differentiate the different cries, attending to them, and responding with the appropriate “supplies,” the infant is soothed, comforted, and regulated. The child will feel safe. Ultimately, through the mother’s “good enough” regulation, the child, in time, learns self-regulation and how to calm themselves down when distressed. This experience contributes to a baseline sense not only of safety, but of value. The child learns from experience, “my feelings matter.” This feeling matures to become the experience of “I matter.” And as we know, the most persistent and devastating refrain for the child of neglect is “I don’t matter! I am worthless.” So this is where that comes from…
Only in recent years, mostly from some of the luminaries in the Neurofeedback world, have I begun to learn about the Default Mode Network of the brain, residing deep in the brainstem, the most primitive part of our brains. That is where the sense of self primarily resides. That is where this early imprinting does and does not occur. We can affect it with Neurofeedback, and that is wonderful. I wish I had known neurofeedback sooner – it really might have sped things up.
When feeling seen and understood, the signals being read accurately and at least some of the time being responded to, a sense of value and a sense of self can begin to emerge and grow.
So what does any of this have to do with that bizarre arrangement between client and therapist? Well, it took me years to understand that it is a relationship, a belated yet powerful re-wiring, designed to replicate that resonance that never occurred, so hopefully it can begin to occur. When feeling seen and understood, the signals being read accurately and at least some of the time being responded to, a sense of value and a sense of self can begin to emerge and grow. It took many years before I could call that interchange a relationship – after all, without the money, there was no “relationship,” right? It is hard to make sense of it. But all I can say is that with the first experience (when after years I could finally believe it…) of feeling truly cared for, both in the sense of how she felt about me and how she communicated that, my sense of myself slowly began to change. I will have much more to say about the essential healing repair in the therapeutic relationship, especially for the child of neglect, with all of their particular relationship challenges, but for now I will simply say it is a game changer. I always said to my therapist, “I am going to keep coming here until you shut the door.” I did, when she was 90.
About 20 years ago, I read the wonderful autobiography of Harry Belafonte, My Song. I always loved Harry. A most precious bequest from Mom is the memory from when we were really young, living in New York. She had three record albums: Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and Harry Belafonte. I loved Harry the most because I loved the rhythm. As is often the case, I remember next to nothing about the book except that it was wonderful. As a young adult, Harry was so poor that he and his bud Sidney Poitier used to share a theater ticket. One of them would attend the first half of the play, then at intermission, they would switch. The other factoid that stuck with me from that book was that Harry was in therapy with a Jewish guy in New York for four decades, I believe. I tried to find the quote, but it has eluded me for now. How he grieved when the old man died. And how remarkable for a young Caribbean man in the 50’s. What is that? A healing relationship?
I used to think blogging was a crock too. Grand stories about how many miles covered on the bike, the weight of the latest cheese? Sights and sounds of Timbuktu? Who the hell wants to hear it? And look at me now, cranking out these blogs every week. Do they serve as a way of “having someone to talk to?” Perhaps it is different now. Of course, I have no reason to believe anyone is reading them, except a couple of people I know well, who somewhat routinely offer feedback. But hey, I guess there is YOU! Thanks for being there!
Today’s song:
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Sometimes a story or a movie is truly worth well over a thousand words to express and convey an often wordless experience concisely. This week I decided to do something a little different and dip into popular culture – commenting on a film and a book, both of which speak to our themes, portraying them sharply and differently; perhaps tipping a sensory nerve and providing food for thought, at least for me.
Neither of these two are great works of art I might add, at least not in my opinion. And in neither case did I feel a deep connection with the character, but both are good envoys, and there is no substitute for a good story.
Jeremiah Tower was a local treasure and cultural icon to a food-loving Bay Arean like me. I say “was” because in the movie, it is hard to know if he died or simply evaporated back into the vacuous wasteland of his neglect ridden childhood. I certainly noticed this when the film Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent was brought to my attention. (I won’t say it was recommended, and frankly, I am not really recommending it either.) Nonetheless, for the curious, it is available on Amazon Prime for $2.99, and I will avoid the “spoilers.” And if you love cooking and eating, the visuals of spectacularly beautiful and interesting food is well worth the price!
