Surviving the bombing of pan am flight 103: The loss of innocence and a dear friend in an international tragedy

Abstract

On December 21, 1988, a terrorist bomb blew Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, 54 minutes after it took off from London's Heathrow Airport. The explosion sent 259 passengers and crew members tumbling 6 miles to their deaths, killed 11 people on the ground, and created waves of shock and grief that continue to reverberate across the globe. My friend Miriam Wolfe, one of 35 students returning from a semester in London under the auspices of Syracuse University, was on that flight. Her death was the final, jarring event in a traumatic year that had brought me the accidental deaths of four other friends in an Easter plane crash and the breast cancer that would force my mother to endure a mastecotomy and painful years of chemotherapy and drug treatments. While it is tempting to canonize the victims of violent disaster, Miriam was different–and inarguably deserving of such hagiography. A tribute written for one of three memorial scholarships established in her honor calls her a rare and gifted young woman who lived life to the fullest; actively worked to change the world for the better; and gave a great deal of love, joy and wisdom to all who knew her!' Her death yanked me from the comfortable naivete of my youth and forced me to confront the pain and confusion of the adult world. It destroyed my faith in the inherent good of mankind but showed me how disaster can bring out the best in people. It gave me a nihilistic view of life but forced me to make the most of every moment I have. It made me appreciate the people around me but gave me little tolerance for anyone who wastes my time. And it instilled in me a knee-jerk animus toward religion and nearly all things Middle Eastern. Ultimately, though, Miriam's life and death taught me how to live and love and survive in ways I never thought necessary—or possible.     

A Shamanic Journey under the Wildebeest Skin

Journeys taken in both the outer world as well as the inner world can become experiences of initiation. These adventures speak to us, and when we later decipher their meaning, they give our life purpose, value, and direction. By focusing on the compelling images and symbols that appear repeatedly over one's lifetime, the thread of one's myth can be revealed.

Inspired by an animal scar that appeared on my body, I traveled to Africa and embarked on two safaris. I returned home to process the meaning of my African pilgrimages by way of an inner safari wherein I reflected on the images and insights that came to me during and after these two outer journeys. In this article I include the dynamics of my totem animal (the wildebeest, a herd animal), and what was born out of my dialogues with them in active imaginations when I lay under a wildebeest skin. I came to realize that what I was participating in was a shamanic initiation process. My soul and “bush soul” seemed to have merged together and were lodged in the wildebeest as a symbol for their existence in my life. The integration of animal symbolism, dreams, and active imaginations can lead to an unanticipated renewal. Reflecting psychologically on my travels, I became increasingly aware that these inner and outer peregrinations were essential ingredients in my individuation process. This whole venture evolved into a shamanic endeavor and resulted in a psychological and spiritual rebirth.     

Redeeming the lost voice of the ancestors

The Holocaust of the Jews in World War II involved not only the murder of 6 million Jews but also the traumatic destruction and wipe-out of whole communities, with their rich culture and tradition which had existed for centuries. In places where no one survived, it was almost impossible to reconstruct the collective memory of those communities. The voice of the ancestors was lost. As a daughter of Holocaust survivors, I have always felt the strong presence of the loss, not only of the murdered family members but also of the ancient colourful world of Eastern European Jews. I have always felt compelled to link back to that lost world. In the past three years, my journey to the pre-war past has become more intense. This article describes the double role of my journey: it is both an attempt to reconstruct, redeem and preserve the memory of the lost ancestors, and a personal journey to the echoes of my ancestors' voices within my soul.     

The Protean Therapist

SUMMARY

The subject of the following article is the protean journey therapists make as they adapt to changing situations and challenges in their own lives and the ultimate impact it has on their clinical work with patients. I have used the example of my own life, in which certain critical events have transformed me from a person with a rather ordinary perspective to someone who has come to appreciate the fragile nature of life with its rich tapestry of complicated ties and patterns. I have tried to demonstrate that significant events in my life and my personal development over the past thirty years have furthered my appreciation and treatment of my patients. I have also come to recognize that my patients' particular journeys, on which I have accompanied them, have similarly contributed to and enriched my life in myriad ways.     

Conversations in the Gap Between Mind and Soul: Grammatical Reflections ‘In (the) Place(s) of Thinking'

In December 2013, the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture sponsored a conference to celebrate the life and work of James Hillman. My article is an open letter to a colleague and friend that continues conversations we had over the years on the issue of the language of psychology and the logos of soul (ψυχολογ?α). In my letter, I suggest to James that psychology has a monumental problem in its addiction to nouns and, alongside him, I explore the possibility that the soul's speech is a verb the moods, tenses, and voices of which configure psychological life and its style of discourse in ways that offer an alternative to the dominant scientific paradigm and the mode of discourse in psychology today. This letter in memory of James compliments the article I wrote in memory of my mentor, friend, and colleague, J. H. van den Berg, that appeared in these pages last year. Over a period of 35 years, each has been a companion for me in the dialogue between phenomenology and depth psychology.     

The emperor's new clothes: A study of narcissism and delusional greatness,denial, splitting and projection in a centre for people facing the challenge of HIV and AIDS

Abstract

Last January I began work as an untrained volunteer counsellor at a drop-in centre for young adults in London. It was the first time I had done any counselling with adults, though I had worked with children, and I found myself to be extremely anxious. I was acutely aware of my untrained and inexperienced status, not to mention any other flaws in character and health I might possess, and acutely concerned about whether I could possibly discharge my responsibilities to any client who might come to me for help. I was in therapy myself, but it was not clear to me how this could help me on the spot, so to speak.     

Grounding Recognition: A Rejoinder to Critical Questions

It is always great good fortune for an author to have his writings meet with a receptive circle of readers who take them up in their own work and clarify them further. Indeed, it may even be the secret of all theoretical productivity that one reaches an opportune point in one's own creative process when others' queries, suggestions, and criticisms give one no peace, until one has been forced to come up with new answers and solutions. The four essays collected here, in any event, jointly represent an ideal form of such a challenge: I am now compelled to make further theoretical developments and clarifications that lead me to a whole new stage of my own endeavours, well beyond what I initially had in mind in The Struggle for Recognition . For this reason, I will not concentrate here on interpretative issues regarding my earlier work but will instead take up the problems and challenges that have occasioned several revisions on my part. For this reason, it makes sense to begin (in section I) with the points that Carl-Göran Heidegren makes, in terms of a history of social theory, regarding my proposed theory of recognition. The issues that still motivate me today can best be expressed via an engagement with the conscientious interpretations he offers. The core of this rejoinder is based on Heikki Ikäheimo's and Arto Laitinen's suggestions and corrections, which they have used to develop my initial approach further, to the point where the theoretical outlines of a precise and general concept of recognition come into view. It is primarily these two contributions that helped me develop a productive elaboration of my originally vague intuitions (section II). By way of conclusion (in section III), I take up the penetrating questions raised by Antti Kauppinen regarding the use of the concept of recognition in the broader context of social criticism; he has compelled me to take on several extremely helpful clarifications, and they give me the opportunity, in conclusion, to summarize my overarching intentions.     

Healing presence in the psychotherapist

Abstract

Throughout graduate school I felt compelled to become a fine psychotherapist. Implicit in that motivation was my curiosity about what makes a psychotherapist effective. My curiosity was inspired by my experience with one therapist who helped me activate profound transformation. After identifying intuitive inquiry (Anderson, 1998, 2000, 2004) as my research method, I explored that experience through meditation, reading, and conversation and eventually identified her healing presence as the core quality that differentiated her from other therapists I had known. Though technique and experience are important, I sensed that it was her healing presence that allowed her to use technique and experience skillfully. Throughout Cycle 1 of intuitive inquiry, the “text” that claimed me was my personal experience of her healing presence, her ability to be present, to connect with me, to see me, and even, to love me. Through intuitive inquiry, I was able to expand my understanding of the healing presence of a psychotherapist to incorporate the experiences of many others.     

Theological Reflections of an Adopted Daughter

Abstract

For as long as I can remember I had a sense of not belonging, of being a misfit. When, therefore, at the age of six, it was casually mentioned over the dinner table that I was adopted it was no surprise. I felt I had always known. As I grew up I dreamed of who my real mother might be, the circumstances of my birth and where I had come from. It was many years before I found some answers to my questions and, in the process, discovered more about myself and the nature of relationships.     

Memoirs of a Mentor: Using Creativity for Counselors in Coping With the Loss of a Mentor

This article was inspired by my (S.S.) own personal loss. My mentor passed away during spring break of my 2nd year postgraduate school after a short battle with systemic lupus. I remember the deep sadness that I felt when it became apparent that she was coming home from the hospital for the last time. No words can describe the emotions; she had helped me through the toughest times in my academic life. How would I ever get the type of mentorship she provided again? She was there when I almost quit as a young student, back when my anger still got the best of me. She talked me down from the edge so many times; I never expected to be on this journey without her.

I dedicate this article to her and mentors like her. Equally, I dedicate this article to mentees who have lost their mentors. I offer my story (in italicized font) in the hopes that it will help others who are dealing with a similar loss. In this article, we attempt to illuminate the true power of mentorship, honor the significance of the relationship between mentor and mentee, and provide a tool useful to anyone who has lost their guide. I share my story in gratitude for my own mentor; I am so thankful that she was a part of my journey and that I can pass on to others the patience she had with me.     

Hidden feelings 1945-95

Abstract

It was a fact learnt early in life: wherever I travelled in Europe as a teenager, it paid me to explain that I was Dutch, not German. And when I left home at 18, in search of the elusive key to good faith and freedom, and came to Britain, crossing the Channel to reach the sole part of Europe untouched by enemy invasion, I felt I was welcomed like a lost daughter; many people told me of the part they played in the liberation of Holland in 1945. And now, fifty years after the historic events of the Second World War have passed, I still like to invoke the ‘magic’ if I can. While staying in a bed and breakfast in Coventry recently, I pointed out to the landlady that a morning call, as written down by the German guest, was requested at 7.15, instead of, as she had read, at 9.15. ‘Oh’, she said, annoyed, realizing the mistake: ‘Do they cross their number seven? We never do’. I was instantly eager to clear my name: ‘The Dutch never do so either’     

TAKING IN MORE OF LIFE

This is a story not only about my father's death but also about how it has affected me and life as I see it. I believe that the circumstances in my life following my father's death are connected to each other and have become my greatest lessons that I have learned in life.     

Arguing for Wisdom in the University: An Intellectual Autobiography

For 40?years I have argued that we urgently need to bring about a revolution in academia so that the basic task becomes to seek and promote wisdom. How did I come to argue for such a vast, wildly ambitious intellectual revolution? It goes back to my childhood. From an early age, I desired passionately to understand the physical universe. Then, around adolescence, my passion became to understand the heart and soul of people via the novel. But I never discovered how to tell stories in order to tell the truth. So, having failed to become a physicist, and failed to become a novelist, I studied philosophy at Manchester University and then, in 6?weeks of inspiration, discovered that the riddle of the universe is the riddle of our desires. Philosophy should be about how to live, and should not just do conceptual analysis. I struggled to reconcile the two worlds of my childhood ambitions, the physical universe and the human world. I decided they could be reconciled with one another if one regarded the two accounts of them, physics and common sense, as myths, and not as literal truths. But then I discovered Karl Popper: truth is too important to be discarded. I revised my ideas: physics seeks to depict truly only an aspect of all that there is; in addition, there is the experiential aspect of things??the world as we experience it. I was immensely impressed with Popper??s view that science makes progress, not by verification, but by ferocious attempted falsification of theories. I was impressed, too, with his generalization of this view to form critical rationalism. Then it dawned on me: Popper??s view of science is untenable because it misrepresents the basic aim of science. This is not truth as such; rather it is explanatory truth??truth presupposed to be unified or physically comprehensible. We need, I realized, a new conception of science, called by me aim-oriented empiricism, which acknowledges the real, problematic aims of science, and seeks to improve them. Then, treading along a path parallel to Popper??s, I realized that aim-oriented empiricism can be generalized to form a new conception of rationality, aim-oriented rationality, with implications for all that we do. This led on to a new conception of academic inquiry. From the Enlightenment we have inherited the view that academia, in order to help promote human welfare, must first acquire knowledge. But this is profoundly and damagingly irrational. If academia really does seek to help promote human welfare, then its primary tasks must be to articulate problems of living, and propose and critically assess possible solutions??possible actions, policies, political programmes, philosophies of life. The pursuit of knowledge is secondary. Academia needs to promote cooperatively rational problem solving in the social world, and needs to help humanity improve individual and institutional aims by exploiting aim-oriented rationality, arrived at by generalizing the real progress-achieving methods of science. We might, as a result, get into life some of the progressive success that is such a marked feature of science. Thus began my campaign to promote awareness of the urgent need for a new kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity create a wiser world.     

An Exodus

Being part of a family, any family, is an emotionally challenging experience. Being the only girl in my family was rife with much emotional turmoil alongside great love and devotion.

In writing this memoir I was able to call into my awareness all of those feelings: grief, sadness, joy, and the deep tenderness for both of the extraordinary parents I had and the home that housed that very rich and impactful upbringing.

