Psychotherapy Warning: To benefit psychotherapeutically from this chapter, read it in its entirety. However, the recommendation applies to the entire book. But if you are currently experiencing acute mental pain, you will feel better by the end of this chapter. Just read in a row and

MIDNIGHT REFLECTIONS OF A FAMILY THERAPIST

BBK 53.57
B 54

Whitaker K.
Midnight Reflections of a Family Therapist
/Trans. from English M.I. Zavalova. - M.: Independent company "Class", 1998. - 208 p. - (Library of psychology and psychotherapy).

ISBN 0-393-70084-4 (USA)
ISBN 5- 86375-090-1 (RF)
A.A. Kulakov, cover

IN THE MIDNIGHT Flicker of Secret Meanings

Philosopher (passionately): Well, what's the difference between psychotherapy and prostitution? Psychotherapist (poisonously): Their price falls over the years, but ours rises.
This book is worth reading for anyone who has connected or is planning to connect their life with one of the “helping” professions - not necessarily with family therapy. Of course, it is also for those who are “simply interested” in psychotherapy and psychology. And, of course, for everyone who is puzzled (frightened, fascinated, disappointed, etc.) by the family as a phenomenon or problem. Each of these possible reading circles is wider than the previous one, and each reader will find himself in his own labyrinth of meanings, in his own “magnetic field” emitted by the book.
This time, not a word about the eccentricity, lifetime and posthumous fame and shocking metaphors of Karl Whitaker. The reader will find a detailed analysis of his practical work in the “Dancing with the Family” we published.
The genre of this book is different, and the title fully reflects it. “Midnight musings” is, of course, not quite “midnight musings,” and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. In the circle of additional meanings of what we were forced - correctly, but incompletely - to call “reflections”, and “poetic thoughtfulness”, and “absent-minded muttering”, and “the desire to find out, to know”, and “chimeras, ravings, empty dreams” . Next to the seemingly neutral and academic “reflections” are the muses, and next to it is an inarticulate, or even simply insane, muttering under one’s breath of who knows what. Whitaker the therapist skillfully mastered the latter as a working technique, which he talks about in the book.
In essence, all of it “shimmers” with meanings just like the name. The author does not explain his paradoxes, easily confuses literal and metaphorical meanings, and in general seems to have abdicated responsibility for what will be understood and by whom: what they are ready for, they will understand.
And here lies hidden one of the very important thoughts for him, which is carried out in different ways in many sections: family (read - reality) is stronger than psychotherapy, experience is more important than training, and that’s how it should be. Explain impossible and not necessary, but possible tell.
It turns out that different readers - depending on their interests, theoretical orientation, preparation and simply mentality - will read the same words, but different books - because the “messages” to them are different. (To some extent this applies to any text, it’s just that Whitaker uses this mechanism intentionally.)
In general, he does a lot of things for a reason - for example, he “reveals his cards” and becomes clear and almost methodical at the very end of the book, having first played properly with the professional reader. Don’t believe the mask of an eccentric grandpa, who was remembered from insomnia! Look for double bottoms, triple meanings and unexpected irony in the most inappropriate places. He will still guide you, but you will get much more pleasure.
However, this complex book also contains very simple thoughts (for example, that psychotherapy is just such a job: not a way of life, not a “calling” and, perhaps, not even a diagnosis). Like any work, you can do it for many years (in the case of the author, all your life): change, make your own small discoveries, arouse the interest of colleagues and be rejected or forgotten, respect (and even sometimes love) those who think differently. Master the “techniques” but never rely on them. Be surprised by new turns of your own destiny. Don't "burn out". Separate work and just life and remember what is more important. To live each age, raise children, teach God knows how many students - and not only not lose interest in the sixth ordinary family at the reception in a day, but even, perhaps, the other way around. “And to be alive, alive and only - until the end...”

Ekaterina Mikhailova

Dedicated to Muriel and our six children - To Nancy, Elaine, Bruce, Anita, Line and Holly. To our entire warm and close team.

