Freud, Jung, & Us
Each day, if you take the time to peel back the layers of behavior and revelation and dreams, is a carnival of psychodrama playing out a concentrated performance of teenage angst in a pressure cooker stage called school. There are few social institutions that wind up such a complex network of daily conversation and human interaction with the main purpose of mental activity. Most institutions focus human energy and attention en masse. A football game, for example, is a concentrated event of tens of thousands of people, but all arranged to view and respond to a single game and a single clock. Corporations have a product focus and a complete language with which to think about work and interaction.
Schools are a chaos of social activity, conversation, hundreds of purposeful lessons, and thousands of unintended lessons. Social activity ebbs and flows througout the day, and predictability is often difficult to come by. Human events, needs, behavior, conflict, attraction, role modeling, abuse, hurt, pride--everything is there, every day. Rob comes to the door of the next classroom, looking a bit medicated and dour. He looks for an opening to vent, to reach out, perhaps just to talk.
Two teachers are listening as Rob relates that his friend, a bit older and out of school, was killed in a robbery attempt, or so they think, this week. The friend was coming home early in the a.m. from a late shift at work and was attacked by three men. Shot five times while fleeing from them.
There is little question that this is now a highly sensitive and therapeutic situation. The conversation that follows, the concern shown or rejection perceived, the words, demeanor, questions, all have the potential for deep emotional impact. For healing, or for hurting. For friendship or alienation. For better or worse.
From all that buzz of activity within and around that building today, this in-between-bells discourse is most likely the most heavy with seriousness. I certainly am not, nor are most of us, qualified to delve deeply into feelings and the impact this is having on Rob. But you, I, we are there. No escape. We can't provide analysis or psychotherapy, but we are healers and hurters, all of us. There is no right path, no way to really help that is clear cut. There are many wrong paths, and many ways to lose the opportunity to help. The burden is great. It isn't an expected part of the teaching job; it certainly isn't in any teaching job description. There is no question that it certainly has its impact on me as well. I would have to be numb for it not to. To not think about the repurcussions and the humanity of the situation.
What comes to mind is "he ain't heavy; he's my brother" and "lean on me." I hope that is sufficient to be helpful and not hurtful. Perhaps Freud just all boils down to this. I hope Freud just all boils down to this.
Schools are a chaos of social activity, conversation, hundreds of purposeful lessons, and thousands of unintended lessons. Social activity ebbs and flows througout the day, and predictability is often difficult to come by. Human events, needs, behavior, conflict, attraction, role modeling, abuse, hurt, pride--everything is there, every day. Rob comes to the door of the next classroom, looking a bit medicated and dour. He looks for an opening to vent, to reach out, perhaps just to talk.
Two teachers are listening as Rob relates that his friend, a bit older and out of school, was killed in a robbery attempt, or so they think, this week. The friend was coming home early in the a.m. from a late shift at work and was attacked by three men. Shot five times while fleeing from them.
There is little question that this is now a highly sensitive and therapeutic situation. The conversation that follows, the concern shown or rejection perceived, the words, demeanor, questions, all have the potential for deep emotional impact. For healing, or for hurting. For friendship or alienation. For better or worse.
From all that buzz of activity within and around that building today, this in-between-bells discourse is most likely the most heavy with seriousness. I certainly am not, nor are most of us, qualified to delve deeply into feelings and the impact this is having on Rob. But you, I, we are there. No escape. We can't provide analysis or psychotherapy, but we are healers and hurters, all of us. There is no right path, no way to really help that is clear cut. There are many wrong paths, and many ways to lose the opportunity to help. The burden is great. It isn't an expected part of the teaching job; it certainly isn't in any teaching job description. There is no question that it certainly has its impact on me as well. I would have to be numb for it not to. To not think about the repurcussions and the humanity of the situation.
What comes to mind is "he ain't heavy; he's my brother" and "lean on me." I hope that is sufficient to be helpful and not hurtful. Perhaps Freud just all boils down to this. I hope Freud just all boils down to this.
What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
--Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
posted by curtis @ 8:56 PM
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