The film was produced by Tower’s dear friend and self-proclaimed “fan” culinary rockstar, Anthony Bourdain, who certainly must have his own story. As you may remember, Bourdain committed suicide in 2018. Clearly, the restaurant world, even at its peaks, is cruel.
Known for being one of the early luminaries in the now exalted almost “religion” of California Cuisine, Tower was a key figure in the historic, and still after 51 years, wildly acclaimed Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Tower’s own tabernacle, Stars Restaurant, opened in 1984. I think we only ate there once, and all I really remember about it was walking down the carpeted stairs to our table. It was like entering a palatial theater and going to the most expensive seats in the orchestra section: grand. The cinematic scenes of the interior of Stars brought up that pleasurable and even exciting image. Stars Cafe, a later, more casual and reasonably priced Tower offspring where you could actually get a reservation, became a frequent go-to for us. I admit that back in the 90s, the big draw was the caramel sundae, which I am sure is what called me back almost every Friday for a good long time. I don’t remember anything else I ate there besides that sundae, although my husband could probably tell you!
I admit that for me back in the 90s, the big draw was the caramel sundae, which I am sure is what called me back almost every Friday for a good long time.
Hearing about the movie, I was startled to realize (rather like the neglectful parent who, fifty miles down the road, suddenly registers that their child is not in the car but was somehow left at the gas station) that I had not thought about the restaurants in years and had forgotten all about Tower himself. I’m certainly not intending to equate a restaurant with one’s own child, but rather that the forgettable invisibility of neglect and the clueless oblivion of his parents were the staple and persistent ingredient of Tower’s entire childhood. His seeming “disappearance” is perhaps a re-enactment of that.
Tower was the quintessential “poor little rich boy.” My flashbulb memory of Stars’ majestic, theatrical opulence perfectly portrayed his childhood “home,” although it was anything but a home. His alcoholic mother, who manifested the pinnacle of glamour and style, entertained her similarly privileged white comrades constantly and elegantly. The adorable little boy was either parked somewhere to keep him out from underfoot or forgotten completely. His only solace became the spectacular food that he came to love and took great pleasure in eating.
By age eight or so, little Jeremiah learned that when his mother became prohibitively drunk, she was unable to “perform,” so the food would not make it to the glamorous table. So, like many the child of neglect, he transitioned from complete invisibility to (still) invisible rescuer. He learned to cook to “keep the show on the road” (and shield his mother from shame as it were) and was remarkably successful. Cooking and covering for his mom gave the boy a sense of purpose, and although he continued to go unrecognized, he found that he loved it.
A similarly poignant feature of the film, barely a blip on the story’s screen, is the exquisite depiction of how vanishing in the elegant Dom Perignon sipping crowds, night after night, would make young Jeremiah an easy target for trauma. I won’t give it away; the brevity of the event is almost imperceptible. If you run to the bathroom without pausing, you might miss it, and because the hideous event never comes up again, you won’t know it happened. Again, smacking of traumatic re-enactment.
Predictably Jeremiah went to Harvard to study design and then graduate school in architecture. The spectacular visuals of the food he created reflect his imaginative aesthetic and structural brilliance. He started cooking for his peers in college, and for sure, lots of wine and other intoxicants were on the menus. Although the film does not explicitly say that this child of at least one alcoholic parent had a substance abuse problem, it is easy to wonder, and somehow, I vaguely remember his falling deeply into a serious hell of cocaine use. I could not find any corroboration of that, so perhaps I made it up, but it is easy to imagine.
The adorable little boy was either parked somewhere to keep him out from underfoot or forgotten completely. His only solace became the spectacular food that he came to love and took great pleasure in eating.
