David, thank you. Your reflection on what we do not yet know resonates deeply with me. The longer I have been in this work, the more I appreciate the humility it asks of us. My psychoanalytic training certainly shaped how I listen and think. But life, loss, and the people who have trusted me with their stories have taught me just as much. “Wounded healers, all of us” stayed with me. I deeply appreciate the thoughtfulness behind your reflection.
Recently deceased UT Austin philosopher Paul Woodruff, in one of his final books, LIVING TOWARD VIRTUE, tells how that “almost nothing he had learned” in his postdoc was slightly helpful when on the ground early in Vietnam. He uses this as a basis for his emphasis on developing moral judgment, preserving, and engendering moral integrity.
Mercifully compact at < 200 Kindle pages, excluding bibliography. He writes with a golden pen.
May I suggest downloading the Kindle sample. It contains the preface. After considering for 5 days. I've studied, continuing to re-read, continuing, but I'm still uplifted by it. Having re-contemplated parts x5, and counting.
Not very profound, but in comparing the role of a teacher to a mentor without disrespect to either.
Both contributed to everything good about me.
A mentor loves the "boy's Soul." (One cannot love a classroom of souls, no matter how much personal affection the teacher feels.)
I've done that for a few, often unknowingly.
The greatest compliment I've ever received has been for a man who became my surrogate son, over a period of 26 years here.
He says that his seeing my personal, day-to-day integrity was THE determining factor as a reason for respect, later friendship. He let me be one of the elder members of his multi-generational family.
My Brain IS FORCED to accept his opinion on 24x7 living with them.
That is the ONLY thing that relieves 80% of the burden of the HORROR of my existence.
I got a vasectomy 3 months after I got married with my wife's full concurrence. We beat the Hebrew god at his own game. (2 years later, our painful deconstruction began.)
I have lived out the goal of preventing, at least ameliorating, the pain of other unwanted children x26 years JUST one of an informal team
I so appreciate that you are exploring the 'curative' assumptions that people may carry into a therapeutic process, recognizing that any form of healing invites us to develop greater agility, balance, and/or incremental dimensions of growth/change in the face of ongoing adversity.
Thank you. I really appreciate the way you have framed this. The assumption that therapy should somehow “cure” us can quietly shape what we expect from the process. I increasingly think of healing less as arriving at a place where adversity no longer affects us, and more as developing greater capacity to meet what life continues to bring. Sometimes the changes are subtle and incremental, but they can profoundly alter how we relate to ourselves and to what we are carrying.
I found this really interesting. Maybe the most fundamental requirement is to build trust in the therapy first. But if someone already has trust issues or bad experience, they would be cautious at first. I think as a psychotherapist, a major chunk of your work would have already taken place before the therapy even began, is that so, Dr. Matt?
Sheeba, I think you are touching on something fundamental. Trust cannot simply be assumed because someone walks into therapy. For someone whose trust has been repeatedly broken, caution makes sense. The early work is often less about asking someone to trust us. It is about creating enough emotional safety for trust to develop at their own pace. In that sense, much of the therapeutic work begins before we reach what brought them into the room. Thank you for raising this. I hope to explore it more deeply in Part 2.
A serious seminary student observed that the "C" students become pastors, not disparagingly.
These students were not scoundrels. More likely NOT aware of WHAT they could not yet know.
I immediately noted a richness in the depth of your thoughts not always present.
Then you mentioned your NYC psychoanalytic training; the quality of this discourse is not surprising.
Thank you.
I appreciate some of the significance of your account of your mother's death.
.Wounded healers, all of us
David, thank you. Your reflection on what we do not yet know resonates deeply with me. The longer I have been in this work, the more I appreciate the humility it asks of us. My psychoanalytic training certainly shaped how I listen and think. But life, loss, and the people who have trusted me with their stories have taught me just as much. “Wounded healers, all of us” stayed with me. I deeply appreciate the thoughtfulness behind your reflection.
Oh yes.
Recently deceased UT Austin philosopher Paul Woodruff, in one of his final books, LIVING TOWARD VIRTUE, tells how that “almost nothing he had learned” in his postdoc was slightly helpful when on the ground early in Vietnam. He uses this as a basis for his emphasis on developing moral judgment, preserving, and engendering moral integrity.
Mercifully compact at < 200 Kindle pages, excluding bibliography. He writes with a golden pen.
May I suggest downloading the Kindle sample. It contains the preface. After considering for 5 days. I've studied, continuing to re-read, continuing, but I'm still uplifted by it. Having re-contemplated parts x5, and counting.
Epimeleisthai, care of the soul
David, this helps me understand more clearly where you are coming from.
The distinction between acquiring knowledge and developing moral judgment is an important one.
What stays with me is this idea of “care of the soul,” especially when life confronts us with situations for which knowledge alone cannot prepare us.
Perhaps good mentorship also works at that level. It shapes not simply what we know, but who we gradually become.
I appreciate the Woodruff recommendation. I will have a look at the sample.
Not very profound, but in comparing the role of a teacher to a mentor without disrespect to either.
Both contributed to everything good about me.
A mentor loves the "boy's Soul." (One cannot love a classroom of souls, no matter how much personal affection the teacher feels.)
I've done that for a few, often unknowingly.
The greatest compliment I've ever received has been for a man who became my surrogate son, over a period of 26 years here.
He says that his seeing my personal, day-to-day integrity was THE determining factor as a reason for respect, later friendship. He let me be one of the elder members of his multi-generational family.
My Brain IS FORCED to accept his opinion on 24x7 living with them.
That is the ONLY thing that relieves 80% of the burden of the HORROR of my existence.
I got a vasectomy 3 months after I got married with my wife's full concurrence. We beat the Hebrew god at his own game. (2 years later, our painful deconstruction began.)
I have lived out the goal of preventing, at least ameliorating, the pain of other unwanted children x26 years JUST one of an informal team
I so appreciate that you are exploring the 'curative' assumptions that people may carry into a therapeutic process, recognizing that any form of healing invites us to develop greater agility, balance, and/or incremental dimensions of growth/change in the face of ongoing adversity.
Thank you. I really appreciate the way you have framed this. The assumption that therapy should somehow “cure” us can quietly shape what we expect from the process. I increasingly think of healing less as arriving at a place where adversity no longer affects us, and more as developing greater capacity to meet what life continues to bring. Sometimes the changes are subtle and incremental, but they can profoundly alter how we relate to ourselves and to what we are carrying.
I found this really interesting. Maybe the most fundamental requirement is to build trust in the therapy first. But if someone already has trust issues or bad experience, they would be cautious at first. I think as a psychotherapist, a major chunk of your work would have already taken place before the therapy even began, is that so, Dr. Matt?
Sheeba, I think you are touching on something fundamental. Trust cannot simply be assumed because someone walks into therapy. For someone whose trust has been repeatedly broken, caution makes sense. The early work is often less about asking someone to trust us. It is about creating enough emotional safety for trust to develop at their own pace. In that sense, much of the therapeutic work begins before we reach what brought them into the room. Thank you for raising this. I hope to explore it more deeply in Part 2.