Common Grace By Shauna Johannesen

What a truly brilliant play!
"I loved everything about it.” She said, “I loved the sets. I loved the women. I could take any of my girlfriends to that play and they’d love it too."
“I liked the upstairs  exit.” I said, “The timing and dialogue were incredible. I loved how Mark transformed as a character. He totally changed"
“Colleen did too.” my friend said. “But I loved the youngest daughter. I loved how they were always cleaning around the sink. It was like we right there in their home."
“I thought Dan was terrific.  Hard to think of it as a Christian play.  More a play about real life and love happening to people who just happen to be Christian.” I said.
“That’s what the playwright said in the interview.   She wanted it to be about faith but not about faith.”
We talked together about the play all the way home.  Three daughters and mother at the wake of their father. Two neighbours, a pastor friend and the untold secret shared.
Director Ron Reed, Actors Shauna Johansen playing Colleen, Sherri Norris as Carol, Rebecca be Boer as Abby, Cara Cunningham as Alana, Julie Lyn Mortensen as Miriam. Robert Gary Haacke as Mark.  Carl Kennedy as Pastor Dan.  What a cast!
Having briefly been the head of a university psychiatric family therapy department, I can honestly say that this play got it right.  I think everyone would relate but it really should be mandatory for all pastors, psychiatrists, family therapists, social workers and psychologists.
I also generally think a car chase or a terrorist attack would improve most shows that might get labelled chick lit but this is truly the exception.

Substance Abuse and Psychopathology - Athens Psychiatric Conference - Dec.2 2012

Substance Abuse and Psychopathology - a chicken and egg dilemna Organized by the Hellenic Section of Itaca Dec. 2, 2012 Chairs: I. Liappas (Greece) Z.. Daifti (Greece)

( I woke at 2 am last night, my older biological clocks arthritic arms refusing to digitally adjust. This morning I slept in, but would not forego the breakfast treats offered by Hotel Ilisia’s kitchen. Consequently having indulged myself I arrived late to this series of lectures I’d ear marked earlier in the program. Addiction Psychiatry is my subspeciality but this morning the fair in other lecture series included the definitive update on insomnia as well as post traumatic stress disorder. Sneaking in I didn’t even notice that while the slides were in English the speaker was speaking Greek. The chair came down and shared that the next presentation would be in English.)  

As it was I missed the Neurobiological Approach of Drug Abuse Psychopathology presented by Z. Daifti but did appreciate his later comments. I also missed Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of alcohol abuse by T. Paparrigopoulos but expect with my clinical experience there’s little that would surprise me, alcohol and drug abuse being called the ‘great chameleon’ of psychiatric diagnosis.

Alcohol related disorders and psychiatric co morbidities, an overview was the one I caught. The slides were excllent going into detail with the latest in topics like alcoholic dementia. Drug Abuse and psychopathology

The role of the family by Dr. Dr. Pomini presented a study done by their unit . Study comparing 41 families with heroin addicted male child, 17 families with schizophrenia and a matched sample of 27 non clinical families. Stressful life events in nuclear family - psyvhiatric and chronic physical illness were higher in two clinical samples as was divorce. Migration was actually higher in the control. When the amount of life events is more it’s much more difficult for family to cope without significant suffering. This presents also the possibility for prevention of development of these severe clinical illnesses by early identification and possibly early therapy for those at risk. In subsequent discussion Dr. Pomini said that while there are many stresses considered for families at this time she thought it most important to look at the major objective factors rather than be caught up in subjective concerns. In this regard they noted major losses for children such as divorce . This was noted to be a significant life event in their population.

Couples Therapy

I started my career as head of marriage and family therapy in a psychiatric hospital. My divorce at the time caused me to change career direction and focus on trauma and addiction. I have over the years still done group. marriage and family therapy having been formally trained in this therapies so early.
Beware of therapists who claim to be marriage or family therapy. The therapy for individuals and coupls and groups are distinctly different. Individual therapy can be harmful to relationships when applied outside the context it was developped for.
The fields of marriage, family and group therapy have their own research and disciplines.  Commonly people who are practicing only a 'little bit' of one and mostly doing some form of individual therapy are grossly out of date.
It is highly lucrative to do 'marriage therapy', cause divorce by incompetence, then see one of the couple essentially for individual therapy for the 2 years or more of grieving. I witnessed this as the 'norm' for 'counselling' in one community where I worked. A counsellor had consecutively treated some hundred or more couples with all of them divorcing.  She said to me, "Couples come to me and I help 'facilitate' their divorce'.  No one needs to help 'break' a marriage.  Broken marriages and families commonly need a mediator, notary or lawyer.