Au Revoir

In the classic and wonderful book I never promised you a rose garden the young girl about to be released from the mental hospital is telling her beloved therapist (in real life the eminent psychoanalyst Frieda Fromm Reichman): “the worse thing about getting better is having to say goodbye”

As therapists we have to say good bye to so many people we came to know deeply and love and care for sincerely. As spiritual guides we watch people freeing themselves from the shackles of misguided notions and atavistic beliefs to find their own path and discover their own unique talents. And when their wings are wide and strong and beautiful we have to let them fly away with a mix of wonder and pride and nostalgia.

How do you do it? my patient asks me with tears welling up in her eyes. I imagine you at the end of your long day going to a mystical cave and seating around a healing fire with other healers and a golden dust rains down on you all and you get renewed and ready to come back and do it all over again the next day. She is right of course, but this magical cave is no other than the sacred space created between patient and her therapist. My own mentor said that “if you allow them, your patients will heal you”. I tell my patient that in the journey that we took together we both learned from each other. Both our consciousness were raised a few feet higher.

When I am settled in my new place, she tells me, I will continue to rescue and shelter stray and abandoned animals. Every time I write a check to take care of another cat I will do it in your name. Yes, she has learned to love herself and follow her passions and out of this new place she extended a loving hand to touch my own most sacred core in a most tender way. She just sprinkled a good amount of the magical, healing dust on me.

You saved my life, she continues with the tears streaming down her face now, and I will probably never see you in my life again. Oh, but she is not right there. You see she may not have realized it yet, but I have taken permanent residence in her prefrontal cortex, somewhere above her left eye. From there I will be able to remind her (whenever I have to) not to be so harsh on herself. I have set a camping site deep in her brain, somewhere between the hippocampus and the Amygdala. From there I will remind her not to be afraid of her feelings and when she feels alone or disconnected I will remind her that somewhere a few thousand miles away there is someone who knows her deeply and cares for her sincerely.

So, no goodbyes are necessary, I’ll be seeing you around…

Sin Athina kai xira kini

Yesterday I came across this story in the news: Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his co-pilot.

My first reaction was to laugh, then as I kept reading horror replaced my defensive initial reaction. Picture this: you are a passenger on a plane happily anticipating a vacation to Sicily (where the plane was heading) or some business deal, or seeing grand mom and giving her a big hug. All of a sudden a fuel-gauge malfunctions and the plane starts to rumble. At this life and death moment your pilot abandons his training, the established aviation procedures, his instruments and instead begins to …Pray! Pray? While the plane takes a death dive into the ocean? Sixteen passengers dead, sixteen families devastated, a grand mom still waiting with her eyes pinned on the road and her arms yearning for the promised hug, and survivors clinging to a piece of the fuselage that remained floating after the ATR turbo-prop aircraft splintered upon impact.

My third reaction was rage. The pilot was sentenced to 10 years for 16 deaths, a little more than 6 months per death! Shouldn’t there be an outcry against the architects of his religious indoctrination? Who should write something about the stupidity, the arrogance and the utter irresponsibility of this kind of religious dogma? How far away do we have to go from the ancient Greek adage that titles this blog and which loosely translates: along with your prayers to Athena start rowing your boat, before we come back to our senses?

When are we going to leave the gods alone and take responsibility for our own actions? When are we going to demand from those who hold our lives in their hands to abide by the same ancient wisdom? After all, the ancient Greeks flourished under this dictum to become a world power unparalleled in human history.

A Prescription for the economic jitters

A Prescription for the economic jitters

It appears that fear has become our constant companion these days. You turn the TV on and here comes the dreaded red arrow of the stock market taking yet another precipitous dive. You switch the computer on, same Friday the 13th scenario. And as you watch one business after the other being axed and friends losing their jobs you fear that the bells will toll for you next. It is evident that fear has overtaken our brains.

Now, the thing with fear is that although it has consistently saved our you-know-what through our evolutionary struggles to survive as a species, when it overtakes us it leaves very little space and time for anything else but saving our skin. Fear breeds avoidance and retreat both of which are serious obstacles to progress. So, now that more than any other time we need our creativity, inventiveness and thinking out of the box all we can do is fortify our box and make sure that we keep what we have.

Fear and pain are neuronally very closely linked in our brain. It has been shown that when our brain senses pain or anticipates loss, we tend to hold tightly onto what we have. Have you ever noticed how when you see in the news that a kid was harmed or kidnapped you want to hurry back home hug your kid and never let him out of your arms? When it comes to the economy when everyone holds on to what he/she has at the same time the result is the economic paralysis the whole world is presently gripped by.

