The Center for Grief Recovery and Creativity E-Letter
Autumn 2006
Greetings and Happy Autumn!
"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters
the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate
ourselves to that."
Joseph Campbell
I hope you had a brilliant summer. For me, with all of the rainfall this past season, and the vegetation being so lush, it was a sheer pleasure to be outdoors. I hope you found this to be so for you, too. And now we forge ahead to prepare for autumn, a season, which for many reasons embodies a host of contradictions.
“August and September are poignant times for most of us. The days get shorter and signal the end of summer. Evenings begin to cool off letting us know that winter approaches. The end of the summer growing season is at hand, and yet we are expected to begin anew. Most of us long ago have forgotten that September is the big time for new beginnings. We have let it slip from our memory that every September (August for some), for thirteen years, we have started school. (If we went to college we added four years, and graduate or technical schools might add even more). New teachers, new classes, new friends—a whole new world arrives every September with the start of school.”
Jerry Rothman, LCSW, P.h.D., the Center’s co-founder, and first director, wrote these words in 1998, when he was reflecting upon the role school continues to play in our lives. Certainly, as I have discovered by meditating and talking with clients, this time of year does bring with it many difficult challenges. As Jerry pointed out, many of us, for example, have forgotten the power and influence of the new school year. Recall that in elementary school we only have one teacher. What an enormous disaster it is when we don’t like that teacher. Very few schools make allowances for the fact that many children and teachers don’t mesh for various reasons. Personalities clash. Pacing and energy might be in opposition. The slower-paced student who is hurried along by a faster-paced teacher experiences real emotional pain. The horror of spending an entire year with a teacher that doesn’t fit remains with us for a lifetime. Often, too, we may have had bad peer relations, causing us to feel isolated, alone, and depressed.
Another contradiction of this time of year can be seen in the fact that the school schedule runs directly opposite of nature’s schedule. Spring, the natural season for new birth, is actually the end of the school year. Autumn, nature’s end of the growth cycle, becomes the birthing time for our most important human endeavor: learning. This central contradiction adds up to more confusion for children, because it rarely even comes into our awareness and almost never gets talked about.
So, for us it is a time to bring these facts into our awareness and encourage others do so as well in their own ways. In so doing, as Joseph Campbell suggests, we help ourselves begin to discover what is in us waiting to be dedicated to the flowering of our own humanity. Autumn is a time for reflection and bringing our attention lightly inward to notice more clearly these possibilities. It is a time to have our new beginnings, to initiate and generate, but also to be mindful of the many contradictions of this time of year.
In this way, at the Center we continue our mission to help empower and heal individuals to enrich their lives. We do this work through individual, couples, family, and group psychotherapy. In addition to our work in the office, we provide on-site consultations and professional trainings in many areas. (See our Institute for Creativity and Development webpage).
As you may know we, too, have been experiencing new beginnings. For example, our former director, Chris Lucia Rothman, Psy.D., has moved to Florida on a full-time basis, and remains connected to us as our administrative and clinical consultant. She has begun a new psychotherapy practice in West Palm Beach, and continues to phone conference and visit with clients in Chicago quarterly. We also celebrated a 10th year anniversary for our colleague KC Conway, LCSW, whose work in psychotherapy is truly wonderful and far-reaching. Our colleague Allan Schnarr, Ph.D., has moved to a new home and office, where he sees several Center clients in addition to using our location in Rogers Park. My responsibilities have widened to encompass what I refer to as “running the therapy shop.” So, while I continue to enjoy seeing clients in my practice I am also keeping the fires stoked as our director. I am excited about these new beginnings and look forward to informing you about more of them in the coming months. For example, our Institute for Creativity and Development will be introducing several new and exciting services. Stay tuned for more information.
So with the strong and sincere aspiration for peaceful change and transition into this next challenging phase of the year the Center sends warm regards. We are easy to reach.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
David Fireman, LCSW
Director - 773/274-4600
Center for Grief Recovery and Creativity
1263 W. Loyola
Chicago, IL 60626
Find us www.griefcounselor.org at our website.