His rise as master chef is well documented, beginning with his starring role at Chez Panisse, where he bitterly claimed himself to be of equal valence to the famed Alice Waters. After a dazzlingly successful partnership, there was not enough oxygen in the place for the two of them, and Tower struck out on his own. Clearly, the world of relationships was a predictable minefield for him, as one would expect after his disordered attachment childhood. The film never clearly identifies his sexual orientation. Although it alluded to his being gay, it was hard to tell if that was “all” and he never seems to have a lasting partnership.
As a waiter in some relatively high-end restaurants back in the day, I am not a stranger to chefs blowing up and even throwing things at waiters and line cooks. Similarly, our dad had been a chef, and like a good child of neglect, I often worked in his shadow, however invisibly, to keep order while he created his “masterpieces” in our kitchen. I prided myself on being the only one able to be in the kitchen with him when he cooked. He too, was prone to outbursts and fits of rage, using the heat and delicate time pressure as his excuse. Tower, of course, was no exception to the raging chef rule, and his relationship world, like many a survivor of trauma and neglect, left a trail of wreckage in its wake.
It is lonely at the top. The film does not give us much about that, but I could clearly imagine it. The remainder of the film carefully and “protectively” portrays the collapse of the Stars house of cards. The Stars empire (like the Twin Towers), once a world avatar of wealth and power, was reduced to rubble. It is startling how to “dust he returned.” Again invisible and forgotten, I had to google to find out that he is still alive and living somewhere in Mexico.
Out of curiosity I looked up the story of the prophet Jeremiah. Here is what Wikipedia says:
As a prophet, Jeremiah pronounced God’s judgment upon the people of his time for their wickedness. He was concerned especially with false and insincere worship and failure to trust Yahweh in national affairs. He denounced social injustices but not so much as some previous prophets…
I wonder why they named him that.
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent (2016) available on Amazon Prime. 2 hours.
When I heard an interview with author Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, I was intrigued. First of all, because she is Peruvian, and somehow anything Latin American seems to pique my interest. But more, because she led an international group of women survivors of sex trafficking on a trek up Mount Everest, which struck me as heroic in every way. I ordered my copy of her new book, soon noticing that reviews of it seemed to be popping up everywhere. Eager to read it, I was mildly disappointed to find that it lacked the depth of character development and quality of “good writing” that compels me. But remember, I am an insatiable and somewhat critical reader with my own quirky tastes.
The story switches back and forth between the stories of Vasquez-Lavado’s traumatic childhood and younger adulthood and the story of the trek. For me, the more autobiographical part is most interesting. By way of warning to the vulnerable, she describes her own sexual trauma somewhat explicitly but powerfully. And her story, much like Jeremiah Tower’s, clearly illustrates how tightly coupled trauma and neglect must be. Terrible things can happen to a child who is unseen and not taken care of.
What Vasquez-Lavado does particularly well, and uniquely so, is clearly present the trauma of gaslighting. I have been amazed lately that the word has become a household term somehow. Referring back to a favorite classic movie, not Hitchcock but similar, the term, the name, and the movie that matter in my memory anyway were ancient history. Suddenly the word is everywhere. All the young people use it too. However, its portrayal as traumatic to a child trying to make sense out of the world, especially a child of neglect who has no one to ask, it is crazy-making and contributes to the confused belief endemic of neglect survivors that “nothing happened to me!” Vasquez-Lavado, perhaps better than I have seen anywhere, explicitly and effectively conveys the gaslighting experience from the inside. That in itself is worth the price.
Again, we do not get deep view into the life of the young girls, the survivors of sex trafficking. Some are Nepali, some from the US, so there are language challenges. We also see tragically portrayed how often sexual trafficking is an artifact of a galling degree of poverty and perhaps the gaslighting of well-meaning and destitute parents who believe the criminals enticing them with the promise of employment and a better life for their starving daughters. The cursory depictions of both the grimness of their traumatic experiences and their often stunningly courageous escapes are again some of the more captivating parts of the book; as is the one session when Vasquez-Lavado and all the girls gather in a group, in the chill of the mountain, and with the assistance of interpreters, share all of their trauma stories. There, the power of the group in trauma healing is vivid and moving. Many had never spoken aloud of their experiences, even with those with whom they went through them.
