"Families of narcissists suffer most"--New England Psychologist article

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi Teartracks and Mud,

Thanks for your comments.  If I may give a “personal” response to your posts together…

Here’s the first stanza of Mark Strand’s poem, Keeping Things Whole, Teartracks refers to:

"In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing."

And a quote from Mud’s post:

“I think they're looking for a new Most Interesting Man in the World. Can you slam a revolving door and bowl overhand, doc?”

When I take Beau, my beloved 11-year-old Golden Retriever, to beautiful Lars Anderson Park in South Brookline with its acres of grassy fields, often during our walk I will stop and visually pick out a blade of grass and make a mental note of its surroundings.  And I say to myself:  “There I am in the world.”  When we come back to that location either on the same walk or a couple days later, I look to see if I can find it—knowing full well that I can’t.  And then I will pick out another blade of grass for our next visit.  So, while I feel much closer to Mark Stand’s (and by extension, Teartrack’s) metaphor then to Mud’s, I do know I’m there somewhere (and not interfering with nature) even if I know I'm an infinitesimally small (and time-limited) part of the field.

By the way, Anderson, the wealthy U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1912-1913), had a large ornate mansion at the estate that his family left to the town.  At some point, the mansion became too expensive for the town to maintain, so it was torn down and replaced, in part, with another grassy field—a telling detail on the same theme, perhaps…

Richard

[mudpuppy]

I'm pretty sure publishing the whole poem for purposes of discussion would be labeled "fair use" so here it is. If Doc G thinks otherwise he can always delete my post;

In a field
 I am the absence
 of field.
 This is
 always the case.
 Wherever I am
 I am what is missing.

 When I walk
 I part the air
 and always
 the air moves in
 to fill the spaces
 where my body's been.

 We all have reasons
 for moving.
 I move
 to keep things whole.

Not being all that bright my question is, what's it all about Alfie?
Is this a variation on the Stranger In a Strange Land theme:  a feeling of alienation from the rest of the field which we perceive to be the rest of the human race, all similar to each other but different and separate from us?
Or is he saying that every human, in our individual absences of fieldiness and in our separateness, make up the field?
The second stanza seems to reinforce the SIASL gag.

In a field I am usually capable of feeling simultaneously to be the absence of field and part of the field.
Each blade of grass is a separate and distinct blade but they all sprout off the same underground rhizome.
I don't know what that means either, and I'm the one who said it.

mud

[Gaining Strength]

The Strand poem and the story of the Anderson mansion point to the ephemeral.  I find the evocation beautiful but jarring.

[mudpuppy]

Well, on the bright side, at least he prolly won't be suing for copyright infringement.

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

BTW, the reason I jokingly suggested to Hops a “therapy” topic re: my sister, brother, and myself, is that siblings can be so different—and for decades therapists explained these differences using a parenting model, e.g. which child/children in the family received optimal parenting and which child/children received sub-optimal parenting.  In the “blank slate” era, genetic differences were never considered.  There are certain ways that my sister, brother, and myself are similar, and significant ways (I suggest one in the earlier post) that we are very different.  Through life experience, both personal (e.g. raising three step-children and my own biological child, not to mention my own failed personal therapies) and professional (decades of doing therapy) I learned that the biggest factor in explaining these differences was genetics.  As a result, my methods and goals of therapy by necessity changed radically, in essence away from “insight,” “advice,” "exploring projection and the unconscious,” etc., etc., and towards developing a unique relationship which would provide new experience for my patients that would, over time, (in technical terms) re-wire parts of the brain.

Richard

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi tt,

Thanks—your post means a lot to me.   I know your participation on the Board has been invaluable to many as well—and has immeasurably helped others find their missing “me.”  In this way, we have all been "therapists" for each other, which was/is my greatest hope for the Board.

Keep kickin’!

Richard