Healthcanc

Well, I liked putting out that post on breathing. It felt good to write to educate people again. But then I forgot to send links to it to new people who subscribed by sending me their email addresses, rather than rely upon the feed-- as recommended :). And I felt guilty about that, naturally, and I thought, do I write about that guilt? Maybe.  But not now. Not blogging regularly hadn't been intentional, rather there was too much else to do. And now, with a research project in full swing, there's even less of that. But for some goofy reason here we are, me talking to you again, you reading along. You have no idea how nice that is for me.  But maybe you do! Because at some point, who does the therapist talk to? We've discussed this before, consulting, even socializing with other therapists. But at 5 a.m.  Who then?  It's good to vent, no? Just write things down, whether anyone is listening or not. It's called bibliotherapy. Talking when you know someone is listening i...

Therapists often talk about quitting, going into some other field. Some normal field, where they aren't flooded with the emotions of others for five to eight hours a day; what I call  empathy overload . Most people, even those who aren't therapists, become overwhelmed when friends and family have tsorris (Yiddish, rhymes with floor-dis , means  troubles ), all that feels unfair. When the Holocaust is mentioned in a therapy session, it is empathy overload for the victims, even for the survivors, that brings the patient (and sometimes the therapist) to tears. Someone has to change the subject. The rub is that even if we did change jobs we would find ourselves still feeling the pain, that of the people, the very world around us. Just like you do. So at the gate, waiting for the plane, I’m looking around, not at the books so much, usually there isn’t time for that (barring a flight delay), but am scanning my fellow travelers, the most interesting species in the zoo, my attention m...