unique invitation

June 12

i wanted to update anyone still following this ever-slowing blog that i have been invited back to China. I am in communication with the two professors and they are interested in me returning to help train psychologists and other mental health workers to care for the survivors of the earthquake.

i hope to more about this soon... and i also hope to transcribe more of my handwritten journals into the blog too...

since i have returned, i have been swamped with psychological evaluations... i saw 29 people in May and i am on pace to see around that many for June!

blessings to all...

-mwm

unexpected connections and commonalities

April 22, 2008

i awoke and got ready for the day.

our group had a meeting in our room. i finally get to post to the blog today, much later than i had hoped. i wish i had brought my own computer on the trip.

my decision not to bring my own box on this trip was largely informed by my experience last time i chose to carry a computer across a major ocean. i never used my box when i took it to s & r's wedding. in fact, i eventually resented that i had to lug the heavy beast around with me. nevertheless, since we are camping for several days in hotels, having it would provide me the opportunity to email, blog, and catch up on report writing... reports i know will be overdue when i return home...

d and i went shopping around the market stalls inside the walls of a local temple down the street. i watched and learned the relational patterns involved in haggling and bargaining in country, which (while similar to other locales where i have bargained), has a unique flavor where "low-balling" the seller too much may result in him or her feelilng obligated to say yes to allow both of us to "save face.

we had lunch with our friend who took us to lunch in a noodle house chain similar to low to moderate-priced restaurant back home... i don't have much time to sit and chat with him and other leaders on our team as i and two other team members have a 2 o'clock appointment to meet with the contact at the local school.

the other two team members, have similar interests. s is currently a student in a marriage and family program and sis involved working with marriages...

after taking an always-adventurous cab ride to the school we eventually found our way to the correct building and to the correct office suite. they greeted us warmly and we sat down with two teachers. in addition to the teacher, there were three or four people who were students. they served us hot water and placed loose leave green tea leaves in the cups. i am learning that tea pots or tea bags are not typical for those drinking tea during the day. the tea was quite good.

as we came in, the teacher handed each of us a brief description of the program's teachers and a brief CV of each member. from reading his background, i was excited and just about in disbelief that he has trained in e with prominent others who share my practice in a training exchange program which emerged at the end of the the turn... as i read further, the situation became even more surreal as his research interests include PD and BPD in particular.

perhaps i was just giddy after reading his research interests and training background, or perhaps i am just an ignorant tejo-centric idiot, or maybe i just don't hear too good... but suffice it to say, i made what could be considered my biggest cultural faux pas... he began the meeting by asking what our interest and experiences were in "psychotherapy." This now seems like a perfectly constructed opening question... nevertheless, i didn't hear "psychotherapy" i heard "sex therapy." thus, my first answer was to say, "My expertise is not in sex therapy." The looks around the room were a great mix of confusion and shall i say, confusion... i don't think it was until we were about 45 minutes or more into other conversations, i realized he was saying "psychotherapy" and it was only my unfamiliarity with his accent that lead to my mistake... if i had just had my ears open to the context... but alas, i always love an opportunity to stick my size 10 and 1/2 into my wide-open mouth!

with my non sequitur hanging in the air, my friends came to my rescue and we then went around the horn and introduced ourselves and shared what we did... s shared he was a student and s shared her educational background and her work with marriages...

at some point, the conversation moved to what the teacher was doing at the school...

during our conversation, i learned he is also familiar and interested in Lacan, Bion, the Tavistock clinic , and Klein! i cannot find a Kleinian-minded cohort within 100 miles of me back home, and the first colleageue i meet in away from home embraces her theories! as i reflect on this coincidence i am more and more convinced that this was what R said would happen to me...

i asked, in my best "diversity-informed and politically correct" manner, because an "eastern" worldview is more communal, what influences systems theory had on the developing science of psychology in the east. he surprised me when he shared with me that psychoanalysis and Freud's theories are much more influential on his psychology than person-centered, existential, systems, behavioral, or cognitive-behavioral theory. during this discussion, he went to his desk and printed an article for me on the history of psychotherapy in the far east.

i think he too was a bit surprised that my teaching areas were cognitive assessment, personality assessment, and psychoanalytic psychotherapy...

and it only gets "more awesome-er!" (sorry for the sad reference to an ill-fated video store radio ad)

midway thru (i guess as i completely lost track of time) our conversation, he asks if i might be interested in collaborating on research somehow in the near future, especially regarding PDs and BPD... i had the subjective experience of not wanting to appear "too interested."

i never played "hard to get" well when i was dating and i am sure the look on my face betrayed an excitement beyond my professional words of "yes, i believe that would be something we could look into." i guess i don't "play it cool" too well... (i know you all find that to be a BIG surprise!)

as we were discussing the tests and measures they use to evaluate personality, i was interested to know they have several tests i am familar with and actually use. i shared with them what i liked about the new test and they became very interested in the idea of using the test ... wow, wouldn't that be cool!!!

