Preparing to Land

Imagine this: It's five days before Xmas. Nineteen people, mostly Capetonians, arrive at Bloemfontein airport to catch a plane back to Cape Town. They all know each other in a very specific context - they dance together. They have been dancing with 120 others for 5 days. Its not your ordinary kind of gyrate on the dance floor to rock or fast stepping twirls like salsa or even the erotic engagement of the tango, although it can encompass any of these. Its Biodanza - a way of freely expressing oneself to music and it includes contact and sensuality.

We are in the departure lounge. Our departure time comes and goes - we are not called. Eventually we discover that if only our plane had not switched its engines off, we could have taken off. But since they did switch off, we can't. There is a defective part for which we will have to wait. We begin to get to know each other in ways we never have before - about our lives and work. We have quite a bit of fun. At about the time we should have arrived in Cape Town, SAA finally decides to put us up at a hotel for the night and we will have to fly to Johannesburg (JHB) on the morrow to get to Cape Town - a route which is counter-intuitive to any normal modes of thinking other than that of airlines. This is devastating news for one or two (like some Italians who have to make their connection to Rome for Xmas) but not really for most of us - it being the holiday season.

Sometimes it can get Crowded in the Consulting Room

Painting by Ken -Artist Kim Noble's alter 

I was catapulted into the then-uncharted territory of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - previously multiple personality disorder - one day in the early 70's, when a woman client I had been seeing for almost 2 years, came for her regular session and remarked that I had painted my walls a different colour and wasn't there someone who played the piano in one of the other rooms of the flat? I was a bit taken aback - I hadn't had any painting done recently and no-one lived in that room any more. In those days, I was a recently qualified psychotherapist and much as it pains me to admit it, I took notes in sessions. On this particular day it stood me in good stead. Writing down her observations helped me to think. I'd seen and read "The Three Faces of Eve", I'd seen "Sybil". Was I sitting with such a person? "When were you last here?" I asked - as of-course anyone would, who was certain they'd seen their client for their usual session the previous week! "I came once when She was drunk," came the immediate insouciant reply.

Community Organisation Prioritises Individual Counselling

CASE (Community Action towards a Safer Environment) is a unique NGO located in the Hanover Park community on the Cape Flats. This is an area ridden with gang violence. In the short time that I have been marginally involved with this organisation, (since August 2010) there have been two major outbreaks of violence. Unfortunately, it is often young children who get caught in the crossfire. But the whole situation used to be much worse. The improvement could well be due to the existence of this organisation, which is housed in a few cream-coloured containers in the grounds of Mountview High School. The person who provides the firing passion behind this community-development-engine is Lane Benjamin, a clinical psychologist, mother of two, currently completing her Ph.D. She started CASE about 10 years ago while still working at the Trauma Centre.

End of year graduation party of the Literacy Group

On 28th September 2011, CASE went public. They launched a series of Training Manuals and Workshops hoping to spread their development model to other community organisations.  

So what makes them special?
I think what distinguishes this organisation is 1) they start with individuals and their personal development, 2) they incorporate an understanding of the impact of trauma on learning and 3) expertise develops and remains within the community.

I would guess that their premise - that to break the cycle of violence you have to start with individuals and their personal development - might not be very popular currently with government or with funders. The theory that informs this is that most South African communities are traumatised firstly by the degradations of the past, which have been passed on to later generations through intergenerational transmission of trauma, and secondly, by the continuous violence in the present. The major ways in which this is manifest in each family is through dissociation, addictions, family violence and learning difficulties

Libyan Psychoanalyst Tries to go to Shul

Libyan Jewish exile David Gerbi breaks the sealed entrance to Dar Bishi synagogue.

David Gerbi, who hit the headlines this week, is a psychoanalyst. He is also a consummate performer, a refugee peace envoy and a Libyan Jew. This week he also turned out to be a canny activist in the views of some, or an ill-timed opportunist in the views of others.
 In the week that Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) was preparing their final onslaught on Sirte, Gerbi, who had entered Tripoli with the rebels in August, decided to take brooms, rakes, buckets and cleaning materials to start restoring Tripoli's crumbling main synagogue which has been unused for decades. He started the clean-up on Sunday. By Wednesday the building was padlocked but Gerbi had made his stand. Probably knowing that revolutions provide only a short-lived window of opportunity for openness, he had decided to test the NTC for its democratic intent. Would Jews be welcome in the new Libya? Some say his test came too early - that's certainly the line of the NTC. Only time will tell. Maybe he wanted to be able to pray there on Yom Kippur - the Jewish day of Atonement - the holiest day of the year. In fact, I wonder where he has spent Yom Kippur today?

Is this the End of the "Butch Dyke"?

"Anne Lister, (1791-1840) the First Modern Lesbian"

This is uncharted territory for me – possibly even a minefield, given my heading. Nevertheless I want to speak my mind – or at least write what happened in my attempt to think, after I heard two speakers talk on transgender issues at the conference I attended in New York. I'm writing this post to try to make sense of an issue that puzzled and confused me. Why would I do this - especially since it includes labelling, stereotyping, generalising and probably being politically incorrect....? I'd love to know what this article evokes for you. So I invite you to comment.

After talking to several people after the conference, I conclude that I am probably not the only one who might be confused. Other than possibly a few science fiction writers and their readers, mutability of gender confounds most of us. Not that I hadn’t heard about the ‘T’ of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered) before. I just ignored it as a really minority issue that I would never have to take on board.

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.