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...