There, the power of the group in trauma healing is vivid and moving. Many had never spoken aloud of their experiences, even with those with whom they went through them.
Vasquez-Lavado, as planned, takes the group of girls as far as the base camp, but she herself has planned and trained to go to the 29,032 foot (8,849 metres) summit. The book continues to pivot between her “checkered past” and the climb. And although her personal history is often less than endearing, sensational and reminiscent of a dramatic AA “drunkalog”, she powerfully conveys the desperate compulsion to self-regulate. Ripping and running with alcohol, drugs and out of control sex are well known to many of us with trauma and neglect histories. She tells that story tragically and effectively, even if a bit tediously at times.
Never attracted to cold in any iteration, the prospect of being up in that kind of cold (let alone for six weeks) is truly unnerving! And myself a veteran of endurance sports, I have never cared enough about any sport to literally and knowingly risk my life for it. Many who attempt the summit do not come back. Vasquez-Lavado was the only woman in her group (as well as being the only lesbian and vegetarian, she is sure to tell us). A number of the men (including the man whose athletic resume touted completing two Ironman Triathlons in one day) turned back before arriving at the summit. Vasquez-Lavado does make it, which is an accomplishment that not many women can claim, and that is impressive. But more than that is the role of empowerment in trauma healing and experiencing the body as an undeniable ally. We cannot really reproduce this in any therapy.
All the women in the stories were transformed by both the physical integrity and empowerment proffered by the climb and the power of interpersonal connection for both staying alive and finding some peace with a previously unspeakable and shame-ridden past.
In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado February, 2022
Once again, although you may be sick of hearing me say it: it is all about regulation. Oy vey, there I go again. The addled organism, out of whack from over and under-stimulation, lack of or distortions of attachment and connection, is on a voracious quest: drinking, drugging, sexing, work… all to that same end. That is what Jeremiah and Sylvia most have to tell us if we are listening.
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is There Is A Mountain by Donovan.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
As an inveterate bookworm and student, I am reading all the time, and there is never enough of it—Oy vey. But what a wonderful problem to have when compared with the years of slogging to get through the day. However, with all that I read, it is not that often that I learn something that really changes my way of thinking. Not only new information, that is easy, but actually making use of it differently or relinquishing old, often long-held views. Over now close to forty years of sobriety from alcoholism, I have been entrenched in an admittedly “orthodox” 12-step rigidity. Not the “God” part, which trips up many people. I resolved that right at the start. But rather a hardcore abstinence-only program.
Of course, a severe black and white perspective readily suited me. I was always an “all or nothing” kind of girl and defaulted to a hungry “more is better.” I remember from an early age my mother trying to teach me the word “moderation.”
That’s a pretty big word for a little girl. I never quite got it and probably still don’t, or not enough. However, now I understand it more in terms of regulation versus voracious greed or wild overzealousness. Total abstinence from alcohol was infinitely easier than trying to figure out how much was enough or too much, i.e., to self-regulate, so I grabbed on to that one for dear life.
I was always an “all or nothing” kind of girl and defaulted to a hungry “more is better.” I remember from an early age my mother trying to teach me the word “moderation.”
Some people resort to entering a convent, the military, a cult or an authoritarian party or regime because all the decisions are made for them. There, they don’t have to assess or conclude what’s “just right,” like Goldilocks. I admit that some of that was in play during my political activist days when ideology was strictly prescribed, and political correctness was fundamental to having any sort of value at all. To this day, I am most comfortable in tight-fitting clothes: they seem to contain me and keep me from blowing apart from the inside. Similarly, I recently discovered that a weighted blanket has a similar “holding” effect. I continue to have a tendency to “color outside the lines.”
From the beginning, we all need a mom, not least because a good mom is regulating and teaches regulation. Comfortable in one’s own skin, one can live, love, “pursue happiness” with all that means, create, learn and take pleasure in life. A history of childhood trauma and/or neglect puts one on a relentless quest to find it. I think of the 23-year-old that I was, 98 pounds, on the couch with my cat Marti, drinking a quart of Old Crow bourbon straight each night single-handedly; it was $6.95 a quart then. Marti, named for the Cuban National Poet, Jose Marti, lived to 22. I always said she was like a mother to me. Really it was all an endless quest to find that elusive calm in the war-torn world of my body. Marti certainly helped, and so much of addiction boils down to that.
