THE DOCTOR IS IN

TRAGEDY TOMORROW?

Crises, among groups of people, tend to come in waves, and we had quite a breaker this week at the clinic where I supervise. Every couple of hours, it seemed, I got a report of a life-threatening situation that needed immediate handling. At one point there was a pileup--I was talking to one concerned supervisee in my office when another called to report something even worse going on in his room; I ran over to help him deal with it, then returned to the first situation to find a phone message reporting yet another frightening problem.

Between these interventions and the accompanying documentation, I completed what I think are final edits on a story and laboriously whited out the top and bottom parts on the sheet music of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," which I'm working on with two friends from my voice class, to make my own part easier to follow. Outside of work hours, I attended a delightful birthday party, met friends for drinks and dinner, rehearsed "Boogie Woogie" and sang it in class. And stayed up at night wondering what the hell I thought I was doing.

What kind of grandiosity allows a person to ruminate for fifteen minutes over whether to use "convince" or "persuade," or to struggle to perfect the harmonics of "A root, a toot, a toot-di-dle-a-da toot, he blows eight to the bar" while children are being burned, pets are tortured, and terrified adults hear voices commanding them to hurt their loved ones? (These are not the specific crises we dealt with this week, but the intensity is similar.)

I've been through these dark nights twice before, with two different outcomes. The first was when I was in college. I majored in theater and English, and volunteered at a Head Start program in an elementary school in rural Virginia. I'd cuddle five-year-olds on my lap (which dates me, I know--people didn't worry so much about caregiver abuse then, for better or worse) and listen to their matter-of-fact stories of alcoholism, beatings, desertion, and sometimes hunger and cold; then I'd go back to my dorm and chat with friends about homework and Saturday night dates, or rehearse a scene in which I used the children's pain to inform and deepen my character. I loathed myself. I ended up seeing the college psychologist (in those innocent days, we had only one for the whole school). Contrary to what I'd expected, she urged me to give up, or at least to minimize, the Head Start involvement. "This is your last chance to be a normal teenager," she told me. "Take it seriously." I did, with a great deal of ambivalence and guilt. I threw myself into my college experience, and at some point I started sleeping again.

Then, in the 1980s, I was writing stories, studying acting and occasionally getting published and cast. I realized, as I approached 30, that my "prime" acting years were passing, and that I needed to find a reliable way to make a living. (At the time, I was editing confession magazines, but I couldn't see doing that forever. It was definitely a "day job.") I took a job writing fundraising material and speeches at NYU, because at that time the school offered full tuition remission. I enrolled in the master's program in drama therapy, thinking that theater-related clinical work would be a more cohesive and reliable way to pay the bills while writing and auditioning.

But when I started doing field placements, I again became absorbed in the struggles of the people with whom I was assigned to work. My theatrical and literary pursuits again began to seem trivial, "hobbies" I needed to apologize for in the face of extreme poverty, deprivation and despair. I felt increasingly alienated from my theater buddies. I took a leave of absence from acting school, expecting to go back when I got my head straightened out--but I never did. Instead, I went on to get my doctorate in clinical psychology, and to work with troubled people in a variety of settings.

That has been a good thing, mostly. But I felt for a long time that there was something missing, and over the past few years I've been experimenting, trying to get it back. And now that I have, these doubts have crept up again.

I'm not leaving this time. But for a few days there, I kept thinking I should, and knowing I shouldn't, and trying to find the words for what I knew but couldn't explain. I tried "art is important to a civilized society" and "I'm a better therapist when I'm fulfilled myself," but neither really works in this case. MY art isn't necessarily important to a civilized society--it's certainly not important to a whole string of editors I could name, and the fulfillment bit both puts art on a par with eating lots of spinach, having a healthy sex life, and so on--all wonderful ideas but not the same thing--and suggests that if there were more efficient ways to help clients, I should give up the writing, singing, and acting. And I won't.

Last night, talking to a friend, I heard myself come out with the answer, or at least my answer. "Some people," I said, "have a need to make art that is as pressing as hunger."

I'm one of those people. And I'm thinking that the point of my life is not just to immerse myself in the problems, but to help everyone I work with to experience joy, fulfillment and self-realization. And "everyone" has to include myself.

So my clients and supervisees will have to deal with a therapist/supervisor who sings boogie woogie and worries about fine distinctions among verbs. They've dealt with worse. Believe me.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself,she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity(Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular monthly panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Comments

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[Katharine Weber]

Old situations, new complications. I really admire your willingness to work at understanding the patterns.

[Sarah]

Yes, thank you for this, for every caregiver who feels guilty for having some fun, some joy, some time off. Creativity heals and renews the soul so we can go on. Sounds like you've found a good balance, so boogie on!

[MJ]

I loved this column - thank you for writing it. It helped me too. I often wonder....What right do I...