Autumn 2006
Greetings and Happy Autumn!
"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters
the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate
ourselves to that."
Joseph Campbell
I hope you had a brilliant summer. For me, with all of the rainfall this past season, and the vegetation being so lush, it was a sheer pleasure to be outdoors. I hope you found this to be so for you, too. And now we forge ahead to prepare for autumn, a season, which for many reasons embodies a host of contradictions.
“August and September are poignant times for most of us. The days get shorter and signal the end of summer. Evenings begin to cool off letting us know that winter approaches. The end of the summer growing season is at hand, and yet we are expected to begin anew. Most of us long ago have forgotten that September is the big time for new beginnings. We have let it slip from our memory that every September (August for some), for thirteen years, we have started school. (If we went to college we added four years, and graduate or technical schools might add even more). New teachers, new classes, new friends—a whole new world arrives every September with the start of school.”
Jerry Rothman, LCSW, P.h.D., the Center’s co-founder, and first director, wrote these words in 1998, when he was reflecting upon the role school continues to play in our lives. Certainly, as I have discovered by meditating and talking with clients, this time of year does bring with it many difficult challenges. As Jerry pointed out, many of us, for example, have forgotten the power and influence of the new school year. Recall that in elementary school we only have one teacher. What an enormous disaster it is when we don’t like that teacher. Very few schools make allowances for the fact that many children and teachers don’t mesh for various reasons. Personalities clash. Pacing and energy might be in opposition. The slower-paced student who is hurried along by a faster-paced teacher experiences real emotional pain. The horror of spending an entire year with a teacher that doesn’t fit remains with us for a lifetime. Often, too, we may have had bad peer relations, causing us to feel isolated, alone, and depressed.
Another contradiction of this time of year can be seen in the fact that the school schedule runs directly opposite of nature’s schedule. Spring, the natural season for new birth, is actually the end of the school year. Autumn, nature’s end of the growth cycle, becomes the birthing time for our most important human endeavor: learning. This central contradiction adds up to more confusion for children, because it rarely even comes into our awareness and almost never gets talked about.
So, for us it is a time to bring these facts into our awareness and encourage others do so as well in their own ways. In so doing, as Joseph Campbell suggests, we help ourselves begin to discover what is in us waiting to be dedicated to the flowering of our own humanity. Autumn is a time for reflection and bringing our attention lightly inward to notice more clearly these possibilities. It is a time to have our new beginnings, to initiate and generate, but also to be mindful of the many contradictions of this time of year.
In this way, at the Center we continue our mission to help empower and heal individuals to enrich their lives. We do this work through individual, couples, family, and group psychotherapy. In addition to our work in the office, we provide on-site consultations and professional trainings in many areas. (See our Institute for Creativity and Development webpage).
As you may know we, too, have been experiencing new beginnings. For example, our former director, Chris Lucia Rothman, Psy.D., has moved to Florida on a full-time basis, and remains connected to us as our administrative and clinical consultant. She has begun a new psychotherapy practice in West Palm Beach, and continues to phone conference and visit with clients in Chicago quarterly. We also celebrated a 10th year anniversary for our colleague KC Conway, LCSW, whose work in psychotherapy is truly wonderful and far-reaching. Our colleague Allan Schnarr, Ph.D., has moved to a new home and office, where he sees several Center clients in addition to using our location in Rogers Park. My responsibilities have widened to encompass what I refer to as “running the therapy shop.” So, while I continue to enjoy seeing clients in my practice I am also keeping the fires stoked as our director. I am excited about these new beginnings and look forward to informing you about more of them in the coming months. For example, our Institute for Creativity and Development will be introducing several new and exciting services. Stay tuned for more information.
So with the strong and sincere aspiration for peaceful change and transition into this next challenging phase of the year the Center sends warm regards. We are easy to reach.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
David Fireman, LCSW
Director - 773/274-4600
Center for Grief Recovery and Creativity
1263 W. Loyola
Chicago, IL 60626
Find us www.griefcounselor.org at our website.
posted by The Center @ 5:56 PM
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