My parents' deaths and the anguish of selling my family home all came down in rapid succession. It was a merciless experience. Like Persephone, those events sent me so far down into the underworld and forced me to face my shadow from every direction that I am only now beginning to climb back out into the sunlight and face this second half of my life.

Stories are spirit medicine; taking these sometimes painful yet evocative events and crafting them into art has both soothed the heartache and given me the gift of honoring my childhood and embracing my womanhood.

It is in the remembering where the softness lies. And so I remember it all; but most especially that swim, the very first one with my daddy dear that will always live in my heart...     

Indelible

Many years ago I grew away from the evangelical Christian faith that had grounded my life (before and beyond death) since my early teens. Or so I thought: the stories my body now tell confront me with the sense that I have – secretly, ambivalently – held on to elements of that faith. Over recent times, through and since my doctoral studies, I have embraced poststructural and Deleuzian sensibilities. These, one might think, run right up against the entrenched binaries and certainties that remain indelibly inscribed. The narrative of progress and development I have been telling myself over the decades – that I have not just grown away but grown up – is no longer tenable. In this paper I examine my doubt at whether I doubt. Amongst the most disturbing stories is one of being beaten in God's name. Its scars remain. I revisit this story in an attempt to dwell more fully in the pain (and pleasure?) of cane on flesh. How am I to (at)tend (to) those scars? What are their meanings? I draw from the psychodynamic and poststructural theoretical frameworks that seem to have failed me, in inquiring into the political, cultural, emotional, psychological and spiritual processes at play in this current disturbance.     

Use of narratives and collage in the exploration of the self and the meaning of a career

ABSTRACT

A methodological challenge during my doctoral research led me to use collage to reflect upon my own life and career. The insights it allowed me into the relationship between who we are and what we do led me to conclude that such methods can also illuminate these connections for clients of career counselling. In this paper I argue that such constructivist approaches allow the examination of that psycho-social space within which career is shaped and understood, allowing access to both the conscious and unconscious meaning made of a career and life story. I further argue that in times of increasing complexity such methods will be an important tool for career counsellors to meet the holistic needs of clients.     

Empathy and the responsiveness to social affordances

The direct perception theory of empathy claims that we can immediately experience a person’s state of mind. I can see for instance that my neighbour is angry with me in his bodily countenance. I develop a version of the direct perception theory of empathy which takes this perceptual capacity to depend upon recognising in what way the other person is responsive to the affordances the environment provides. By recognising which possibilities for action are relevant to a person, I can thereby understand something about the meaning they give to the world. I come to share something of their perspective on the world, and this allows me to grasp based on my perception of them something about their current state of mind. I argue that shared affect plays a central role in this perceptual capacity. Shared affect allows me to orient my attention to possibilities for action that matter to the other person. I end by briefly discuss the implications of this view of empathy for the disturbances in so-called “cognitive empathy” that are found in people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.     

Pastoral care is evangelism

Conclusion I consider the years which I spent in the study of pastoral psychology as the wedge which opened the door to genuine ministry for me. I doubt if I would have stayed in the pastorate without it. Furthermore, the disciplines of that study have been the basis for continued growth. I am conscious of the need to constantly develop deeper understandings of human nature, of the methods by which people can be helped, and to become more effective in using the resources of religion in meeting human need. I am aware of the importance of supervised examination of my own early experiences in order that I may understand their relationship to my pastoral and administrative work.Pastoral psychology has helped me acknowledge the relationship between my personal emotional handicaps and my vocational function. Furthermore, I am learning to remember that most religious learning is not conceptual but experimental. Faith is caught, not taught. If persons are to know the love of God, then they need a pastor whose maturity of faith, spirit of consecration, and integrity of life incarnate God's love.     

Learning about empathy with unconscious states of mind 1

2008 Ellen Noonan Annual Counselling Lecture, Birkbeck College, University of London

It was a very special privilege to give this lecture in honour of my dear colleague and friend Ellen Noonan. The lecture is based on one of the new chapters of my book about therapy with older people. Ellen was a most helpful mentor to me when I was preparing the first edition of this book and I have dedicated the new edition to her memory. The lecture is essentially about learning to use one's feelings in therapeutic work and to illustrate this theme I shall be drawing on experiences of supervising clinical psychology trainees on placement with me in my NHS work. The theme of this lecture applies as much to counselling as to psychotherapy and I use therapy to refer to counselling and psychotherapy.