I went to my last formal event yesterday, and uncovered one more person I might contact.
I think I have learned a few things about myself, about memory, about how others in general view the past. I have been impressed but amused at how much people insisted they have changed, but I see alarming continuities. I have learned they don't like hearing that. I am constantly revising my opinion on genetics and what we can actually change versus what we can only work around. I think therapists should focus more on workarounds rather than trying to effect change. Of course, the move toward "coaching" by even some PhD psychoanalysts who just find it works better is part of that, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is sorta kinda like that.
This all took a long time to assemble - in some ways since age 14, so I'm not sure it will be easy to put into neat packets. But I do have a couple of those to start with, so I guess I will just get started in the next few days, if I can muster the concentration. Grace, apology, forgiveness, and vindication have been much on my mind the last year.
You have convinced me just not to ever go back to where I grew up.
ReplyDeletePretty much every place I grew up has changed hands and changed neighbors many times--and there were quite a few of the places. I gather that at the school reunions, there's nobody there from my class or even the class after mine. (I haven't looked at college reunions)
ReplyDeleteReminds me a family reunion that included my cousin and his teenaged boy. Boy was running around wild, being crazy, mildly aggressive towards the other kids, and my cousin was trying to get him to calm down a bit. I told him that the boy was just like he had been at that age. Don't think he believed me.
ReplyDeletejames
ReplyDeletePretty much every place I grew up has changed hands and changed neighbors many times--and there were quite a few of the places. I gather that at the school reunions, there's nobody there from my class or even the class after mine. (I haven't looked at college reunions)
That is probably the difference between growing up in a city versus growing up in the country. My parents lived in the same house for over 30 years. A fair number of my hometown peers are still in town, or within an hour's drive. The 50th high school reunion had about 20% attendance, which would be higher if one subtracted the deceased. (One reason I didn't go to the 50th reunion was that several years before I had visited with a fair number of old friends still living in the area. For the most part, those who attended the 50th reunion whom I hadn't already seen were, for the most part, people I had no great desire to see.)
I have spent the last 40 years in a city. The first 20 years I rented; the last 20 years I have been a homeowner. I have no contacts remaining from my first 20 years there. Moreover, very few of the people I knew from that era are still living there. Whereas, many of my current contacts in my 20-year status as a homeowner, I have known for 15-20 years.
On the other hand, some family friends who graduated from high school in the '50s, and have lived in California since then, told me that when they attended a multi-year reunion of their high school, there was no one else attending who had been in high school when they had been in high school. As they were then in their 80s, death probably explained most of the absences.
AVI
I have been impressed but amused at how much people insisted they have changed, but I see alarming continuities. I have learned they don't like hearing that.
I am reminded of an English (Shakespeare) professor I had in the '70s who once remarked that when she visited her Iowa hometown, many told her she was the same as ever. She didn't like those observations. "Country girl goes East and becomes the sophisticate" was probably her self-observation. My Antonia......(the book, not the character)
Some years back I called the professor to find out if she had taught a Pulitzer Prize winner who had graduated from her college. No, she hadn't, but her ex-husband had taught the Pulitzer Prize winner. One advantage of being from a small town is that there are often some common connections. I asked her about a family friend who had been an English graduate from her college, and who also grew up in a house within sight of where the English professor lived.
The English professor remembered the family friend, and told me that "she was one of our stars." The family friend appreciated my telling her that.
@RichardJohnson: Yes, much of it certainly was, though even home-owning families sometimes moved.
ReplyDelete@ Richard Johnson - There will be an update on that observation about personality continuity upcoming.
ReplyDeleteRe: "I think therapists should focus more on workarounds rather than trying to effect change."
ReplyDeleteAs a retired therapist, I'd like to know what, in practice, you would consider the difference between the two? If you effect a workaround, haven't you changed the behavior/perspective that was troublesome before therapy?
Absolutely. I was contrasting this to dynamic, insight-insistent therapies that are so tempting but don't seem to get much done.
ReplyDeleteAlso, accepting that some things about yourself are not going to change - you are still going to have an impulse toward nervousness, or selfishness, or cowardice or whatever, but you have strategies to make those manageable.
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