In anticipation of Dr. Marty Klein's plenary

106 Pages·2015·7.05 MB·English

Founded in 1964 by John Warkentin, PhD, MD and Thomas Leland, MD
Voices: Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists
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Edward Tick, PhD, Editor Emeritus Murray Scher, PhD
Vin Rosenthal, PhD, Editor Emeritus Edward W. L. Smith, PhD
Associates: Lyn Sommer, PhD
Hallie S. Lovett, PhD, Contributing Editor Avrum Weiss, PhD
Bob Rosenblatt, PhD, Intervision Editor Sharilyn Wiskup, LPC
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Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists
V O I C E S
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
Where Therapists Dare to Tread Summer 2015: Volume 51, Number 2
Voices The American Academy of Psychotherapists ii
Table of Contents iii
Editorial 1
Where Therapists Dare to Tread Kristin Staroba & Doris Jackson 1
Articles 3
Trash Talk Steve Shere 3
Groups Can Go Where Therapists Cannot Tread Doris Jackson 7
Sex in America: An Interview with Marty Klein Ofer Zur 16
The Pause Before the Jump Jonathan Farber 29
My Clients Have Bodies! Scott Janssen 39
Commentary Natan HarPaz 45
Don’t Go It Alone Matthew Burgess Leary 47
Bearing Witness Lisa Zimmerman 53
Is Money as Taboo as Sex? Mary Gresham 57
Commentary Bob Rosenblatt 61
Reviews 63
Play and Art in Child Psychotherapy Sally Atkins 63
The Body Keeps the Score Stephanie L. Ezust 65
I & C Scholars and Volunteers 71
Austin 2014 71
Balloon Michael Southers 72
Four Days of Group Anonymous 75
My Experience as an AAP Scholar in Austin Molly Milgrom 77
The Painful Practice of Finding My Voice Jen Tem 79
Sigil of a Storm Austin Haedicke 80
AAP Reflection Fiona Gallagher 81
AAP Reflection Andy Drinkard 82
From the Archives 83
Grief Groups: Rekindling Hope Ken Moses 83
Intervision 90
Double Dare: Sexuality and Adoration Bob Rosenblatt 90
The Case Anonymous 91
Response 1 Debbara J. Dingman 93
Response 2 Kelly G. Erickson 94
Response 3 Avrum Weiss 95
Poetry 27
Still Fall Ruth Wittersgreen 27
Bell Buoy Tom Large 38
Hands Tom Large 46
Not All Who Wander Are Lost Blake Edwards 52
Images 5
Steve Shere Jack Shere 5
Swimmer Mary de Wit 38
Icon Mary de Wit 56
Balloon Mary de Wit 70
Calls for Papers 96
Awe in Psychotherapy Deadline January 15, 2016 96
What’s Love Got To Do With It? Deadline April 15, 2016 97
Voices 98
Subscribe to Voices 98
Guidelines for Contributors 99
The American Academy of Psychotherapists 100
On the Cover: Witness Stand
GC Myers
2013. Acrylic.
GC Myers is a contemporary painter from the Finger Lakes
region of New York. He came to painting in mid-life and
quite by accident, as a result of an accident that occurred
while building his home in the early 1990’s. Since that
time, his recognizable landscapes, known for their strong
colors and moods, are avidly collected here and abroad.
©2015 by the American Academy of Psychotherapists, Inc.
Published three times per year.
Cover Design: Mary de Wit
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iv VOICES ▼ Summer 2015
Kristin Staroba
Editorial
Kristin Staroba, MSW, r ecent-
Where Therapists Dare to Tread ly moved her practice to downtown
Washington, DC, after almost 20
years in the ’burbs. She works with
T
he stories in this issue remind us how adults in group, couples, and indi-
the profession of psychotherapy, when vidual therapy. An AAP member
since 2002, this is her third year as
practiced well, requires us to venture
co-editor of Voices.
into frightening territory. O ur work involves Photo by Blue Keleher 2015
bringing some of the most difficult terrain of the human [email protected]
psyche into the interpersonal realm of a therapy rela-
Doris Jackson
tionship. It’s what we do. Why we do it might be partly
addressed in Steve Shere’s powerful memoir of recurrent
childhood terrors. Was bravado enough to bring him
through?
Sex and death are two topics not for the faint-hearted,
with money not far behind. Lisa Zimmerman tells a ther-
apist coming of age story about what she learned when
brought face to face with a client’s approaching death.
Mary Gresham writes about her adventures in the emerg-
ing field of financial therapy, offering thought- provoking
reasons why we might conclude that “money is as taboo
as sex.”
Meanwhile, two authors remind us that the topic of
sex still carries plenty of its own taboo. Matthew Leary Doris Jackson, PhD, w as co-
writes about coping with being the object of a patient’s editor of Voices from 2009 to 2012
and is pleased to be serving as
intense erotic transference, while Bob Rosenblatt pres-
guest co-editor for this issue. She
ents an Intervision case that looks at the other side of the joined AAP over 30 years ago and
coin, describing the dilemma of a therapist distracted by currently co-chairs the AAP Schol-
arship Committee. She maintains a
erotic fantasies about his patient. In an interview with
private practice in Cambridge, MA,
Ofer Zur, Marty Klein works to slay the taboo so many offering individual, group and cou-
experience about sex. ples treatment.
