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Book: Voicelessness and Emotional Survival: Notes from the therapy underground
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi Kathy,
Welcome back! Thank you for reading my book. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings. As you might guess, my beliefs about therapy--based upon what my patients have both taught me and confirmed in my 40 years of “practice”—are very different from traditional therapist’s views. But no spoilers here—let me know what you think!
JustRichard (you’ll understand this after you read the book!)
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi everybody,
One of my favorite authors, Yuval Noah Harari writes about a theme of my book in his latest book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-21st-Century-Yuval-Harari/dp/0525512179/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1N4WOODQ8NYRL&keywords=21+lessons+for+21st+century&qid=1563054756&s=gateway&sprefix=21+Less%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1
“Truth and power can travel together only so far. Sooner or later they go their separate paths. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power. “
Fortunately, I learned this early in my career, hence my decision to leave the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital system and work/practice from the “therapy underground.”
While I don't agree with everything he writes, all three Harari’s books are well worth a read!
Richard
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi everybody,
Not surprisingly the graduate school experience that I wrote about in my book was far from unique. Here’s an editorial from Nature about what many Ph.D. candidates face:
The mental health of PhD researchers demands urgent attention
Anxiety and depression in graduate students is worsening. The health of the next generation of researchers needs systemic change to research cultures.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03489-1
The following paragraph, in particular, stood out for me:
“How can graduate students be both broadly satisfied, but also — and increasingly — unwell? One clue can be found elsewhere in our survey. One-fifth of respondents reported being bullied; and one-fifth also reported experiencing harassment or discrimination.”
In my book I write about asking my Ph.D. mentor what I believed to be an important and logical question:
“So, I understand that there are unconscious processes that occur in the brain, but what I don’t understand is why psychoanalysts group these processes together and call them ‘the unconscious.’”
His response was to label me a “ f…ing American psychologist”-- and then he never spoke (or listened) to me again. Such an important lesson in "voicelessness" he taught me! As "Dr. Friend" says in the preface to my book: "Learn from everything. Especially the bad things!"
But most graduate students will not experience such faculty behavior in this way. And sadly, as we see in the Nature editorial, this behavior happens all too frequently in the world of academia.
Richard
lighter:
This behavior happens everywhere, Doc.
Lighter
Dr. Richard Grossman:
So, true, Lighter. I wish the adult world was not like this. One of my dear ex-long-term patient/friends e-mailed me this from a recent NY Times Magazine article on Mr. Rogers because it reminded them of me and what I wrote about in my book:
“L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.” That was Fred’s favorite quote. He had it framed and hanging on a wall in his office. “What is essential is invisible to the eyes,” from Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince.” “It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls,” he once said, expounding on the idea in a speech. “It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff. … What is essential about you that is invisible to the eyes?”
He put it this way in a speech:
“There are those of us who have been deprived of human confidence. Those who have not been able to develop the conviction that they have anything of value within. Their gap is rather a chasm. And they most often despair of creating any bridges to the land of what might be. They were not accepted as little children. … They were never truly loved by any important human other. … And so it seems to me that the most essential element in the development of any creation, any art or science, must be love. A love that begins with the simple expressions of care for a little child.
“When people help us to feel good about who we are, they are really helping us to love the meaning of what we create.”
Richard
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