PREFACE

This is how it happens for me. The reflections incorporate forty years of experience, years during which I learned to help suffering people change, years of teaching this to others - an endless number of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. Night reflections have amused me for the last ten years - since I retired. I hope something inspires you too.
This book is not about what a psychotherapist should do, or even, I think, about what I did as a psychotherapist. Most likely, it's about how I learned to do this - according to my own ideas. The fact is that I am so suspicious of myself that I don’t trust my own thoughts. Maybe all these thoughts are just a myth of my life path.
I don't think you should swallow this book whole. It’s better to treat it like the proposed snacks: try it, but don’t eat what you don’t like.
The “Preface” was written at four o’clock in the morning on the eve of an important anniversary for me: exactly fifty years ago on this day I sat in the hospital at my father’s bed and was present at his last breath. How did this life happen to me? How to make more happen more? Let more and more happen to you.
Through my experience in family therapy, I have the ability to instantly become a patient. This is a two-way altered state of consciousness - the freedom to become more of yourself with the help of another. Muriel - whole, preternaturally sensitive, with a resonance of the whole personality and the ability to be intimate - was the model for my role. Together we produced six tomboys in fifteen years. They still add flavor to our entire lives.
Everything written in this book contains the echoes of the voices of Tom Melon, John Warkentin, Dick Fielder, Milton Miller, David Keith and countless students, colleagues and family members who have robbed me of peace or become infinitely close to me for a day, for a week, for a year. They create an echo. Only the words belong to me.
Margaret Ryan took a mountain of writing, put it in order, edited it, and the text you are reading came out. She helped me not to get lost in my thoughts, not to repeat myself, and at the same time did not distort anything I wanted to say. You are lucky that she was the one who did this work. And behind us both rises the ghost of Susan Burrows.

1. PERSONAL GROWTH AND SEARCH FOR A PROFESSIONAL ROLE: WHITAKER STYLE

Pictures from autobiography

The year nineteen thirty-six was a good time for doctors. The economic depression ended, the war began, and doctors were needed everywhere. But going to medical school in Syracuse prepared me as ill-prepared for internships and externships in New York City's Hell's Kitchen as living on a farm in upstate New York did for studying in Syracuse. I now realize that moving my family from the farm to the city when I was in high school was a very bold move by my parents. My father, who graduated from agricultural college, could wire the farm and replace kerosene lamps with electricity. But moving to a big city for me so that I could get a higher education - today it seems to me a transition to a qualitatively new level. And perhaps my thirst for adventure was born from this leap into the unknown, and my father’s courage, in turn, was associated with the move his father from the sawmill at Whitaker Falls to a large dairy farm near St. Lawrence. I often wonder what would have happened if I had prepared myself for the life of a farmer rather than studying electrical engineering (already in high school, during the summer and on Saturdays, I worked part-time to install electricity in old houses lit by gas).
Everything in our lives fell apart in 1932. The business failed, and the father returned to the farm. And I entered medical school, not knowing how to pay for tuition, suffering all these six years from endless colds. Interestingly, these colds disappeared immediately after I finished my studies.
Growing up on an isolated farm near Raymondville, New York, did not prepare me for city life. There were no children on the farm for me to play with - just the burden of endless work and the deep religious pressure from my mother, who believed that you could get to Heaven only by doing good deeds. A hundred cows, half a dozen horses, a dozen pigs, a hundred chickens and fifty sheep demanded our attention. Work from four in the morning to ten in the evening. And constantly before our eyes - death and birth. It was natural to kill chickens for dinner on Sunday mornings, slaughter pigs for the winter, and grow our own food. Death accompanied my entire childhood, and work alcoholism was not a character trait, but an urgent necessity of the world in which we lived. (This harsh childhood experience turned out to be a good “school of toughness,” which came in handy later when working in the New York ghetto hospital). The mother alone managed the former mansion, which had a dozen bedrooms, and the father worked on 500 acres of land with the help of only one hired worker. Everyone worked like an ox. There were times of fun, but rarely, as exceptions from our lives. Mother and father existed in different worlds: she ran the household inside the home, and he dealt with the outside world. They were so busy all day that it's easy to understand why I didn't see any quarrels - there was simply no time for them! But I didn’t see any particular tenderness, although sometimes my mother pestered my father, and at the same time he blushed like a twelve-year-old.
Our family had a strong system of control, but for the most part we got by without talking. Sunday meant church, not play. Religious rituals were part of every meal. And a constant flow of people from the family orbit. The daughter of one of my mother’s close friends lived with us for several years after her mother’s death. An orphan from Brooklyn came to live with us every summer. A woman with asthma, whom I never learned to call by name, lived with us for about a year, I don’t know why. A neighbor whose husband died of cancer stayed with us for about six months, recovering from the loss. We had a kind of shelter for the surrounding residents. Now I think of it as a kind of psychotherapy, but then it was something in the order of things.

Non-professional psychotherapists of my childhood

Perhaps my first lay therapist was a puppy when I was two or three years old. He became the embodiment of my security, the mediator between my mother's breast, her personality and myself. Soon my little brother appeared, then the older neighbor boy, whom I followed on the way to school. Then there was a negative transference to a group of classmates from which I felt excluded. These “agents of change” are quickly followed by others: my fantasy of God as a foster parent, my father’s father, an old man who happily taught me how to play checkers, and my father’s mother, who needed me for small errands and paid I thank you for this with tenderness and warmth. And, as happens with almost every person, my negative transference onto my mother was realized, and I had to use my father to get out of the hypnosis she induced - this is a simple example of non-professional help for change.
In a strange way, the farm itself turned out to be a psychotherapist: the soil of Mother Nature is always nourishing, soothing, safe. From the farm, my transference (emotional investment) moved to the neighbor's adopted son, then became a negative transference to the gym teacher, who mocked my physical awkwardness.
Looking back on the past, I also find the seeds of teenage schizophrenia: moments when I hunt alone with a dog, harpoon fish alone, make ditches in a field with explosions, bury myself in a haystack, drive a tractor all day without seeing a single person. All these childhood experiences were filled with loneliness, they prepared me for the even greater loneliness of life in the city. I spent four years of high school mostly isolated in my own world. Sometimes I found a friend, but our relationship was usually fragmented. I lived in some kind of silent emptiness, similar to catatonia. I remember one day I was walking down the street from school and saw a classmate walking towards me. When we met, I tried to at least smile, but I didn’t dare say hello.
As I continued my studies in college, I made a conscious decision to break away from this painful loneliness. And such a decision also stands in a series of leaps to a qualitatively new level - such as our move to the city, for example. As an undergrad, I chose one guy who was outstanding for his intellect and another who was the most socially respected, and formed a union that lasted until I graduated from college (until I became a medical student). It was as if I had created a team of co-therapists to break out of my loneliness. I lived with my family through high school and college, but the day I went to medical school in Syracuse, they moved back to the farm. I found myself alone, left to my own devices. I washed dishes to pay for housing and food, and had no idea how to pay for school. And, as I saw through the haze of anxiety, I began to study medicine among complete strangers.

After medical school: turning point

In those days, there was no clear distinction between an internship and an internship. After graduating from the institute, we continued our studies for two or three years, and at the same time we had to work in a variety of places. One of the nastiest places was the hotel on Sixth Avenue. It looked like an ordinary brothel: luxurious furnishings, male employees in fashionable uniforms, women in lingerie wandering from room to room. Mary called me about her stomach pain - she had some kind of infection. To my surprise, she exclaimed, “Hello, Karl,” as soon as I put my hat on the table, fearing that fleas might jump there.
It turned out that I examined her in the hospital six weeks ago, where she was treated for acute gonorrhea for three days. She asked me to talk to her husband as well. This was new to me at the time - perhaps my very first psychiatric interview. They were worried about their sexual relationships, and I, who had only just graduated a year ago and had just started training in obstetrics and gynecology, was not mature or conscientious enough, so I had to sit and open-mouthed, listening to them talk about sex. This stuck in my memory even now, because the next morning I read on the front page of the newspaper the terrible news that her husband had been killed in a gangster fight.
When we took Mary to the hospital and agreed with the driver to return for the owner of the establishment, who was dying of cirrhosis of the liver, it seemed to me that I would never leave obstetrics and gynecology. Having performed three hundred major operations and spent about a year working with “green girls” (as teenage girls infected with sexually transmitted diseases were called), I considered myself a good surgeon. I was preparing to spend the rest of my life in a small town, delivering babies, perhaps also working as a general practitioner, although I was well aware of the difficulties of this specialty. Before the discovery of antibiotics, treatment for female gonorrhea sometimes required several months of hospital stay. The Green Girls were housed in a large room on the top floor of the East River Hospital. My task was to extinguish their excessive excitement, which contributes to the exacerbation of the disease. The series of operations and post-operative treatment resembled a farm: hard work from morning until late evening. On the other hand, I, a country boy from a godly family, have come to the point where I deal with Broadway girls who want to be operated on only by us because we make a special incision below the pubic hairline, thanks to which, when they return to the stage, they can not fear that they will be ridiculed when they see post-operative stitches. James Ritchie, my boss, would show up at seven in the morning, wearing pajamas and a robe. He was our idol. He could write “Genealogy of Gynecology” all night and watch our operations during the day. I remember the shock I experienced on the first day.
He said, “Stand on the other side. You will not assist me, you will perform the operation yourself.”
I answered: “I can’t, I’m afraid, and I don’t know how.”
“Everything is fine,” he reassured. “I’ll stand on this bench behind you and watch over your shoulder.” I will take care of your every move." He was a great teacher who taught me a lot about understanding people. In fact, he may be one of my first therapists!
Another major experience was associated with an unsuccessful elective operation. One of the 50 women we saw in the clinic three times a week suffered from untreatable chronic pain. For five or six years now, every menstrual period turned into hell for her. The whole clinic knew her, and nothing could help her. The boss eventually decided to remove her uterus to stop the pain.
It was my job - a routine operation. I never met her husband or children, only her body and her pain. The operation was completed successfully after half an hour or so. The intern was stitching; The anesthesiologist, as usual, removed the ether bag from the machine to bathe the patient's lungs with oxygen. Suddenly the car exploded! Nightmare! The patient bled from her mouth and died four hours later. No one knew why or where the electric spark came from, but the woman was dead. And I suspect that her death took away my desire to continue specializing in this field of medicine after completing my internship.
Then I decided to study in a psychiatric hospital for one year and never returned to obstetrics and gynecology.

Beginning a psychiatric career

As I learned more about psychosis and intense inner experiences, I quickly lost interest in the mechanical craft called surgery. One patient, muttering to himself, explained to me that the voices were telling him terrible things and telling him to sleep with his mother. “This is very painful,” I said, but he did not agree: “They have been saying this for many years, I stopped paying attention.” One nurse threatened to give a strong kick to a patient, and he looked so sad and depressed that I thought she was mocking the poor fellow. Two weeks later I learned that the patient did not want to leave the ward because that nurse was the only person he loved.
Such events made me think about people and, of course, about myself. One psychotic who claimed he wanted to kill me suddenly turned into a three-year-old child as soon as I authoritatively ordered him to return to the ward. I was more amazed than he was. I once met an eighty-year-old man who was brought to us because he had seduced an eight-year-old girl. I was morally indignant, but when I saw the girl, I realized that she looked like an experienced actress, straight from Hollywood. It broke my fantasies about life and people. The girl learned to behave like a young seductress, although she was just a child. Life on a farm did not prepare me for such complex weaves.
And my memories of the ghetto in Manhattan, what I had already forgotten, suddenly come to life in bright colors. A wild call - the agony and delight of schizophrenia and the whole world of madness bursting inside me - demanded a transition to another level. The question began to occupy me, Why these people became psychotic, and then I decided to go into child psychiatry - to prevent psychosis. I also started studying in the psychology department at Syracuse University. Unfortunately, training in the mechanical triage of people based on psychiatric diagnosis - this one into the hospital, that one out of the hospital - provided little opportunity to learn about crazy people. But at least I was not saturated with these half-dead ideas.
I was supposed to do a child psychiatry internship in Louisville, Kentucky. Before that, we lived in Kenandaigwa (near Rochester), where a private humanistic psychiatric hospital was located in a beautiful English mansion. My wife and I lived there with ten patients for seven months in a house where the doors were not locked; we all played bridge together and ate together. And at the same time I discovered a noble kindness unknown to me before. The care and warmth of the old shelter touched me deeply. It was kept by an elderly couple, warm and sensitive people. One manic patient, who used to do research at a local chemical plant and went crazy when he was appointed head of a huge department, was a living encyclopedia on every subject imaginable. The elderly woman, who had been sitting upstairs in a chair upholstered in blue corduroy for the past fifteen years, delighted us when she joined in the chatter. And a man who was deeply depressed, unable to get out of bed and unable to speak a word, turned out to be an excellent ping-pong player. True, when the game of ping-pong was over, he returned to his bed.
Louisville and the world of child psychiatry proved to be entirely new territory and, of course, another liminal experience. The magic of schizophrenia - this world of Alice in Wonderland, when you spend hour after hour, sometimes all night, with a patient who is enchanted by his hallucinations and delusions and enchants you - was superimposed by the world of play therapy, when I spent month after month on the floor among little children, watching them talk about their family through toys. The discovery of Melanie Klein and her theory of childhood sexuality was reminiscent in depth and power of the discovery of the world of a psychotic.
The child psychiatry training group in Louisville felt like a new family. When Muriel and I arrived here in 1940, on the eve of the birth of our first child, we were introduced to the culture of the American South. An endless series of parties and whiskey taught us to leave the world of words and regress to real life. The start of my internship in child psychiatry and the birth of my first child coincided happily: I probably needed both to dare to become more human. This also added the opportunity to teach medical students and make one discovery: how quickly they lose their humanity as soon as they begin to study medicine. I still remember my vow that, with God's help, I would never associate with medical students. Four years later I broke this vow and became a teacher for ten years, then again made a vow to myself for the next ten years, and then it all happened again!
In 1940, the main modern therapeutic approach in child psychiatry was warm listening. I was lucky that among the staff there was an elderly social worker whom Otto Rank analyzed. Therefore, I immediately became acquainted with psychotherapy in a process-oriented edition, since Rank was the first person to understand and draw the attention of others to the significance of oneself process therapy, and not just its content. I became more and more interested in the question of what makes the change.
Here is an eight-year-old boy who completely stopped speaking after suffering from whooping cough at the age of two. For six months, I saw him once a week while the social worker talked to his mother on the floor above. The boy didn't say a word to me, but we played football with him in the yard, and he listened to me talk about him. I finally gave up and decided there was nothing I could do to help. The boy and his mother were upset. I was wondering whether to quit psychotherapy, and suddenly three weeks later I received news by phone that the boy had started talking!
Another boy, ten years old, also taught me an important lesson. When he first appeared, angry and reluctant, he stood in the doorway, staring into space. I said, “I am a doctor who treats feelings. Since you were brought to me, there is probably something wrong with your feelings.” The boy was silent. My origins in the silent world of New England helped me: I sat down and spent the rest of the hour in thought. Then he told him that time was up, and he left. The next time I said hello, we just sat, or he stood and I sat. This went on for ten weeks. After the second week I stopped saying hello and just opened the door to let him in or out.
And then the teacher called from school:
- Are you treating Joe Zilha?
“Yes,” I answered.
- I'm calling to tell you how he has changed for the better. Joe no longer sets the curtains on fire, or hits other kids, or studies, or sticks his tongue out at me. How did you achieve this?
I didn't answer her. This remained a professional secret, since I myself did not know how I did it.
Here, in the clinic, I first began to think about how this happens. I spent the second half of the year carefully studying my notes on the work of the first six months; I wrote what I would do next time, what I should have done and what I should not have done. And I realized that thinking about psychotherapy is almost as exciting as doing therapy. After studying child psychiatry we began working at a nearby school for young offenders in Ormesby Village. Here, 25 social workers worked with 2,600 children, referring some of them to me. I was also able to see private patients. One of my first patients was the four-year-old daughter of a young doctor. Having no idea about her family, I studied with the girl for one hour, saying hello to her mother at the beginning of the hour and saying goodbye to her at the end, without communicating with the father, and, in fact, with the mother either. I did not even try to collect a history of the problem, since this was the task of a social worker. Later, the girl’s father called me and said that my treatment had helped. His daughter has changed, his wife has changed, and he himself feels better. I, of course, decided that I had discovered the secret of psychotherapy. Since then, I've opened a dozen more of them, but every time I opened them, they disappeared into thin air.

