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Showing posts from July, 2016

Snapshots: Baton Rouge, Nice

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First, Baton Rouge . Three police officers, shot down. One, just vacuuming his car. I saw the video, the reenactment. The shooter, an ex-Marine, hides behind the corner of a convenience store at a gas station, peeks out, eyes his target, an expert marksman, takes them down. What is this? At first you think, Oh, another reverse racism thing, Race in America, the unsolved puzzle, the ultimate in displacement, the psychological defense, placing one's negativity, anger, on someone, something else. If I come home angry and slam a door, or kick the dog, my anger is now in the door, it is the dog's problem. I feel better, momentarily An immature defense, and too simple an explanation for recent murders in Dallas, five policemen were killed, nine injured, and now . . . more dead in Baton Rouge. But this massacre is different; one of the policemen, one of the victims is not white, his skin tone is closer to black, so there must be some mistake. The perpetrator, Gavin Eugene Long, reache

Taking Notes

When I told one of my friends that there's no way I would remember the most important, the most salient details of a therapy visit if I didn't take notes right then and there, she said, "Well, you wouldn't be my therapist. I need someone totally looking me in the eye." I didn't tell her that I could type ninety words a minute and never have to look at the screen. I'm not exactly sure how they teach note-taking in graduate schools anymore, hopefully the importance of a good genogram (family tree diagram that indicates alliances), among other things. In some Masters programs, surely, the old process recording is still taught. A process recording is what is done in the courtroom. You write down, verbatim, word for word, what the client said, although he's not on the stand. It is useful in many ways, not the least of which is that when there's a need for clarification, nothing's more powerful than telling the patient, "Let me see what we talke