The dictum to “just” stop, or “just say no!” (a day at a time of course) was not easy but simple, and much easier than finding my way with food, which could never be relinquished entirely, or not safely.
From the beginning, we all need a mom, not least because a good mom is regulating and teaches regulation. Comfortable in one’s own skin, one can live, love, “pursue happiness” with all that means, create, learn and take pleasure in life.
I have since learned several sobering “new” to me facts about alcohol. According to World Health Organization data, alcohol is one of the world’s leading causes of death, behind tobacco which amazingly is still a great killer. Alcohol kills not only in its insidious damage to the body and brain, but DUI car accidents, behavior and crimes committed under the influence, not to mention the suicides of not only the drinker, but collateral loved ones whose lives with that person have become unmanageable.
Alcohol also causes more brain damage than any other drug, and neuroimaging shows the blackened tissue, which is the poisoning and deterioration caused by inflammation and dying cells. No other drug, neither medical nor recreational, shows that kind of wreckage.
And finally, a measure I had not actually pondered before: damage is measured not only by a substances’ impact on the individual user but on others and the world. How many children and spouses are neglected and abandoned every day due to addicted or substance-abusing parents? How many were molested, raped, beaten or in some other way violated by someone who might have much better judgment or control if not intoxicated? It goes on and on. And in this tally, alcohol wins by a landslide in terms of how widely one person’s substance use reaches. More reasons to be grateful, I was able to stop at 28 before doing more damage! Unfortunately, a hugely profitable industry holds it in place. Prohibition failed. Culture, tradition and culinary aesthetic make it essential to find a way at mass level, to regulate and self-regulate. Of course, this would have to include, at least where possible, addressing the myriad realities that would inspire an individual to “escape,” even if momentarily.
Michael Pollan’s latest book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, has a long section on caffeine. What I found most interesting was the history of how coffee affected industry, the industrial revolution, and the world political economy. Well worth reading! And we, or at least I, had not thought so much about caffeine as a “drug.” But meanwhile, in the private laboratory of my own brain, I have had to look at it as such.
One of the ways I have grappled with my complicated sleep issue (and the “challenges” of sleep will be a topic of its own blog on another day!) is with my afternoon coffee. I also began to notice that if I woke up and had my morning cup too early, by early afternoon, I would have one of those scull-cracking headaches right in the middle of my forehead, the undeniable battle cry of caffeine withdrawal. So the afternoon cup became medicinal in more ways than one—Oy vey. I am back to being that rat on the wheel, trying to stay ahead of the breathless chase. And although I don’t believe in the rhetoric of the “addictive personality”, I know all too well about the deep-seated dysregulation of early attachment trauma.
I knew that to begin to ratchet down the caffeine headache loop and ultimately eliminate it, I would have to find a much better way to manage the sleep issue (which I am constantly working on anyway) and also endure the discomfort (agony?) of weaning myself off. That is no fun at all. Although my own alcohol withdrawal is a blurry memory, not only because it was so long ago, but due to the addled brain I would remember it with, I do remember one of my very first mental health jobs in a methadone clinic. It was there, with a clearer head of my own, that I was to learn most vividly about “dope-sickness.” So, facing the prospect of enduring headaches without relief, or perhaps relieved in some other undiscovered way, was daunting. That is precisely what keeps all addicts on the wheel. And it is reminiscent of the age-old attachment theory dilemma without solution when the source of comfort/relief and the source of devastation and/or terror reside in the same package, human or otherwise. All the more reason why we need a more regulated world, in all the ways, regulated relationships, self-regulating individuals.
Here is where I began a subtle process of “changing my mind.” I heard expert drug researcher David Nutt (what a great name for a psychiatrist!) talking about “Harm Reduction”. When I first started hearing people talk about this “new” approach alternative to total abstinence, I balked, trying to conceal my skeptical contempt. My “todo o nada” all or nothing sensibility was roused. However, Nutt is not only extremely knowledgeable but personable and experienced at talking to people about delicate, often highly personal and controversial topics.
According to Nutt’s data (culled from his talk at the recent Addiction and Imagination Conference):
“…reductions in consumption gain much greater value in terms of health than you might imagine if the curves were linear. If you go from someone drinking 100 grams of alcohol a day, say a bottle of wine, to just 50 grams a day, you would lower their consumption by 50%, but you reduce their risk of death by eight times. And even if you reduce consumption at the top end by 10%, you actually reduce the risk of death almost by twice. So this is why any reduction in drug consumption is hugely important and that’s why harm reduction approaches are likely to be the most powerful ones in terms of mitigating the harms of drugs.”
As many of us know when learning regulation, harm reduction paradigms are not “pie in the sky.” But perhaps, I must also consider they are also not another money-making gimmick like the latest in an endless stream of commercial diet schemes, but rather a viable interim option. I have actually “updated my files” to incorporate them. Even this old dog can learn a new trick now and then!
In an Imago Therapy conference, I attended probably thirty years ago, I learned a quote that I have never forgotten, although I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the speaker or of the First Nation tribe that originated it. However, the words have stayed with me, and I even made a colorful wall hanging with them, which is hanging in my office: If you think you know me, you have stopped my growth in your presence. My interpretation: If you hold me to what I said or believed thirty years ago, or last week, or even yesterday, you are closing off the possibility that I may be growing all the time in our relationship. So, harm reduction is an important consideration. So there you have it: Addiction 101!
But as for me, well, I will stick with total abstinence and neurofeedback!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is I’m So Glad by Fresh Cream. I love this song, although sadly Eric Clapton has his own story about addiction.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Although I am not a mom, I somehow have an image of a small overnight bag, standing by the door. I don’t know if it is an actual memory of when my mother was getting ready to have my beloved little sister. I was only two and a half. Back then, women stayed in the hospital for a week when giving birth, so my mother was getting ready to be gone for a while. Mrs. Sheba would be staying with my older sister and me. She was an old German lady, who smelled much like our great Aunt Lottie and Great Aunt Gertrud, also old German ladies. Mrs. Sheba used to say “You vant to go to bett?” which of course we never did, what a silly question. We had no choice. I don’t know why she asked.
I remember the stories of how the nurses all buzzed around my dad, who felt queasy and sick in the delivery room, while my mother was as ever, quietly neglected. I can’t imagine her crying out or even complaining. I remember when the beautiful little baby, as yet un-named, came home. When they opened, she would become known for her big eyes. She looked like our dad, and I was in love, and so jealous. Anyway, as we approach my pub date, I feel rather like the expectant mom, waiting for the water. I guess this blog is my little bag.
I remember from a Bruce Springsteen concert download, a lively call and response between Bruce and the audience. Bruce in his inimitable way, bellows “Is there anybody alive out there?!” The crowd roars. And the exchange is repeated enough times with building fervor, for the show to start with a loud twang, the starting shot for Born to Run. I guess I feel that kind of excitement. So here’s my call and refrain. I would be delighted to hear from you!
Being a writer is strange. I spend months holed up in my little home office, all the more blurred by the unreality of Pandemic year, banging on the computer. I churn out my ideas, shared only perhaps with a handful of editors or consultants, stumble through editors’ comments and somehow a finished book reaches the world, or does it? Perhaps it flies out into a mysterious and empty black hole of oblivion, much like the vast empty landscape of the neglect survivor’s world. It is truly unclear if there is anybody alive out there, or if all of this just a backdrop for my own solitary movie, and none of the rest is real. I used to wonder about that when I was young and so alone.
A writer’s world can replicate that, if we don’t proactively make it different. So, in my overnight bag, is an invitation: Let me hear from you! I’d love to know your thoughts. What is interesting and helpful? What is drivel or psychobabble? Is it enough about me already?! Is it too much or not enough science? One reader of my first book told me my citation of the Talmud was erroneous! Oy vey! I so rarely invoke the Talmud or anything like it. Of course, it was too late to change it. But I was humbled and gratified to learn. My dad would have noticed. Fortunately, although that book was showcased on his coffee table from 2010 when it appeared, until he died in 2020, I am sure he never cracked it open, except maybe to read the inscription.
I recently got an email from a blog reader named Julie. She said she enjoyed reading my weekly blogs, and wanted to keep reading them, but now the pandemic was permitting her to go back to work. She wondered if we could offer an audio version so she could listen to the blogs on her way to work. She said a friend of hers had a feature on her podcast site where you push a button and get an audio version. I thought, what a spectacular idea. We are looking into that. What was most striking to me, was “wow, a live one!” All this to say, talk to me! I may not always be able to respond, but I will certainly try! Thanks Julie!
Continuing with the theme of audio, my sister who is a devoted mom to her dogs, loves to listen to books out on the trail. She said, “what about an Audible version of the book?” I love audio books too, especially during those long stirs of the cheese vat. I have also heard this from people whose vision makes it hard for them to read print as much as they would like. I asked my publisher, and she said if there is sufficient demand, they will consider that. I don’t know what sort of numbers constitute sufficient demand, but I would ask, if an audible version would be of interest, include that in your Amazon review, or let us know by email. My friend and colleague Deirdre Fay, along with her husband read her new and bestselling Becoming Embodied themselves. Apparently, my publisher still owns the rights, so at this stage, I am just asking you to let us know you might want that.
Of course, not much need be said about reviews. Especially Amazon reviews, and especially on or around the pub date, are a great help to getting the word out. Taking that moment to review for Amazon, even if you have not finished the book yet, is a great help. If you have access to some sort of publication which reviews books, even better. Thanks!
It is interesting to me, that once I bumped over the hill of Sixty, I became much more aware of age. Oy vey! I never had really thought much about that. I would look at other people and look at myself, and wonder how old I look or how young in relation to them, much as I used to do about weight, where I would look around a room and think about who was thinner and who was fatter than me.
As an aside, I must add this little anecdote about neurofeedback. When I was in my fifties, my hair started to have salt and pepper sprinkles of gray. Most of my family were already graying by those ages, and I was beginning to follow the family path. In 2009 when I started practicing neurofeedback, I was that graying 54, and mysteriously through avid neurofeedback training, all the gray disappeared! I never targeted that, but it was an unexpected surprise of neurofeedback. It has never returned. At 66 I have never colored my hair and all the gray is gone! Go figure!
That was a digression however. Now when I go to conferences, or when I used to go in person and now virtually, I would feel powerfully moved to see the new generation of young therapists coming up, studying and training to help this complicated and troubled world they are inheriting. I remember 25 years ago when Ruth Lanius was a young medical student I first saw and heard at a conference of a trauma organization, that may not even exist anymore. I remember how the crowd gasped when we saw the early brain scans of this new-on-the-scene young person. Now she is the best in the world. I am getting ready to step aside while new young people pick up the reins. It is my greatest hope to help the invisible population of neglect to be seen and heard, to finally get recognition and help, and to have a chance, to matter as they never have. I used to care about things like selling books, making a name for myself, getting my dad to notice me. Now I just want therapists to learn this work, so the child of neglect can be known, helped, and part of the world.
Finally, I plan to write a lay people’s book about neglect, once I recover from finishing this one. My early readers have commented that this clinical book is somewhat accessible to “lay” audiences, which I have always thought of as kind of a mixed blessing. Perhaps it dilutes my impact in either direction. I am not so sure. I hope this book will be of use to as wide a readership as possible. And of course, as I embark on the next project, I’d like to know what is helpful, unhelpful or lacking, to make sure to include it in the next tome. So input is invited and welcome. Thanks!
Well, I did not expect to pack this much into my little overnight bag. I guess I am ready to deliver. Hope I won’t shriek. But I don’t know!
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