Carl Whitaker

Midnight Reflections of a Family Therapist

Midnight Musings Of A Family Therapist

IN THE MIDNIGHT Flicker of Secret Meanings

Philosopher (passionately): Well, what's the difference between psychotherapy and prostitution?

Psychotherapist (poisonously): Their price falls over the years, but ours rises.

This book is worth reading for anyone who has connected or is planning to connect their life with one of the “helping” professions - not necessarily with family therapy. Of course, it is also for those who are “simply interested” in psychotherapy and psychology. And, of course, for everyone who is puzzled (frightened, fascinated, disappointed, etc.) by the family as a phenomenon or problem. Each of these possible reading circles is wider than the previous one, and each reader will find himself in his own labyrinth of meanings, in his own “magnetic field” emitted by the book.

This time, not a word about the eccentricity, lifetime and posthumous fame and shocking metaphors of Karl Whitaker. The reader will find a detailed analysis of his practical work in the “Dancing with the Family” we published.

The genre of this book is different, and the title fully reflects it. “Midnight musings” is, of course, not quite “midnight musings,” and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. In the circle of additional meanings of what we were forced - correctly, but incompletely - to call “reflections”, and “poetic thoughtfulness”, and “absent-minded muttering”, and “the desire to find out, to know”, and “chimeras, ravings, empty dreams” . Next to the seemingly neutral and academic “reflections” are the muses, and next to it is an inarticulate, or even simply insane, muttering under one’s breath of God knows what. Whitaker the therapist skillfully mastered the latter as a working technique, which he talks about in the book.

