The Good, more Good, the Sad and the Weird

Good news concerning the fellow I wrote about last week. His tests came back better than ever. The ticking has stopped.

Not long ago I said goodbye to a man who is leaving for boot camp. His life had become stagnant and there seemed to be little future in his current situation. He always had a dream of being in the military but when I first met him, he was too old. It was a huge regret of his life that he had missed the opportunity. Then President Bush raised the age of eligibility and suddenly it was possible for him to realize this dream. He's taking a huge pay cut to enlist. The very real possibility of going to Iraq doesn't dissuade him one bit. Heaven knows, it's not my idea of a dream, but dang it, it's neat to root someone else on as they fulfil theirs.

Doing some dream work, a patient remembered a long forgotten incident of viewing the body of a classmate lying on the pavement who had been killed in a freak playground accident at their grade school. He'd repressed that terrifying sight and now many years later in the safety of his analyst's office, he finally cried .

A couple with marriage difficulties consulted me. After a few months of work, they tell me they are doing just great. Everything is fine. Everything is wonderful. Then I am told one of them has decided to have bariatric surgery against the objections of the other. I am strongly against this...too many risks, not enough long term experience to assure me that further down the line this technique of surgical starvation won't result in malnutrition and other major health difficulties. And then there's the psychological fallout. In my work a cardinal rule is not to remove a symptom until you know why it's there. If there is difficulty at the feeding level, it's at the foundation of the personality. Not wise to go tinkering with the foundation unless the proper support structures are in position. Anyway I always err on the side of caution. Bariatric surgery appears to be a magical solution but it's fraught with risk. It is also a big money maker for the bariatric institutes. I bounced it off training analyst who said " Did you ask the patient why they wanted to die?". Thanatos, up close and personal.