Category Archives: Uncategorized

December 13, 2014 · 8:56 pm

The Conversation, part two

Sophia quickens her step, chasing after Lefty, who did what his name suggests–he left–just as things were heating up with Harmon.

“Hey,” she calls out in a curt, half-friendly voice, like there was just one quick thing to discuss. Lefty slows but doesn’t turn, like he’s been caught by an officious school mistress. Maybe she doesn’t want much. Maybe she just wants to understand the few jibes he’d directed at her; the oblique remarks about her name, that of Harmon–his curious take on things. “I’m the community analyst,” he’d said in parting. Sophia catches up with him, is slightly breathless as she takes a pause, thinks about her name and wants to change it.

“I wanna know what’s up with you,” she asks.

“Oh, right. Acknowledgement”

“What?

“Nothing. Just something that was said.” Sophia blinks, taking in the data. It doesn’t compute. “Look, can’t you just be straight. We’re trying to have a serious conversation.”

“So am I,” Lefty replies with aplomb.

Sophia recoils. “It seems more like it’s a game to you–a game of hide and seek. I mean, do you even have an opinion about what happened. Do you think an injustice occurred, is happening, like all the time?”

“I don’t know,” Lefty shrugs. Sophia’s eyes narrow: a blur of contempt and hurt.

“How can you not know? Do you honesty think that if that kid had looked like you or me, the same thing would have happened? Don’t you see the inequality that’s all around you, or do you just not care because to look at it would mean you’d have to give up your privilege?”

Symbolically, unconsciously, Lefty looks askance, past Sophia’s shoulder, her hot, burning eyes. He sighs.

“Actually, I do think those inequities exist, and I do think them unjust. I just don’t know if the incident yesterday was an example of that.”

“Are you kidding?”

Lefty straightens, gulps. “No I’m not. That incident needs to be looked at on an individual basis, not as something representing a trend. Those people, all of them, deserve a fair hearing, not to be treated as scapegoats.”

Sophia protrudes her face into his. “Really?” she retorts, portending sarcasm. “You think all of them are scapegoats, as in equally?”

“Maybe,” Lefty musters.

“You need to wake up, friend, and by the way, I’m not sure you are a friend. You need to get off the fence, open your eyes. I can’t believe this. It’s so frustrating to know people who just refuse to see things. I could tell you about countless stories of people getting abused, persecuted. I bet that none of that has ever happened to you. I mean, I’m not saying this never happens to us, but…whatever.” She stops, takes a breath just as her volume reaches some predetermined threshold. She looks away, heaves a deep breath.

Disgust.

Lefty searches for her gaze, his own breath trapped. He has nothing left to say, and neither does she, but her job is done. Satisfied, she sees it in him, finally–what she’ll settle for. Lefty is uncomfortable.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

December 6, 2014 · 8:05 pm

The Conversation

Harmon, a man concerned with togetherness, saw it in Sophia: the fear. He saw it in her name: so much fear. But that was beside the point. The point was to speak openly, to matters that were front and center, not these fanciful tidbits, undercurrents.

“We need to have a conversation about justice,” Sophia brightly declared.

Harmon was hesitant. “Well, yes, of course. Though I think it’s really about social cooperation, plus economics, philanthropy, about having the conversation that brings different sides to the table.”

Sophia scratched her head and furrowed her brow. Consternation–twitchy, nervous consternation.

“Why do you do that with your hands?” This was Lefty, on the periphery of friendship, niggling at Harmon. Lefty was so-named because he came at things sideways, liked to observe that which happens in silence, detached from intellect.

“It enhances my point,” replied Harmon curtly. His hands, aloft and frozen, had been rotating vertically, moving the air.

“I…I don’t really know what you mean. I mean, sure–it’s about cooperation, and economics–but I think certain things need to be acknowledged. I think some things speak for themselves, and it’s not about whether people give things. It’s about how things are divided, about poverty and inequality.”

“Yes, all these contexts are important, but I think you have to be careful on these subjects. You can’t just come at people bluntly–the way you want to. It makes people defensive.” Harmon, on precise cue, delivered a sweet smile. Sophia, diffident yet brave, soldiered on, shaking her head.