In essence, all of it “shimmers” with meanings just like the name. The author does not explain his paradoxes, easily confuses literal and metaphorical meanings, and in general seems to have abdicated responsibility for what will be understood and by whom: what they are ready for, they will understand.

And here lies hidden one of the very important thoughts for him, which is carried out in different ways in many sections: family (read - reality) is stronger than psychotherapy, experience is more important than training, and that’s how it should be. Explain impossible and not necessary, but possible tell.

It turns out that different readers - depending on their interests, theoretical orientation, preparation and simply mentality - will read the same words, but different books - because the “messages” to them are different. (To some extent this applies to any text, it’s just that Whitaker uses this mechanism intentionally.)

In general, he does a lot of things for a reason - for example, he “reveals his cards” and becomes clear and almost methodical at the very end of the book, having first played properly with the professional reader. Don’t believe the mask of an eccentric grandpa, who was remembered from insomnia! Look for double bottoms, triple meanings and unexpected irony in the most inappropriate places. He will still guide you, but you will get much more pleasure.

However, this complex book also contains very simple thoughts (for example, that psychotherapy is just such a job: not a way of life, not a “calling” and, perhaps, not even a diagnosis). Like any work, you can do it for many years (in the case of the author, all your life): change, make your own small discoveries, arouse the interest of colleagues and be rejected or forgotten, respect (and even sometimes love) those who think differently. Master the “techniques” but never rely on them. Be surprised by new turns of your own destiny. Don't "burn out". Separate work and just life and remember what is more important. To live each age, raise children, teach God knows how many students - and not only not lose interest in the sixth ordinary family at the reception in a day, but even, perhaps, the other way around. “And to be alive, alive and only - until the end...”

Ekaterina Mikhailova

Dedicated to Muriel and our six children - To Nancy, Elaine, Bruce, Anita, Line and Holly. To our entire warm and close team.

PREFACE

It's four o'clock in the morning and I'm awake, thinking. A whole image enters my trance state, like a dream, absorbing both words and visions. An image that has represented people who feel bad with extraordinary clarity for the past fifty years of my existence in the psychological world. And I take notes quickly. Then, in the light of day, my thoughts grow and develop.

This is how it happens for me. The reflections incorporate forty years of experience, years during which I learned to help suffering people change, years of teaching this to others - an endless number of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. Night reflections have amused me for the last ten years - since I retired. I hope something inspires you too.

This book is not about what a psychotherapist should do, or even, I think, about what I did as a psychotherapist. Most likely, it's about how I learned to do this - according to my own ideas. The fact is that I am so suspicious of myself that I don’t trust my own thoughts. Maybe all these thoughts are just a myth of my life path.

I don't think you should swallow this book whole. It’s better to treat it like the proposed snacks: try it, but don’t eat what you don’t like.

The “Preface” was written at four o’clock in the morning on the eve of an important anniversary for me: exactly fifty years ago on this day I sat in the hospital at my father’s bed and was present at his last breath. How did this life happen to me? How to make more happen more? Let more and more happen to you.

Through my experience in family therapy, I have the ability to instantly become a patient. This is a two-way altered state of consciousness - the freedom to become more of yourself with the help of another. Muriel - whole, preternaturally sensitive, with a resonance of the whole personality and the ability to be intimate - was the model for my role. Together we produced six tomboys in fifteen years. They still add flavor to our entire lives.

Everything written in this book contains the echoes of the voices of Tom Melon, John Warkentin, Dick Fielder, Milton Miller, David Keith and countless students, colleagues and family members who have robbed me of peace or become infinitely close to me for a day, for a week, for a year. They create an echo. Only the words belong to me.

Margaret Ryan took a mountain of writing, put it in order, edited it, and the text you are reading came out. She helped me not to get lost in my thoughts, not to repeat myself, and at the same time did not distort anything I wanted to say. You are lucky that she was the one who did this work. And behind us both rises the ghost of Susan Burrows.

1. PERSONAL GROWTH AND SEARCH FOR A PROFESSIONAL ROLE: WHITAKER STYLE

Pictures from autobiography

The year nineteen thirty-six was a good time for doctors. The economic depression ended, the war began, and doctors were needed everywhere. But going to medical school in Syracuse prepared me as ill-prepared for internships and externships in New York City's Hell's Kitchen as living on a farm in upstate New York did for studying in Syracuse. I now realize that moving my family from the farm to the city when I was in high school was a very bold move by my parents. My father, who graduated from agricultural college, could wire the farm and replace kerosene lamps with electricity. But moving to a big city for me so that I could get a higher education - today it seems to me a transition to a qualitatively new level. And perhaps my thirst for adventure was born from this leap into the unknown, and my father’s courage, in turn, was associated with the move his father from the sawmill at Whitaker Falls to a large dairy farm near St. Lawrence. I often wonder what would have happened if I had prepared myself for the life of a farmer rather than studying electrical engineering (already in high school, during the summer and on Saturdays, I worked part-time to install electricity in old houses lit by gas).

