Some great movies!

There are two really lovely Korean films about childhood separation and attachment, both made by women: So Yong Kim's "Treeless Mountain" and Lee Jeong-Hyang's "The Way Home". I saw the latter on SABC a couple of week's ago. These make quite good alternatives to the famous Robertson documentaries which were made at the Tavistock Institute and were quite expensive to acquire when I last tried about 10 years ago. "The Way Home" also tackles how shocking the differences between urban and rural life could be for a child, spoilt by the consumerism of the city.


A film that manages to eschew the usual good/bad polarities in its main protagonist and at the same time gives a sobering picture of the plight of illegal immigrants in France is "Welcome" by Philippe Lioret.

Finally, a really fascinating documentary made by Chris Rock called "Good Hair" about the billion dollar hair industry servicing Afro-Americans in the USA.

The American Psychological Association's Complicity in Torture

During the Bystanders No More conference, we were privileged to hear a presentation by Steven Reisner. Together with colleagues, who formed the Coalition for an Ethical APA, he has tirelessly fought over the past 5 years to expose the complicity of psychologists and other health professionals in the torture of detainees in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and centres within the USA. He talked about the shift from bystander to witness and ultimately activist - roles with which some of us in South Africa are familiar in our own personal histories.

Complicity of South African Health Professionals during Apartheid
South Africa has a vicious history of torture and also experienced complicity of health professionals - both prison doctors and psychologists.

Becoming a Witness

Charles Strozier at the NY Academy of Medicine.

One of the plenary presentations at the Bystanders No More conference was by Charles B. Strozier. He had interviewed survivors and bystanders of 9/11. On the large screen behind the podium he projected images of what happened that day and in the days thereafter - images most people had only seen on their small TV screens. Some were familiar to me, others not - I didn't have a TV in those days. The photograph that stood out for me more than any other, was one taken outside the nearest hospital to the World Trade Centre. It showed a big clutch of green-coated doctors and nurses just waiting. They waited all day apparently - no-one came. There were almost no casualties of 9/11. Only the dead and the survivors. For the first time ever, this became a real event to me -

Why "Bystanders No More"?

An astonishing story lies behind the conference I attended in New York in May this year. Its a story about a largely hidden genocide of 100 years ago and the effect of its horrors on the silenced and unacknowledged survivors. A story of how this history was put centre stage by a second-generation survivor and what her colleagues then did about it. A story also of healing, generosity of spirit and reconciliation.

So, what happened?
The last International Self Psychology Conference was held in Turkey in October 2010. Present at the previous US conference in 2009, where the next venue was announced, was an analyst, the daughter of a survivor of the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915-23.

Back Home!

Apologies to readers out there for my silence. I had no idea beforehand how important a peaceful Friday is to my blogging career. And there were none of those while I was travelling. Consequently I have many topics to post because it was a very stimulating trip.

Not least the TRISP Conference in New York where I started. Before I get into it - and I think there will probably be about 4 postings on that alone - perhaps travellers to JFK might like to know that the queue at the border was 2 hours long in early May. They fingerprint both hands and take a picture of every entrant. They probably didn't realise that my fingertips are so worn down I don't have any fingerprints left - something I discovered when trying to renew my driver's licence recently.  Thus began my life of crime. (Someone should warn the police to watch out for aging criminals!) I took an illegal picture while waiting in the queue on my new Blackberry before an official came to tell me off. I will post it when I figure out how to transfer the photo.

Should Individual Counselling be a Luxury? Re-Evaluation Counselling

Re-Evaluation Counselling (RC) is a form of peer counselling and is also often called co-counselling. All participants are trained in the theory and techniques so that although co-counsellors may differ in levels of experience, we meet and session together as equals. Its the only practice of human growth and development I know, which places the hurts caused by socio-cultural oppression (starting with the oppression of parents and young people and including racism, classism, sexism etc.), at the core of human distress and imparts a number of methods and group processes to address these.

Re-Evaluation Counselling isn't a luxury. The training is affordable and once you've learnt it, its free.You can have a session in many countries on the planet with another RCer and it will only cost the price of the trip you paid to get there. Workshops cost, but that's your choice.
One of  the most important features of co-counselling is the emphasis on emotional release.

A Cape Town Day

I didn't see any!

Sometimes one gets far more than one seeks. And in Cape Town this is often true. Take for example the morning traffic jam up Paradise Road, Newlands. There the mountain looms close overhead, every detail etched by the morning sun. It beats Los Angeles or London, doesn't it? So last Friday, there I was having breakfast, preparing to spend the morning writing, when I heard on the radio that there were dolphins chasing fish in Simonstown harbour.
This might happen quite frequently but us landlubbers in Plumstead don't always know about it. I thought I'd go and have a look.
When I got there, I couldn't see anything out at sea, but it was a

glorious day so I wandered. There was a sign saying Mosque, uphill from the Main Road. In the paving of the lane, there was a motif, looking like something one might find in Glasgow by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. As I walked up, I saw that the design was picked up in the stained glass windows of the building at the top - an Art Deco mosque! Built in 1911, with the minaret added in 1925. A shopkeeper told me that the Heritage museum was interesting. This was in a house called Amlay and the signs said 'closed on Friday'. But I could hear someone in the garden so I asked him if it really was closed, because the front door behind the security gate was open. He said "Try ringing the bell." So I did. After a short while a woman came to the door.