“I don’t know…I just think we need to be honest, not have some kind of dance–this ‘cooperation’ as you call it. It’s important. People are getting hurt, being traumatized. People are dying.”

Harmon stretched out his arm and held his palm upwards. “Sure. But see, it’s not a zero sum game, social justice versus cooperation. It can be both if you take an even-handed approach.”

“What does that one mean?” asked Lefty, eyeing hands studiously. Harmon cut him a sideways look; ignored him and continued. “Words like justice are…” he paused “…inflammatory. You have to build slowly, assert an agenda but one that seems inclusive, doesn’t alienate with tendentious language.”

Sophia’s reply was brittle. “I think this is disingenuous. If we bring people to the table, have this conversation, it needs to start with some understandings. We need to say to one side, ‘look, you’re in the one-up position. The onus is upon you to acknowledge that, at least–”

“They’ll know you want more than acknowledgement. That word is disingenuous also.” This wasn’t like Harmon to interrupt. His face and tone hardened. Lefty noticed, smiled.

“Well, sure. That’s right: I–we–would want more than acknowledgement. That’s just where it would start: agreeing that things aren’t equal.”

“They won’t necessarily agree with you.”

“They should.”

Harmon winced, and his hands came together, though only at the fingertips. They barely touched.

“And that one?” Lefty asked.

“Look, shut up,” spat Harmon. Lefty burst into laughter while Harmon turned on him bitterly. “If you don’t have anything meaningful to say, then why are you here?” An awkward silence followed: Harmon sat back, embarrassed. His reasonable front had been broken. Sophia leaned forward and sulked.

“You’re missing it,” said Lefty finally. He’d become serious all of a sudden. “The conversation won’t happen talking about justice, or cooperation in the way you’re talking about it. The problem is with the people–all of them. They don’t really listen to each other. They don’t know how.”

Harmon shook his head. Sophia’s face clouded over. She turned to Harmon: “Whatever. We need to continue this conversation.”

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

November 25, 2014 · 9:27 am

More on that law

So the dialogue continues on the new law AB1775, the surreptitious addendum (from the POV of therapists and others who will actually have to follow it) to the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act, which decrees that “certain persons” who fail to report to police or a department of social services those who “access, stream, or download through electronic or digital media (material) which depicts a child engaged in obscene sexual conduct” are committing a misdemeanor. Obscene sexual conduct is defined in California Penal Codes 311.2, 311.3, 311.4, and 288.2, among others, and refers to various sexual acts, including the broadly termed “lewd and lascivious acts”, which is in turn defined as that which touches intimate parts of the body (sexual organs, buttocks, breasts of a female) and is “intended to arouse, gratify the lust of another”.

Most of those chiming in on my association list-serve are commenting on the absurdities of this law, pointing out (rightly) that this law will disrupt therapeutic episodes, ruin the lives of people unnecessarily, while doing little to prevent the proliferation of child pornography–the supposed purpose of the bill. The most ardent of critics argue that advocates of the bill lack compassion for those who struggle with porn addiction. Their opponents respond, without apology, that critics are supporting the wrong people (versus victims of child sexual abuse) while delivering motivational harangues about the scope and seriousness of the child porn problem. We are informed of cults, divisions of government–the CIA–who are perpetrating ritual sexual abuse of thousands of children; recruiting children for an army of sex…anyway, something like that. Advocates of AB1775 employ the logic of demagogues: in the 50s they would have justified blacklisting suspected communists by pointing out how many people Joseph Stalin was killing.

I think the issue is not so much one of compassion as common sense. Despite three months of asking, advocates of the bill are yet to give a sensible answer as to how the reporting and subsequent persecution of individuals viewing obscene material will stop those who produce the material. We are told isolated anecdotes of hard drives confiscated, images discovered, and through those images, the locations of victimized children are determined. Really? I wonder how many times this sort of intervention has occurred, and who gave the tip-off(s), which begs the question, why do authorities need therapists to provide the tips. And does it occur to anyone governing sex offender treatment that if someone is referred to said on the back of an episode in which a mental health professional tipped off police about child pornography use, why should such an individual thereafter trust the therapeutic process?