Everything in our lives fell apart in 1932. The business failed, and the father returned to the farm. And I entered medical school, not knowing how to pay for tuition, suffering all these six years from endless colds. Interestingly, these colds disappeared immediately after I finished my studies.

I. Zavalova
Announcement
Carl Whitaker will remain in the history of family therapy as one of its most “avant-garde” classics: brilliant and controversial, sometimes shockingly harsh, prone to mysterious aphorisms that have been interpreted and borrowed for many years. In this book, the reader will find specific working techniques, vivid cases from practice, and, most importantly, ideas that help to gain a deeper understanding not only of their clients, but also of their own professional and family history.

The book is addressed to everyone who is involved in family issues in their work: consultants, school and clinical psychologists and, of course, psychotherapists.
IN THE MIDNIGHT Flicker of Secret Meanings
Philosopher (passionately): Well, what's the difference between psychotherapy and prostitution?

Psychotherapist (poisonously): Their price falls over the years, but ours grows.

This book is worth reading for anyone who has connected or is planning to connect their life with one of the “helping” professions - not necessarily with family therapy. Of course, it is also for those who are “simply interested” in psychotherapy and psychology. And, of course, for everyone who is puzzled (frightened, fascinated, disappointed, etc.) by the family as a phenomenon or problem. Each of these possible reading circles is wider than the previous one, and each reader will find himself in his own labyrinth of meanings, in his own “magnetic field” emitted by the book.

This time, not a word about the eccentricity, lifetime and posthumous fame and shocking metaphors of Karl Whitaker. The reader will find a detailed analysis of his practical work in the “Dancing with the Family” we published.

The genre of this book is different, and the title fully reflects it. “Midnight musings” is, of course, not quite “midnight musings,” and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. In the circle of additional meanings of what we were forced - correctly, but incompletely - to call "reflections", and "poetic thoughtfulness", and "absent-minded muttering", and "the desire to find out, to know", and "chimeras, ravings, empty dreams" . Next to the seemingly neutral and academic “reflections” are the muses, and next to it is the inarticulate, or even simply insane, muttering under one’s breath of God knows what. Whitaker the therapist skillfully mastered the latter as a working technique, which he talks about in the book.

In essence, all of it “shimmers” with meanings just like the name. The author does not explain his paradoxes, easily confuses literal and metaphorical meanings, and in general seems to have abdicated responsibility for what will be understood and by whom: what they are ready for, they will understand.

And here lies hidden one of the very important thoughts for him, which is carried out in different ways in many sections: family (read - reality) is stronger than psychotherapy, experience is more important than training, and that’s how it should be. It is impossible and unnecessary to explain, but you can tell it.

It turns out that different readers - depending on their interests, theoretical orientation, preparation and simply mentality - will read the same words, but different books - because the “messages” to them are different. (To some extent this applies to any text, it’s just that Whitaker uses this mechanism intentionally.)

In general, he does a lot of things for a reason - for example, he “reveals his cards” and becomes clear and almost methodical at the very end of the book, having first played properly with the professional reader. Don’t believe the mask of an eccentric grandpa who has come to his senses from insomnia! Look for double bottoms, triple meanings and unexpected irony in the most inappropriate places. He will still guide you, but you will get much more pleasure.

However, this complex book also contains very simple thoughts (for example, that psychotherapy is just such a job: not a way of life, not a “calling” and, perhaps, not even a diagnosis). Like any work, you can do it for many years (in the case of the author, all your life): change, make your own small discoveries, arouse the interest of colleagues and be rejected or forgotten, respect (and even sometimes love) those who think differently. Master the "techniques" but never rely on them. Be surprised by new turns of your own destiny. Don't "burn out". Separate work and just life and remember what is more important. To live each age, raise children, teach God knows how many students - and not only not lose interest in the sixth ordinary family at the reception in a day, but even, perhaps, the other way around. "And to be alive, alive and only - until the end..."

Ekaterina Mikhailova

Dedicated to Muriel and our six children -

To Nancy, Elaine, Bruce, Anita, Line and Holly. To all of our such a warm and close team.

