Notes

I write notes.  I write them all the time.  The only time I write in a session is at the first session.  After that I don't want to be distracted, because when I'm writing I'm paying attention to what my patient said and not what he or she is saying.  After the first session I write a note about what happened, and what should happen next.

I also take notes about me.  I write myself notes.  I record things I want to write about, think about, or things that I need go do.  Sometimes I actually read the notes I've written to myself.

Today I found a notebook full of stuff I had written in 2009.  It was almost the same as the stuff I wrote and thought about yesterday.  That is sometimes true of the case notes I write.  The issues of the people I see remain the same.  We struggle to overcome something, and often we find a solution, but the person, the basic parts of the person, the mind-set, the attitude, is usually the same.

Age changes us.  I can feel that.  Experience changes us; hopefully we learn. Situations change us, as we have to react different to different stimuli.

But the "mind" that we have created, which is really the story we carry around in parts of our brain that we bring up to tell us who we are, that remains the same.  If you get your nose broken, or you get married, it's still you.

At least that's what we like to believe.