In deference to my esteemed colleague and crusader against ritual abuse, I declare that I’d actually be happy to report the CIA for sexual abuse to my local offices of Child and Family Services, though I don’t suppose the investigation would get very far. Meanwhile, I should get back to my office and prepare for some sessions with adolescents (wrong people) who present with more commonplace habits. You see, I need to explain to them the new law. I need to explain that the law specifies “child” as a minor, and so if they look at pornographic material depicting persons of their age group, I have to report them to authorities. However, if they look at a pornographic image of someone ten years older, then it’s all good. Also, I must warn that if they insist on sending pictures of their junk, breasts, zits on inner thighs and so on, then I might have to report that behavior also. Welcome to the new world order. I hope their generation is smarter. I doubt it.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 16, 2014 · 8:51 pm

Full Metal Self

Had a few ideas recently, after watching the film Whiplash; made a few links, reignited certain determinations, sighed and resigned to my fate on a few other matters. The film stirred hope and–dare I say, inspiration–on many levels: firstly, I learned that the film had been out for nearly a year already, though it was only recently making a splash in theaters. I am reminded that promoting a film, like promoting a book, takes time, hard work, and no little amount of salesmanship. This parallels the story of Whiplash somewhat. Miles Teller plays Andrew Neyman, a young would-be jazz prodige, a drummer in a prestigious music conservatory band. Scouted and then selected by the school’s jazz maestro, Terence Fletcher, he joins a band that is further elite, and is initiated into rehearsals in a manner that is at once predictably brutal, yet also fascinating and entirely gripping. Actually, more so than any thriller or action flick I can think of, this film had me gripping my seat for almost its entire length, such was the tension created between the quietly narcissistic hero and his near sociopathic mentor. In scene after scene, I watched with mounting angst as Fletcher alternately seduces and then terrorizes the naive yet ambitious Neyman. He flatters him, telling the class he’s found his Buddy Rich; then, minutes later, he is tossing cymbals at Neyman’s head, mocking him for not keeping tempo, threatening to “rape him like a pig” if he fucks up his band. For my part, as non-musician, I had no idea drummers were this important.  Meanwhile, the Fletcher character brought to mind a few teachers from my past, sort of morphed with that terrifying drill sergeant character from Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.

About two thirds into the story, we get Fletcher’s rationale for being the way he is: modern jazz, like modern society, is in a sorry state, he says. The words “Good job” constitute the most harmful phrase in the English language (I’m paraphrasing). He’s an advocate of tough love, obviously; of the belief that teachers must push people beyond expectations in order to get the best out of them. The ends, as in the preservation (or growth) of standards, justifies the brutal means. The film’s counterpoint is to indicate casualties: a former prodige whom Fletcher had allegedly driven to suicide; the girlfriend whom Neyman dumps so as to focus on his drumming. Neyman’s father, a loving but feckless man, voices opposing values, decrying Fletcher’s abuse, challenging his son’s obsession, imploring him to slow down lest he (literally) die on the drumstool. Ultimately, the story seems a celebration of going for it; of not compromising standards. It’s just that it doesn’t ignore the costs.

Again, the film brought up a lot for me. I wonder how much of Neyman and Fletcher’s drama is transferrable to the world I inhabit. If you’re a would-be client of mine reading this, don’t worry. I have no plans to emulate Fletcher or the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. However, I reflect on the opinions I expressed in Working Through Rehab, my book about adolescent drug treatment; sympathetic views about the dinosaur-like, similarly tough-love ethos of the much maligned Therapeutic Community Model. This week, I shall be teaching a short-term class on the Masterson Model at a community service agency in Marin, and espousing the value of, among other things, therapeutic confrontation, the importance of having boundaries, a therapeutic frame in which consistency, self focus–striving beyond expectations–are at least analogously observed. The dialectic I anticipate will mirror the drama of Whiplash, and maybe FMJ: principled agreement about driving people to their best, tempered with compassion for those who, for a variety of reasons, fall short.