[email protected]
Scott Janssen enters often-avoided territory to discuss
our clients’ bodies, and his own. Guest co-editor Doris
Jackson reminds us that sometimes group can be a more
Editorial: Where Therapists Dare to Tread
productive vehicle for change than individual psychotherapy. And from the archives we
reprise Ken Moses’s journey with grief groups.
In a group of essays titled “Austin 2014,” we bring you experiences of some AAP
scholarship recipients who dared to tread into the AAP Institute & Conference in
Austin, Texas. Their stories remind us of the bravery required to engage in authentic
interpersonal encounters — and of the exhilaration that can come from doing so. In
a related set of reminiscences, some of the volunteer workers for that conference, who
formed their own band of brothers and sisters, report their experiences from the front
lines of the Hospitality Suite.
Jonathan Farber entertains us recounting three scary moments in his private prac-
tice, when he had to rush in “where angels fear to tread.” We can all relate; see if you can
guess how the stories end.
Relevant book reviews, poetry, and art round out our adventure where therapists
dare to tread. ▼
2 VOICES ▼ Summer 2015
Steve Shere
Trash Talk:
Steve Shere, PhD, h as been a
About Nazis, Anti-Semites, Washington, DC, psychotherapist,
and the Grim Reaper organizational consultant, and
Academy member for many years.
This writing explores formative
My job in the family at six years old was experiences and his complicated
“job history.”
to take the trash out after dinner. M y
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memories are of an hour after daylight savings
dark, after dishes had all been done. It was time to go to
the dreaded incinerator, a few buildings away. My spirits
sank. I left our apartment building heading out into cold
night air, a trash bag gripped tightly to my thin young
chest. With every step my heart beat harder. I could hard-
ly keep any breath; my panic was barely controlled. I tried
to look casual, reveal no fear, show only nonchalance. No
reason to hurry, no reason to look around. Stare straight
ahead.
When I reached the incinerator building, I entered
the stinking garbage area, pulled the chute door open,
and threw the trash in. The door clanged shut and then
I made my move. I ran as fast as I could, knowing that
drooling monsters, Nazis who devoured Jewish children
jammed into box cars, and mounted Cossacks flashing
sabers had jumped out, hot-breathed, right behind me.
Terrified, I could not look back. I stayed just ahead of
their lunges, their grabs at the back of my shirt, out-
running certain blood, mayhem and death. At last I
desperately swung at the door of our building, flung it
open, and raced up the steps until the unlocked door to
our apartment sheltered and saved me. Leaping inside, I
locked it, sweating and exhausted.
No one ever noticed my wide-eyed, panting entrance.
I never uttered a word or cried about what lurked in the
horrible dark out there. I learned to appear unafraid.
Trash Talk 3
Lonely, silent pride. Everyone had a job. I had mine. Still do.
Later my family moved to a new home. I could not have anticipated the anti-Semitic
bullies in my new community. The first week there I started a ferocious fight with a
skinny hoodlum who laughed about Jews in ovens, where he said my family belonged.
I decided it was better for me to seek him out than for him to come find me. I only
remember throwing wild punches and rolling in bloody dirt on the ground. When the
fight was finished I was barely able to keep from stomping him dead. “Now who is the
Nazi, who is the Jew?”
As I added additional inches and pounds, I found I was not afraid of being hit
in a fight. They could hurt me, but now I knew I could hurt them. I came to prefer
heart-pounding rage to heart-pounding fear. My last such encounter was a few years
later at school. A gym lock, clenched with unmistakable intention, quickly evened up
unfavorable odds. My return home after this encounter was witnessed by my worried
mother. She saw a young, tear-filled avenger with bruised fists and torn clothing. My fear
and rage slowly joined with a terrible sadness. The lie of my composure and nonchalance
was finally shattered.
As the years passed, I had recurrent Nazi nightmares. The last one ended at age 30
with my slashing Nazi after Nazi with an ice pick, piling up their bloody corpses, and
then escaping out the window of a prison camp. These days my life is not so populated
by imagined Cossacks or nightmare Nazis, not even by real anti-Semites. Being afraid,
angry and sad no longer seem so terrible to me. However I have never been able to visit
the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, nor to see a movie such as Sophie’s Choice.
So much for “resolution.”
* * *
Today, in psychotherapy or supervision, I sit with people who are living out their
familiar narratives as well. Some feel lonely, invisible and disconnected. If I can tolerate
knowing more about my own isolation, I can be a container for their felt truths. We
can then meet in a relationship that mirrors and challenges their painful assumptions.
Sometimes I can more simply reframe a deeply held fear; rather than suffering an “ele-
vator phobia,” the perceptive patient may be reacting to the notion of entering a metal
box suspended over a chasm, dangling by a wire — suffering, in effect, from a failure of
denial. Such a reframe can allow the patient to have a perspective of greater ownership
and control.
Labels for particular sexual preferences or addictions can also soften enough in a
therapeutic relationship to allow real conversations about complicated human appetites.
While I appreciate the efficacy of 12-step programs, there are times when “addicts” are
best served by my not sending them away to this kind of treatment, even if that would
make me more comfortable.
I spend time with parents whose children have punctured their wish for omnipo-
tence by not living up to parental expectations, or by frightening their parents with
psychic symptoms or medical illnesses. I may become as impatient with these parents as
they are with their children; hopefully these moments mark the beginning of empathy
in each of us.
4 VOICES ▼ Summer 2015