One of the toughest tasks in most professional- even most personal!- areas is saying goodbye. When we go through clinical training, it is called "termination." In other words, how does the therapist deal with the end of therapy. voluntarily or not? Some are so poor at this that they don't really call an end to things, just dragging on what becomes a dependent relationship until the client discovers a way to escape. Some put so much emphasis on this that they seem to take pleasure from how quickly they can wrap things up into a neat package; call it "brief therapy" or what you will, this focus on volume of turn-over seems to crop up in agencies dealing with the marginal population who can't afford much anyway so the business department demands as many clinical hours with as many clients as possible.
Of course, there is the reality that clients can disappear on their own. They can call and cancel their next appointment, with the place-saver proviso that they will call sometime and reschedule. They can simply not show up, and follow-up phone calls get no response. They talk about changing the regular weekly appointment to every-other-week or every three weeks or even monthly. They talk about coming in again a year or more hence, like a medical check-up. Much of the time, I celebrate these signs of independence, but there are too many times when it is just a flight into recovery, a symptom of denial.
But it is not just in the clinical field that we have problems with goodbye. We all have problems letting go. As we grow older, there are certain routine activities that come harder and harder, if at all, and we face the fact that we might need someone else to do things for us or not do them at all. We get to the stage in life where we have to lay to rest certain dreams of youth (I will never grow up to be a cowboy!) and know that who we are now will probably be who we are the rest of our lives, for good or ill.
This does mean we should simply settle for the status quo. We need not go gentle into that good night. I remember my cousin Betty of 70-something years who was late to a family gathering because her dance class ran late (true, this woman was on stage as part of a professional magic act for many years!) Even while we accept the closing of one door, we can look for the opening of another.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Taking the Blame
There has been a lot of loose talk about responsibility lately. One whole political group has staked their claim on the concept as they interpret it. By which they seem to mean that if you're powerless and dependent on others its because you haven't taken responsibility for the fact that you're, well, powerless and dependent on others. See, the idea is that you (the p. and d. on o.) just haven't seized the opportunities to make a better life.
The irony, of course, is that the very people who cast such scorn on the needy because they're not taking the responsibility, the business executives and social/political leaders, they're coming from a setting where no one is ever to blame for anything. In business, no one ever accepts the responsibility for something going wrong; it is always some subordinate who came up with the idea or who didn't carry it out properly. It is one of our contractors who dropped the ball, or some government regulation that makes the business more accountable and less able to cover things up. No one spilled gallons of oil in the Gulf, that was someone else's fault. No one authorized all those toxic bank loans, that was because some subordinate was careless. No one voted to go to war in Afghanistan or Iraq. No one sat on millions of dollars of assets because they didn't trust the current economy. Not their fault.
Taking responsibility doesn't mean casting blame anyway. It means facing limitations and admitting it when things are or are not something that come within your capability. It means doing what you can and not hesitating to call on others when you can't. Yes, it is a wonderful thing when someone achieves something no one had thought possible, goes above and beyond. The danger is when we romanticize or even expect such superhuman efforts.
When someone does something where he or she goes beyond expectations, that can be inspiring. But there is a whole percentage of our population who seem to hold against those in greatest need that they are not inspiring enough.
The irony, of course, is that the very people who cast such scorn on the needy because they're not taking the responsibility, the business executives and social/political leaders, they're coming from a setting where no one is ever to blame for anything. In business, no one ever accepts the responsibility for something going wrong; it is always some subordinate who came up with the idea or who didn't carry it out properly. It is one of our contractors who dropped the ball, or some government regulation that makes the business more accountable and less able to cover things up. No one spilled gallons of oil in the Gulf, that was someone else's fault. No one authorized all those toxic bank loans, that was because some subordinate was careless. No one voted to go to war in Afghanistan or Iraq. No one sat on millions of dollars of assets because they didn't trust the current economy. Not their fault.
Taking responsibility doesn't mean casting blame anyway. It means facing limitations and admitting it when things are or are not something that come within your capability. It means doing what you can and not hesitating to call on others when you can't. Yes, it is a wonderful thing when someone achieves something no one had thought possible, goes above and beyond. The danger is when we romanticize or even expect such superhuman efforts.
When someone does something where he or she goes beyond expectations, that can be inspiring. But there is a whole percentage of our population who seem to hold against those in greatest need that they are not inspiring enough.
Monday, October 1, 2012
The Hell You Say!
No, it's not scriptural. No flames with demons and pitchforks. And it's not down there somewhere, any more than heaven is up there somewhere.
We get ourselves into all sorts of emotional/psychological binds because we fear eternal torment. All due deference to Dante, but what the scriptures was referring to was something called Sheol, a place where all of us go once we die, good bad and the rest of us in-betweens. Sort of a cosmic waiting room where we just muddle along until, well, whatever.
What if we tried to live our lives not out of fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because we were trying to do the right thing for its own sake? So many of us have never gotten past that stage of human development where we were feeling hopelessly inadequate, and tried to make up for it by following parental edicts mindlessly or, conversely, tried not to get caught when we did something we judged wouldn't measure up.
Of course, the whole modern image of hell doesn't mesh with a loving, forgiving God, anyway. It also takes any responsibility out of our hands. We don't have to set limits on our lives because of our own sense of right and wrong; God does that for us. We don't have to recognize the ways we are being selfish or destructive or anti-social; we can just adopt the rules and regulations as we understand God laid them out for us.
And the paradox is that, when we depend on outer rules rather than inner, we become even worse when we choose to reject or ignore any imposed restrictions. Like a young person the first time away from parents, there is a giddy sense of freedom.The result can be a massive hangover at best, crashing and burning at worst. (Many of my college students know what I'm talking about.)
Please understand: I am not saying that God does not deal harshly with the wrong-doers. But we cannot assume it will be the way we have expected or experienced. God does not necessarily put us in a corner or take away privileges, much less anything physical. And when we put limits on our lives, we should do so because these things have a personal meaning, not because God will spank.
We get ourselves into all sorts of emotional/psychological binds because we fear eternal torment. All due deference to Dante, but what the scriptures was referring to was something called Sheol, a place where all of us go once we die, good bad and the rest of us in-betweens. Sort of a cosmic waiting room where we just muddle along until, well, whatever.
What if we tried to live our lives not out of fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because we were trying to do the right thing for its own sake? So many of us have never gotten past that stage of human development where we were feeling hopelessly inadequate, and tried to make up for it by following parental edicts mindlessly or, conversely, tried not to get caught when we did something we judged wouldn't measure up.
Of course, the whole modern image of hell doesn't mesh with a loving, forgiving God, anyway. It also takes any responsibility out of our hands. We don't have to set limits on our lives because of our own sense of right and wrong; God does that for us. We don't have to recognize the ways we are being selfish or destructive or anti-social; we can just adopt the rules and regulations as we understand God laid them out for us.
And the paradox is that, when we depend on outer rules rather than inner, we become even worse when we choose to reject or ignore any imposed restrictions. Like a young person the first time away from parents, there is a giddy sense of freedom.The result can be a massive hangover at best, crashing and burning at worst. (Many of my college students know what I'm talking about.)
Please understand: I am not saying that God does not deal harshly with the wrong-doers. But we cannot assume it will be the way we have expected or experienced. God does not necessarily put us in a corner or take away privileges, much less anything physical. And when we put limits on our lives, we should do so because these things have a personal meaning, not because God will spank.
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