As for myself, I go for it in my own way. Inspired by Andrew Neyman and the indelible image of his blood-stained drumkit, I might stay up late tonight, working on my latest manuscript: tightening the prose, adding pieces of subtext, changing a character or a plot point, correcting sundry mistakes in punctuation and spelling. I am well read with respect to my own books. I read them over and over again. It’s like combing the text, looking for tiny bugs. Sometimes I am satisfied; more often, I am not. Figuratively, I bleed. I have expectations.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 2, 2014 · 11:56 pm

The law that will lose us our clients (among other things)

In a recent editorial directed at leaders of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, LCSW Robert Weiss wrote eloquently in protest of AB1775, a new California law (effective in January, 2015) which reduces therapist-client confidentiality, purportedly because it will protect children from the downloading and dissemination of child pornography. It won’t.

Weiss reminds us that the protection of client confidentiality is among the most elemental facets of a productive and meaningful psychotherapy relationship–that without the safety and trust provided by client confidentiality there is no true clinical path to healing. This teaching follows ethical standards dating back to the Roman Hippocratic Oath. The legal exceptions to this principle center on the prevention of imminent direct harm to others.

Perhaps the most significant change in so-called “duty to warn” laws occurred in 1976, with Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, a case whose finding determined that mental health professionals have a duty to protect individuals who are being threatened with bodily harm by a patient. A less palatable revision of confidentiality law occurred in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, in the form of the Patriot Act: section 215 authorizes FBI agents to request a subpoena from a special court, obtain access to psychotherapy records, and further prohibits clinicians from revealing to clients that their clinical records have been subpoenaed. Today, for the moment, the hysteria that induces totalitarian intrusion surrounds pedophilia, hence AB1775. Not surprising, really. If you want to pass a law that is uninformed by research or logic, your best bet is to have it be about sex.

Ostensibly, AB1775 will broaden the scope whereby a clinician such as a therapist can report an individual to authorities if said individual has used child pornography. Under the existing Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act, therapists are mandated to report sexual exploitation: “depicting a child in, or knowingly developing, duplicating, printing or exchanging film, videotape, negative or slide in which a child is engaged in obscene sexual conduct”. Failure to report is a misdemeanor, and admittedly, some of the language of this legislation seems anachronistic. Now observe the language of AB1775: sexual exploitation includes “downloading, streaming, or accessing (accessing?), through any electronic or digital media, a film, photograph, videotape, video recording, negative or slide, or slide in which a child is engaged in an act of obscene sexual conduct.” This bill was signed by Governor Brown and filed on 8/22/2014.

Bear in mind that the law defines a child as someone under the age of 18, and given the language of the law (“accessing through any electronic or digital media”), therapists will now have to report to authorities teens who send naked pictures to each other over their cell phones, or someone exhibiting an “obscene” picture of a minor on Facebook. Also, porn use that depicts teenagers (not preteens) constitutes child porn, according to the law.

And if you think this might be a good thing, let me now elucidate other problems, including elements that pertain to this blog’s title: after an individual is reported and later arrested–their computer and other hardware materials confiscated–they would begin an adjudication process that would likely result in a referral to counseling, with a provider who is certified in sex offender-specific treatment, as presided over by a government entity called The California Sex Offender Management Board (or CASOMB). Such a referral is a requirement for those who will likely have to register as sex offenders. Therefore, if a therapist reports an individual for engaging in sexual exploitation, as defined by AB1775, and he or she is not a certified sex offender treatment provider, a court has the authority to remove the client from the therapist’s care, thus disrupting not only therapeutic continuity, but also that therapeutic bond. Now a certified CASOMB provider (BTW: this takes a while), I write from experience on this matter.

Finally, recall the term  ‘imminent harm’ from earlier “duty to warn” provisions. This language pertains to the concept of protecting from harm versus reporting past events. So, we now have a social reality wherein someone can report raping or murdering a stranger, and the therapist is not required to report the event because the event is past tense. Indeed, he or she would be  compelled to maintain confidentiality. Meanwhile, if someone reports viewing a singular image of a minor, of something that could be construed as obscene, the listening therapist is required to alert police. Absurd.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 14, 2014 · 9:23 pm

A Child Abuse Law That Won’t Work (Part Two)

A Child Abuse Law That Won't Work (Part Two).

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

October 13, 2014 · 7:28 am

A Child Abuse Law That Won’t Work (Part Two)

Which brings us to the matter of AB 1775, a new state law which will go into effect in January 2015, which will compel psychotherapists and other mandated reporters of child abuse, to report to police or social services individuals who view child pornography, which is defined as images depicting minors’ sexuality (therefore including teens sending nude pictures). Those who wrote this bill did so in consultation with law enforcement officials such as the Sheriff’s association, and child advocacy groups, not psychotherapists or other similar professionals who are trained to listen to disclosures of disturbing personal information and to facilitate interventions. Most therapists in California became familiar with the bill just three months ago, just one month prior to the bill’s signing by governor Brown, through the California Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT), which sanctioned the bill with little or no information provided to the membership, and with only short notice as to the bill’s significance.

A statement by the bill’s author: “AB 1775 will further ensure the protection of children from the proliferation of sexual exploitation through internet child pornography. The State Legislature has a duty to ensure it does everything within its power to make certain the most vulnerable of our society, our children, are protected.” Given the demagogic politics of this language, it’s going to be almost impossible to have this law amended, much less have it repealed. Proponents needn’t even substantiate the claim that children will be protected by this legislation, though one might think that some within the ranks might question how this will work. After all, has making drugs illegal protected kids from drug abuse? Are mass arrests of pot smokers and crackheads exposing a trail of clues leading authorities to drug cartels, thus protecting society from the deadly scourge of addiction? How’s that plan coming along? Meanwhile, how many more reports to social services agencies will be generated by this law? Is the funding and thus the staffing there to field all these new reports? How many of these reports will lead to fuller investigations, arrests and incarcerations? And if these aren’t necessarily the intended consequences, then how many therapeutic alliances (between clients and therapists) will be unnecessarily disrupted–a fragile trust destroyed–by a therapist’s informant duties?

A colleague within CAMFT, a man interested in solutions more so than argument, has proposed a compromise: a plan to keep the overall rule with respect to AB 1775 in place but to advocate for mental health professionals to be an exception to the mandatory disclosure. The bill currently includes a huge list of mandated reporters, including such non-qualified persons as coaches, probation officers, “head start” teachers–people not trained to address or treat mental health conditions. I can sympathize with the argument that if these people discover that someone is viewing child pornography then their best course of action may be to report the event to social services. However, one could make the argument that the best thing for offenders is to talk to a mental health professional in the hope of obtaining early intervention before someone is hurt more directly. **BTW: this argument does not imply that child subjects in pornography are not victims (as in “hurt”), merely that such damage is not inflicted directly by those viewing the images.

And if you want to have the conversation about such viewers enabling child pornographers/exploiters of children, thus deserving any punishment they might receive, then we must have consistent intellectual honesty and talk about how our entire consumer economy exists on the back of unfair labor practices across the world. If you’re not sure what I’m getting at then get out your precious new I-phone 6, contemplate its manufacturing and assembly of parts, imagine the wages earned by those responsible, and consider trading jobs with the adults and children that are performing that work.

Regarding amendments and AB 1775, it probably won’t matter what gets proposed. As CAMFT (committing, perhaps, its own version of political suicide) has implied through its action, involved discussion is moot and inexpedient. Fifty years ago, legislators wanted private exchanges revealed such that communists could be pulled from their closets. Ten years ago the Patriot Act extended its tentacles into the therapist’s office, mandating professionals to report those suspected of terrorist acts. There will always be a core of people in society who will fundamentally resist the confidentiality of institutions, religious or secular. As therapists, we know that the media, that the NSA, that parents, Apple and AT&T, all want in the room so they can hear, direct, and sell. They want in so they can do everything except really listen, actually.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

October 9, 2014 · 6:36 pm

A Child Abuse Law That Won’t Work (Part One)

A Child Abuse Law That Won't Work (Part One).