her training and research is primarily in measurement and assessment... when she described her dissertation, i tracked her for a while but she moved into the proverbial deep end of the statistical pool pretty quickly!

in addition to her work in stats, she was also involved in developing the norms for the test... prior to this, they had been using the test used to evaluate me when i was in first grade!!!

if it is not evident yet, i essentially hijacked the meeting and monopolized the conversations. while not meaning to (consciously of course) i became engrossed in finding like-minded souls to "talk shop" and left my friends to ceate side-conversations with others in the room... (i know this comes as quite a surprise for those of you who know me) ;-)

somewhere in all of this "shop talk" two students had the chance to ask some very poignant and challenging questions. the first student asked what he was to do when faced with a patient presenting with suicidal ideation. s and i glanced at each other and she put into words what i was thinking... she whispered to me... i tried to split the middle with discussing the shades between active thoughts of suicide, passive wishes of death, and understanding from the patient what their values are and what is important...

the second student asked a great question about how to "initiate the therapeutic connection" with a patient, in other words, how to establish and foster rapport. some part of me realized i was monopolizing the time and i deferred to seth and starla to answer the question first... i then realized, while i might have been monopolizing time, without being too grandiose, i really did have more experience in this area from my training, my practice, and my teaching... it was very cool being the "expert." i forget i have been training, practicing, and teaching for over a decade now... what was once awkward for me is now reflexive, automatic, and comfortable... i too often take this for granted...

toward the end, our new friend started calling someone on his mobile phone... long-story-short, he arranged for us to visit an old classic home and garden with him and another new friend in two days. He is going to pick us up personally at our hotel and take us there. I am so excited to go...

after about three hours of chatting, s graciously reminded me we have been there quite a while and helped us make polite exits...

into our city

April 21, 2008

I awoke early and enjoyed reading the book... I ate more "beans and black fungus" and enjoyed several servings of yoghurt. We boarded the bus for our tour of the city and settled in for a two hour ride.

Arriving in the late morning, we checked into our hotel. d and i are rooming together now. i wouldn't describe it as elegant... pragmatic and utilitarian seem to fit better. that said, each room has a mini water cooler with a heated tap for making "cha" in the mornings... plus, the cold water is safe to drink without having to boil it.

after checking in, we went to lunch with our local host. the restaurant is about a 10 minute walk away. the shoping promenade reminds me of "one main place" in santa monica, california. nevertheless, i was never acosted by anyone trying to sell me a "Rolex" and a "Gucci" bag in santa monica!

lunch was a collection of dishes again served on a lazy susan. the most interesting dish was a fried fish presented with head and tail, turned inside out, and diced... the best way to describe it without a picture would be to think of one of those deep-fried onions at chili's where you pull pieces of fried onion off piece by piece. the only difference here is there is a fish head at one end!

our host gave a nice lesson...

we scheduled some meetings and appointments...

i am having dinner tonight with some friends of ours here and they are bringing those who are interested in learning more... our host has also set up a meeting with me and two others in our group to meet with the a professional cohort. this is perhaps what i am most excited about. i am really looking foreward to "talking shop" with another shrink in the far east!

we ate dinner at a "hot pot" restaurant. this is the type of restaurant LG back home and i have looked for in our city to no avail! they place a large two-sided pot in the center of the table. each side is filled with broth and spices. one side is mild-hot and the other is spicy-hot. they bring the pot to a boil with a gas burner below the pot. they then bring various foods (cooked and uncooked) to the table and put them in the pot... after taking the food out of the boiling pot with chopsticks or a ladel (sp?), you place it in a bowl in front of you which can be filled with different flavored and spiced oils. i think it is the best meal i have had on the whole trip!

there was a great jockying for position to pay for the bill and i don't want to brag, (and you who know me know i must!!!) but i was able to "give the heisman" and get myself to the front of the line... i thought i was so clever (also typical of me) until i learned they didn't take any credit cards!!! my friend bailed me out and i got to pay him back without losing any face before our hosts (a very important thing here!)

after dinner, one of our friends here in country, accompanied by two of her seeking friends, escorted me to a bank where i could use my ATM card and withdraw the local currency. I still find it amazing that i can put my debit card into a machine in a foreign country and get money out!

after getting a bit of cash, i retired to my room and went to bed.

the city, up close and personal

April 20, 2008
i awoke around six o'clock in the morning and felt very refreshed. breakfast was an interesting collection of western and eastern dishes. fried eggs turned in a skillet with chop sticks were fun to watch being made. my favorite dish was "beans with black fungus." apparently, mushroom doesn't translate well from chinese!

we boarded our bus around 8:30 AM and set off to the Yu Garden. This is a small garden and the title means "south garden." It was first built in the Ming Dynasty and there is a "rockery" (a man-made rock landscape designed to look like mountains) in the garden where legend has it the mortar used to construct the arrangement consisted of "sticky rice" and "mud."

