I'd want you to know my personal history and how it brought me to my purposeβon the planet, on this website, and possibly for awhile, in your life. My formal credentials and training are no longer particularly aligned with my current thinking on how one develops a Relational Selfβand that thinking is pretty well covered on the home page.
I grew up in a chaotic, appearance-oriented household where I worried so early about my relational deficits, that by 3rd grade, I refused to play the card game Old Maid. I had turned this into an artform by the time I won a major citation in print, the Robert F. I had been an American Civ major in college where my own issues around disempowerment had me taking any available Southern history course.
I was fascinated learning that many of the first slave owners in Virginia were the younger brothers deprived of land in England because of primogeniture. I remember the professor emphasizing their obvious lust for land of their own.
I was stunned that others didn't seem stirred by this awareness. This tendency of mine to be far more interested in psychodynamics than the tragic and often twisted external goings-on that typically fill a newspaper, had my editors exasperated and me wondering how long I could keep doing work that was supposedly significant but to me often seemed to be missing the point.
Meanwhile, in my personal life, a volatile relationship with a much older film critic--unequivocal MeToo material--catapulted me into my own intensive psychotherapy. When the abuse of power dawned on me, and I was on the warpath towards confronting and reporting the man I had allowed to mesmerize me, my therapist Roger had a different idea. I want you to tell 3 people who you see as having defined musical tastes that you just love elevator music. Not one of them gave me high marks for transparency or were even particularly kind, but the sky didn't fall either.