This brings us to the prescription for the fear jitters: Pessimism is contagious, so avoid people who are overly pessimistic about our economic outlook. Turn off the media’s incessant talks about economic solutions (just remember what all these brilliant economists got us into), and unless you make a living trading stop watching the Dow’s impressive acrobatics.
I am not suggesting total denial just a healthy dose of it. I am not advocating blissful irresponsibility just a little less paranoia. No, now maybe not the time to buy that red Porsche but letting your hair turn white or walking around with holes in your stockings maybe taking it a bit too far.

When I first came to this country and I was trying to adjust, my mother in law gave me a very wise advice: when you feel blue go buy yourself a pair of stockings. The other advice comes from History: Americans have from the get go overcome inordinate obstacles on their way to becoming the greatest power on earth. They said that the settlers will never survive the wilderness of the new world. They said that they will never beat the Brits. They said that they will perish during the great depression. They said that we will never beat the Germans in splitting the atom. They said that we will never get to the moon. Yes, we heard it all before. And they were wrong!

In the words of our wonderful poet Maya Angelou;

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave
I rise
I rise
I rise.

THANKS...

This is the time for sincere wishes, heartfelt thanks and reminiscences…

There is one particular group of people in my life that I feel very grateful to: my patients, past and present, the hundreds of people through the years that invited me to share their journey of self-discovery. Some of those journeys were short, some long. They all taught me something invaluable, something about myself, something about life, something about human nature.

I remember one of my first patients. I was an intern at Elizabeth General Hospital, wet behind my proverbial therapeutic ears, scared, anxious and eager to do a good job. He was a gruff, big guy who for months said very little and he looked at me even less. At the end of my year as an intern when I was saying good bye to him he said that he wanted to give me a gift. He put a knife on my desk and informed me that he had carried it to every of our sessions for the whole year. Life had taught him to trust no one but, he said, I had taught him that there was one person he could trust. Thanks Antonio for sending me off to my new career with a boost of confidence.

I remember my first job as a staff psychologist at the hospital, still nervous, still a baby in the proverbial deep and challenging woods of psychology. I remember the woman who sat in my little office and said; “I know I need help, but she is telling me to tell you to f…off.” Who is telling you that I said baffled, “the voice in my head, she calls herself Ella”. And there and then she chose for me my specialty in DID (a.k.a Multiple Personality Disorder) and Trauma related disorders.

This was the most horrifying, challenging and rewarding learning expedition ever. It opened the door to the ineffable horrors human nature is capable of and at the same time the resilience and wonders of the human mind and its ability to heal. Along with these tortured souls I questioned life and its purpose. Along with them I lost faith in humanity and my nerve as a therapist and together with them and through their struggle to put the shattered pieces of their lives back together I redeemed both hope and faith.

I remember the old lady, a concentration camp survivor, the horrors of her past carved in the deep lines of her face as indelibly as the haunting numbers on her arm. She had just lost her son to cancer. She saw the tears in my eyes looking at the horrifying numbers on her arm and said : “oh Liebchen, I had kids, and grandkids, I still laugh and cry. I am here talking to you. He did not win, I did” Thanks Aida for the lesson in courage.

And then there were all the people that I could not reach, I was not able to help. They too had a lot to teach me about my shortcomings, about the dark places in my mind that I was unwilling to explore in order to help them. They disillusioned me and taught me humility.

For all the lessons taught,
for all the tears shed,
for all the laughs that lifted my spirit,
for all the journeys taken.
For the privilege and the trust that you have given me….

THANKS…


All acquaintances should certainly not be forgot
And they will always come to mind….

Vaccine or Assassin?

It is the flu season, in case you have missed the sniffles and the pains and the fevers and all the unsolicited "gifts" from the foreign invaders to our bodies. So, the skeptic and cynic that I am, I did my own research into the benefits of flu vaccines and I came across some disquieting findings. My source is Donald Miller, MD who is a cardiac surgeon and professor of Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is also a member of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. So, this is what the good Dr. tells us:

Vaccine makers grow the viruses in fertilized chicken eggs with 500,00 eggs per day for up to eight months. Formaldehyde is used to inactivate the viruses. It is a known cancer-causing agent. Aluminum is added to promote an antibody response. It is a neurotoxin that may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease. Other additives and adjuvants in the flu vaccine include Triton X-100 (a detergent), Polysorbate 80, carbolic acid, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), gelatin and various antibiotics - Neomycin, streptomycin, and gentamicin- that can cause allergic reactions in some people.

If this did not gross you out here is some more yummy ingredients put in the mix: 100 million vaccines made for the 2008-09 flu season ( about 2/3 of all the vaccines made) contain full-dose Thimerosal, an organomercurey compound, which is 49% mercury by weight. Each shot contains 250 times more mercury than the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit. Mercury is a neurotoxin that has been implicated in Alzheimer’s and Autisms.

In addition to the “milder” side effects of the vaccine ( joint inflammation and arthritis, anaphylactic shock) it can also cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, and no you definitely do not want to risk this.

So,you say to yourself: Ok, I take all these poisons but at least I will not get the flu, not so. In September 2, 2008 New York Times published an article titled
“Doubts Grow Over Flu Vaccine in Elderly”. A study done by the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle found that the vaccine does not protect the older people against developing pneumonia. The evidence in young children are not much more favorable either. A systematic study involving 260,000 children age 6 to 23 months found no evidence that the flu vaccine is more effective than placebo).

I don’t know about you, but I would think long and hard before I take another flu vaccine. Maybe next year I’ll take an extra vitamin C, wash my hands more diligently and hope for the best…

Smoking gun...

Smoking gun…..

I recently came across some very interesting, albeit disturbing research findings and in my self-proclaimed role as the Gadfly of the soul, decided to share them with you.

We have 700,000 new smokers every year and almost all of the newly afflicted are youths. So much for negative advertising! What accounts for this discrepancy between all these cautions about the dangers of smoking and this new statistic? Researchers suggest that early attitudes about smoking and early experimentation may give smoking enough of a foothold to become a lifelong addiction. A study involving 30,000 teenagers in New Zealand found than many teens reported at least minor symptoms of addiction after just a handful of cigarettes.

In addition the researchers suggest that smoking may change brain chemistry making people resistant to antismoking messages.

Here is a view into the chemistry lab of your brain. Dopamine, one of the neurotransmitters, is a “wonderful” substance. It is the “I feel good, man” chemical, but in excess it interferes with the learning process and prevents us from learning from our mistakes. Too much of the good thing, you see. Well, what fMRI studies saw (taking pictures of your brain as it does its work) is that smokers have elevated levels of dopamine in their brains. In tasks involving learning new skills administered, smokers did not learn from their mistakes as well as non-smokers.

A little more brain physiology? The Thalamus is the part of the brain that acts as the traffic controller, it filters out information that otherwise would be too overwhelming at any given moment. The problem is that with smokers this controller is overly diligent. Nicotine blocks out even more than the usual and expected amount of information especially the unpleasant type. You have heard smokers claiming that smoking calms them down, it does, but at high price it appears. So, going back to negative advertising, what do you think the smoker confronted with a picture of rotting lungs would do? You got it! He would light up and block out the unpleasant information.

Is there any salvation, you ask, or did you just want to gives us bad news? Well, yes I think there is good news. The more we know about how exactly nicotine gains an early foothold in the brain the more able we will be to develop medicines and behavioral therapies to snuff out the habit.

For the time being we do know that early impressions are strong and long lasting. So, feel free to start your kids’ anti smoking education as early as first grade. The earlier they understand and believe that smoking is gross and not “cool” at all the better insulated they will be against later peer pressure. And above all, do what you preach.

Wall street explained

Wall Street explained

An older and much wiser cousin of mine recently explained the financial mess
this country and the world in general is presently facing. So, here is
how the old story goes:

Once upon a time in a little village somewhere maybe in Greece maybe
in some other part of the world lived a smart and maybe unscrupulous man.
This man, let’s call him Tom, announced to his fellow farmers and citizens
that he would buy monkeys for $10 a piece. The men in the village
(women were a little skeptical, they have after all been cleaning up
men’s monkey business ever since Adam) verged out in the forest
trapped as many monkeys as they found and brought them to Tom who
gladly bought them for the agreed upon price. However, as more and
more monkeys were caught the population of monkeys available began to
diminish and thefarmers stopped hunting them.

Tom now announced that he would be paying $20 per monkey and again the
men went out and more diligently now harvested some more of the poor
creatures. But now the available stock diminished even further.

Tom told his fellow citizens that he fully understood the shortage of
monkeys and he was now prepared to buy them for $25. Again the men went
out and caught the few remaining ones.

So, Tom now tells the men that he is painfully aware of the shortage and
he is prepared to pay $50 but he will be out of town for a few days and his
trusted partner will be handling all transactions.

The Partner calls a town meeting and tells the villagers: look, Tom has
filled the whole stable with monkeys. I will sell you the monkeys for $35
each and when Tom comes back you sell them back to him for $50. The men
did not think about it much, they collected their savings and their last
pennies(again against the women’s protestations, you see they know how to
sniffing out rotten fish) and bought the monkeys for $35 a piece.

Yes, you guessed it, they never saw Tom or his partner again.

Welcome to Wall Street.

Move aside Bernanke, here comes my cousin George the story teller.