after leaving the garden, we made our way to a "tourist" tea house where they prepared traditional gong-fu cha (the art of making tea). they served us jasmine tea (a green tea), li chi tea (a black tea), and an oolong tea. i broke down and purchased several ounces of the jasmine tea, several ounces of my favorite tea "tae kwan yen," and a 7-year-aged "purhr" tea. it is amazing to spend a couple of dollars per ounce here compared to what i have paid at home!

after leaving the tea house, we went to the "pearl of the orient." this is a telecommuncations tower in the new part of Shanghai, near the river. the building is a collection of three spheres, decreasing in size, as the tower rises. the middle section looks like reunion tower in dallas, to give you an idea of what it looks like. we went up the tower into the observation level and looked out over the city of Shanghai. smog was pretty bad... at one of the souvenier stands, there was a model of the Orient Pearl Tower next to the Eiffel Tower, apparently comparing their scale... i couldn't help but think, "See, our cultural phalus is bigger than your cultural phalus!!!"

we at lunch at a decent restaurant named Tian Hou. after we said grace at lunch, our tour guide asked john paul and me if we prayed at all our meals or only special occasions... he was quite curious about this practice and what it meant...

the resaurant was conviently located above a factory where they make silk thread from silk worm coccoons. They showed the different stages of the silkworm's life-cycle and how they unravel the silkworm's cocoon to make silk thread. the smell in the room was just what i remembered from childhood when mom and i raised silkworms! they only get single thread from small coccoons where there is one moth. when there are two moths, the threads are too interwoven to separrate. they use these to make silk comforters by stretching and pulling and placing them in layers. the silk comforter and ajoining shop remined me of the morano glass factory in venice, italy, where after the tour and being seen how things are made, you are expected to buy something...

we finished the day by attending church at Shanghai Community Fellowship (http://scfenglish.com/) where we worshiped with "foreign passport holders." It was perhaps one of the most culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse church services i have ever been in. I really enjoyed it. The building reminded me of Cox Chapel at HPUMC except there were also balconies over the sides of the sanctuary, not just in the back.

after church, john paul and i ate supper at Din Tai Fong. the restaurant is famous for it's dumplings. we tried the crab dumplings... not the best... not that i really cared, i was quite hungry and the dumplings were warm... most reataurants here have pictures so the westerners can point to what they want.

we ended the evening on a river cruise up and down the river. the lights of the Shanghai skyline were very pretty, in a "las vegas," "times square" sort of way. it was spitting rain by this time and chilly... we didn't remain on deck for very long. when i went below deck, i noted david and our tour guide were engrossed in a conversation. david was expanding and sharing with him about the friend we have in common... there was no decision that night; seeds have been planted...

In flight and arriving

If you haven't had the pleasure to fly over 16 hours in a single day, you haven't lived! I had stayed up the night before and when it was "bedtime" in the far east, i took my Ambien (R) and nodded off to a great 8 hours sleep on the plane, cramped in the last row with no room to move... thank heaven for the Ambien (R)! The really odd thing was, after i slept 8 hours there was still over 4 hours of flight left...

we arrived in the city's large airport and to call it large is an understatement. After locating our bags and proceeding through customs, we boarded our tour bus accompanied by our guide, j. Over here, many choose "American names" and j chose his because it was phonetically close to his given name.

the city, has over 20 times the residents i think is large...

One of the things which strikes me quite unexpected is how similar things are here... the highways are large and wide, all the cars are midsize sedans or larger, the road signs with exit information are the same color green, and there are billboards everywhere... if you changed the language, you could be in any major metropolitain area... the differences comes when i see where people live, the density of bodies in a street, the number of motor-scooters and bicycles...

After checking into our hotel, we eat supper at a great little restaurant. We eat family style with all the food in the center on a lazy susan. the food is very good and most on the trip who look bleary-eyed before supper, look better after they have eaten...

It was a bit stuffy in our room, so b and i asked about air conditioning because there was a thermostat on the wall which read "cool." House keeping called and told me they do not provide "cold wind." They only give us "hot wind" because it gets cold at night...

Slept like a baby...

Getting off the Ground

The trip began in a bit of a frezy. The cab company didn't pick me up at 4:30. Thus, i left home at 5:00 and arrived at the airport to be told i am too late to check my bag at the counter. After briefly considering tossing away all that was "unsafe" to process thru security (e.g., my leatherman and all large liquid bottles), i decided to shoot for a 7:00 AM flight on stand-by.

I called kathy (at about 5:45 which i am sure she loved), and told her to pray for me as i left terminal C and took a shuttle to terminal D. Much to my surprise, i was not on standby when i arrived, but had been ticketed and was actually in the exit row with extra leg space!!! Better to be lucky than smart?

The 7:00 AM flight left ontime and actually arrived early in Chicago. I deplaned easily and casually strolled up to find the others waiting for our plane to Shanghai. Perfect timing. I was very pleased on one was "freaking out" that i was late.