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

October 9, 2014 · 6:29 pm

A Child Abuse Law That Won’t Work (Part One)

By now many readers will be familiar with the controversy surrounding actor Stephen Collins, whose divorcing wife surreptitiously taped a couples therapy session in which Collins confesses to the past molestation of an 11 year old girl. While some (mostly professionals) are disturbed by the violation of confidentiality issue, most of the trolling comments in social media seem biased towards the end that justifies the means: the outing of a child sexual abuser.

The cacophony of wrongness is so loud that I wonder if there’s room for a thoughtful, informed breakdown of the issues. As a psychotherapist, I’ve come across many situations wherein child abuse (sexual and not) is suspected, and I’ve further worked with sex offenders who are mandated through the legal system to seek counseling. There are misconceptions about the treatment of these cases, one of which surrounds the reporting requirements of the mental health professional. For example, in the case of Collins’ alleged victim, many have wondered why the therapist in question didn’t report Collins’ confession to either the police or a social services agency, as would have been his or her prerogative. But not necessarily an obligation. It’s unclear from the story if the 11 year old in question is still a minor, and in such cases where the alleged victim is an adult at the point of disclosure, the therapist actually has discretion under the law. He or she must actually determine if an ongoing risk to a child is present, and then make a report.

What happens next? Well, in ordinary abuse cases, an investigation happens, possibly followed by arrest or a suspension of custody or contact rights for the alleged abuser: a disruptive, frightening, if sometimes necessary experience for everyone involved, especially children and parents. The matter of the therapist’s report is generally private–meaning, a matter between therapist and client. If the person who is reported is disgruntled with the therapist for making the report, he or she can fire that person or work through the conflict and continue the therapy. This is not the case with respect to child sexual abuse, or with respect to sex offenses that do not involve children. As many are aware, those who are convicted of sexual offenses are placed upon a public registry, and their designation as sexual offenders is lifelong. (BTW: the list of what constitutes a sexual offense is long and varied, and if you think teens sending ‘selfies’ are exempt, think again). If directed to counseling in California, an individual must find a therapist credentialed by a government body called the California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB), which provides guidelines for the treatment of sex offenders–guidelines that compromise bedrock principles of psychotherapy, especially those pertaining to confidentiality.

So, if a therapist reports a client for child sexual abuse and has not chosen to credential (no small task, actually) with CASOMB, their work with the person they’ve reported will soon be over. This is not the case with respect to all other mandated report situations–a truism not understood by many therapists. CASOMB compels treatment guidelines involving regular reports to CASOMB-partnered officials, following a premise echoed on social media: that pedophiles are not treatable. This is the kind glib drivel that has been asserted about several diagnostic or assessment categories in the past, including addictions, borderline personality, and schizophrenia–assertions that have since been debunked. What the reader should understand is that research into “what is effective” mental health treatment is often shallow, unconvincing, and contaminated by the interests of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, not to mention providers offering competing models of care. How do you know if a treatment approach for, say, ADHD, is demonstrably effective? Because a study by university X conducted 3-6 months after a treatment protocol is applied to sample of subjects indicates a significant “reduction” of problem behaviors, as defined by the study. Note the time frame and the word reduction. These criteria are central to research into conditions like depression, anxiety, ADHD, behaviors like substance abuse. Now consider child sexual abuse, so-called pedophilia: would you, the apparent consumer of mental health research, be satisfied with such short-term time frames of study? Would you satisfied to hear that a child abuser’s behavior has “reduced”.

My point is not to inflame the passions of those brandishing pitchforks and torches, ready of lynch sex offenders, or throw them in jail and throw away the key–yada, yada, yada. My point is to rebuke the casual invoking of research to sell an arbitrary standard of care. In part two of this article, I will further an argument for the importance of confidentiality in mental health treatment, and protest against those ignorant legislators and self-appointed advocates who are unknowingly working against their own cause.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

October 5, 2014 · 11:06 pm

Coup De Grace

**click title for image

Having some difficulty with the novel, The Situation. Some of you are reading it, for which I am grateful, but some of you are not getting it, about which I am…hmm…chagrinned, to put it politely. I know. I’m a whining, narcissistic author, starved of understanding. I should accept the partial appreciations I am receiving, the enjoyment some are having, taking what they like, as they say in 12-step programs, and–and the corollary is huge–leaving the rest.

To hell with that.

I wrote both CFTH and The Situation, for various reasons: 1.) to express myself creatively, 2.) to entertain, and 3.) to teach something important as an adjunct to my psychotherapy practice, which happens privately, behind closed doors, thus generating a need to venture outwards. There are in my novels several themes of note, and as my own process is sometimes unconscious, I can’t account for them all. Not that I don’t try, so here’s a rough list of succinctly-termed ideas present in the text and subtext: addiction, trauma, the tyranny of workplaces, of secrets within closed systems, like workplaces and families; about the ubiquity of dissociation, of impotence, and indifference; about the distance of friends, the lingering power of the absent, and the tense battles between lovers, for each self to fit in.

I guess that should be enough, but especially for The Situation–the follow-up and coup de grace–there needed to be something special (not to mention positive), something to make sense of, tie together the story as a whole. Empathy. That was the quality–the redemptive, sobriety-supporting (as one reader puts it) quality–that came to mind, as the point. And so, the novel delivers a climax with empathy as its thematic core, and everyone, author, characters and readers alike, should get the point and transport said point, somehow, back to our (or their) daily lives. And they seem to, those supportive few. But there are clues along the way–words unfortunately skipped, I suspect–that are getting missed; and it’s important. Why? Because you might notice something in relationships as in art: you shouldn’t miss the details.

Anyway, much misunderstanding centers around a contentious section of Situation, entitled “Nightmare”. Bryan “Weed” Tecco, my cardboard villain from CFTH, referenced only in his absence in that novel, is thereafter my protagonist, and he’s alive, contrary to the suppositions of my other characters, and in all likelihood, readers of CFTH. Emerging not-quite drowned from a lagoon in West Marin, he holes up at an old friend’s house in villagy Bolinas, then hitchhikes back to suburbia, only to be picked up and later drugged by a man, Dan Pritchard, with a sadistic streak and an apparent diaper fetish. Apart from recalling Chris Leavitt’s wayward new diaper invention from the first novel, the notion here is to have my character make a psychic return to helplessness: to a time when all needs are taken care of (and Dan Pritchard does take care); to a time when the body is uninhibited; to a time when the mind is bewildered, and possibly terrified. Weed is humiliated by Dan Pritchard, and though he appears to escape uninjured, there lingers the suggestion that Weed has been violated, while asleep no less.

Attentive readers, those who stuck with the various backstories of CFTH, may think this just desserts, this victimization. After all, according to Chris Leavitt, Weed introduced friends like Chris to not only a drug using lifestyle, but also a milieu in which prostitutes, sex, and consent for sex, moves freely (from one POV), or inchoately, dissociatively (from another). Regardless, I had plans for Bryan “Weed” Tecco–plans to make him an unlikely hero, back from the dead, but more importantly, back from infamy and indifference. In the chapters that follow “Nightmare”, Weed resolves not to talk about his ordeal with Dan Pritchard, but as many in my practice have discovered, not talking about something far from means that one is un-impacted. However, time is short in drama, and therefore serendipity: Weed meets Jill Evans, a shared “friend” of Chris Leavitt, and as she accompanies Weed on his road-trip search for his friend, she lets slip the clumsy near-rape Chris had attempted in CFTH. For the determined separatist, Weed, this presents an opportunity for his own suffering to quickly metabolize so that he might support another.

And later, as he finally connects with Jules Grotius, the creator of the subversive online game, ‘The Situation’–the self-styled guru of a new medium through which conscientious activism can be achieved–he listens, half-percolating the needs of his re-emerging self, half-reconciling current events with past traumas, while absorbing the heroic purpose he has unwittingly lived over the previous several days. Weed the drug dealer may live on. Weed the woman-distrusting bully may even persist with old habits. But Weed the game-fixated, insular enigma has been dealt a death blow.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,