PREFACE
It's four o'clock in the morning and I'm awake, thinking. A whole image enters my trance state, like a dream, absorbing both words and visions. An image that has represented people who feel bad with extraordinary clarity for the past fifty years of my existence in the psychological world. And I take notes quickly. Then, in the light of day, my thoughts grow and develop.

This is how it happens for me. The reflections incorporate forty years of experience, years during which I learned to help suffering people change, years of teaching this to others - an endless number of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. Night reflections have amused me for the last ten years - since I retired. I hope something inspires you too.

This book is not about what a psychotherapist should do, or even, I think, about what I did as a psychotherapist. Most likely, it is about how I learned to do this - according to my own ideas. The fact is that I am so suspicious of myself that I don’t trust my own thoughts. Maybe all these thoughts are just a myth of my life path.

I don't think you should swallow this book whole. It’s better to treat it like the proposed snacks: try it, but don’t eat what you don’t like.

The “Preface” was written at four o’clock in the morning on the eve of an important anniversary for me: exactly fifty years ago on this day I sat in the hospital at my father’s bed and was present at his last breath. How did this life happen to me? How can we make even more happen? Let more and more happen to you.

Through my experience in family therapy, I have the ability to instantly become a patient. This is a two-way altered state of consciousness - the freedom to become more of yourself with the help of another. Muriel - whole, preternaturally sensitive, with a resonance of the whole personality and the ability to be intimate - was the model for my role. Together we produced six tomboys in fifteen years. They still add flavor to our entire lives.

Everything written in this book contains the echoes of the voices of Tom Melon, John Warkentin, Dick Fielder, Milton Miller, David Keith and countless students, colleagues and family members who have robbed me of peace or become infinitely close to me for a day, for a week, for a year. They create an echo. Only the words belong to me.

Margaret Ryan took a mountain of writing, put it in order, edited it, and the text you are reading came out. She helped me not to get lost in my thoughts, not to repeat myself, and at the same time did not distort anything I wanted to say. You are lucky that she was the one who did this work. And behind us both rises the ghost of Susan Burrows.
1. PERSONAL GROWTH AND SEARCH FOR A PROFESSIONAL ROLE: WHITAKER STYLE

Pictures from autobiography
The year nineteen thirty-six was a good time for doctors. The economic depression ended, the war began, and doctors were needed everywhere. But going to medical school in Syracuse prepared me as ill-prepared for internships and externships in New York City's Hell's Kitchen as living on a farm in upstate New York did for studying in Syracuse. I now realize that my parents' move from the farm to the city when I was in high school was a very bold move. My father, who graduated from agricultural college, could wire the farm and replace kerosene lamps with electricity. But moving to a big city for me so that I could get a higher education - today it seems to me a transition to a qualitatively new level. And perhaps my sense of adventure came from that leap into the unknown, and my father's courage in turn came from his father's move from the sawmill at Whitaker Falls to a large dairy farm near St. Lawrence. I often wonder what would have happened if I had prepared myself for the life of a farmer rather than studying electrical engineering (already in high school, during the summer and on Saturdays, I worked part-time to install electricity in old houses lit by gas).

Everything in our lives fell apart in 1932. The business failed, and the father returned to the farm. And I entered medical school, not knowing how to pay for tuition, suffering all these six years from endless colds. Interestingly, these colds disappeared immediately after I finished my studies.

Growing up on a remote farm near Raymondville, New York, did not prepare me for city life. There were no children on the farm for me to play with - just the burden of endless work and the deep religious pressure from my mother, who believed that you could get to Heaven only by doing good deeds. A hundred cows, half a dozen horses, a dozen pigs, a hundred chickens and fifty sheep demanded our attention. Work from four in the morning to ten in the evening. And constantly before our eyes - death and birth. It was natural to kill chickens for dinner on Sunday mornings, slaughter pigs for the winter, and grow our own food. Death accompanied my entire childhood, and work alcoholism was not a character trait, but an urgent necessity of the world in which we lived. (This harsh childhood experience turned out to be a good “school of toughness,” which came in handy later when working in the New York ghetto hospital). The mother alone managed the former mansion, which had a dozen bedrooms, and the father worked on 500 acres of land with the help of only one hired worker. Everyone worked like an ox. There were times of fun, but rarely, as exceptions from our lives. Mother and father existed in different worlds: she ran the household inside the home, and he dealt with the outside world. They were so busy all day that it's easy to understand why I didn't see any quarrels - there was simply no time for them! But I didn’t see any particular tenderness, although sometimes my mother pestered my father, and at the same time he blushed like a twelve-year-old.