Still wondering

Looking back on almost thirty years of trying to facilitate changes in the lives of people who are suffering with psychological, emotional and behavioral problems I am still impressed with how complex we humans are.  There are so many factors that influence how we think and what we do, most of which we are unaware of.

There are the major things such as who your parents are, what is your families ability to provide stability, how healthy you are, and where you live, that determine so much of how you view the world and how you act.  But those can be broken down, and broken down to the details, and which details matter, and when they matter still seem so variable.

Why is my patient, Max, so anxious while his brother is so uncaring?  Same house, same parents, same community, most of the same genes.  But two very different people.  It's true in every family.

Of the five therapists in my office, four of us are Pisces.  In fact, the four of us have birthdays within three days of each other?  Does that really mean anything?

Some of the patients I see, who come to me after years of being anxious and depressed, work with me for six months and skip happily out of the office.  Other take five years and still stare blankly at me during our sessions.  Others leave after three or four meetings and I never hear from them again.

What's the difference?  Me?

Obama wants to begin spending millions of dollars to study the brain, to see what goes on, what makes it function, or function better?  Fascinating.

He compares it to how successful the Human Genome Project was.  Which it was.  But what do we rally know that is useful from the HGP?  We do know somethings, and we seem to be on the verge of learning others.  But, mostly what we have learned is that it is all much more complex than we imagined.

Despite the crazy pressures that may be crushing the way that I practice, these are the things that I still want to find out.  It will be interesting.  I may even be able to be helpful.

I will probably have to spend more time out of my office finding ways to search and research.  But that's OK now.