THAT DAY

Watch a movie--a Despicable Me sequel. Gru's neighbors and adopted kids try to find him dates; he avoids them and goes spying at the mall instead. Spying, he's comfortable with. A pointy-nosed girl starts working with him. She's got a plain face, he's deeply ugly... interesting just how hardwired I am! I find their caricatured faces ugly, so it's impossible they could ever develop any chemistry. Apparently even highly stylized cartoon characters have to share my exact tastes! Sheesh.

Then I reread Alison Bechdel's intense graphic memoir Are You My Mother? This time I'm struck by Donald Winnicott's idea of "compromise formation", when two sides of you want conflicting things and those pressures clash, generating an outcome neither really wants--unacceptable urge + repression = anxiety or pointless compulsion or illness. I've sure experienced this. But it doesn't prove my health problems are psychosomatic! Still, the less energy locked in such chronic combats the better for my general health.

So I ask my dreams "Please show me any compromise formations that are causing me trouble... and how to deal with them."

THAT NIGHT

It's about 1920. With Gru's partner, plainfaced but Barbie-bodied, I visit the rambling house of a guy we heard has developed a cure for neglected & abused kids. He only works with boys at present--he says he doesn't understand girls. This IS 1920, and he's a big gruff working-class guy who looks like a scaled-up Popeye--sailor tattoos on gorilla arms.

His method is simple. He regresses them back to the point where they were deprived, have unfinished developmental business. Treats them like toddlers, babies if need be. Meets the simplest needs until they're satisfied. Then each kid un-regresses gradually to his current age--but healthier.

Seems unfair to restrict it to boys like this. Or to even to kids. This should work on adults! Faster than psychoanalysis, that's for sure--he's getting serious behavior change in just weeks. Weeks of incompetence--indeed, in some cases, incontinence--but letting them break down lets them metamorphose into something new--and then zoom ahead.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• 1920ish therapist working with kids:
  1. Alison Bechdel, in Are You My Mother?, says Donald Winnicott started out then.
  2. Gru of the Despicable Me films--a butch guy raising girls. Doesn't get nurturing or femme, sees it like some alien tech to master. In a way, that helps.
  3. Read an article on helping poor kids get nonacademic lessons of school--showing up, longterm goals, confidence, persistence and cooperation.
• ACTION: Reread ARE YOU MY MOTHER? And don't analyze Freud-style. Act out, regress, baby myself! Because I knew I was messed up, I saved so I wouldn't have to work steadily. Unlike many adults, I can fall apart for weeks when a problem surfaces.

  Has one?

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites