Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site tektronix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!moiram
From: moiram@tektronix.UUCP (Moira Mallison )
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: friends vs. psychotherapy
Message-ID: <2781@tektronix.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Jun-84 17:29:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: tektroni.2781
Posted: Tue Jun 19 17:29:13 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 05:42:00 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 51


I think friends are okay for day-to-day traumas and the basic business of 
learning, growing...no, not just okay, irreplacable.  They are wonderful
when what is needed is a little first-aid.  But when major surgery is 
required, I'd rather see a professional.

As an example, my father was diagnosed with cancer a year ago.  Through all
the ups and, particularly, the downs, my friends have provided a strong basis
for the support system.  This sufficed for quite awhile.  But what has been
equally valuable has been the twenty or so hours I have spent with a woman 
who specializes in counseling cancer victims and their families.  Each of the
family members have seen her, some more than I have, some less.  These sessions
have helped facilitate communication within the family....and my family is 
already closer than many I know.

Some of this has to do with the taboo about talking about death in this 
society; it's not always comfortable to talk to other people about it.  I
am sometimes reluctant to bring up such a "depressing subject".

Some of it has to do with the fact that I depend on my friends to distract me
from the intensity of feelings...that while it is central to my life 
experience right now, and to my relationships with my family, I depend on my
friends and my work to help me not get too caught up in it, to help me main-
tain some semblance of normal life.

And finally, it has to do with the experience of cancer.  There is so much
information, news, rumors, etc.  that here was someone who could be something
of a liasion with the cancer patient, the medical community, the family.
Someone who has helped many people through this experience before and 
provides on a psychological realm the expertise which the oncologist provides
on a physical realm.

What was particularly valuable for me was to be talking to someone who could
help me see my family experience from a different side.  (my parents had both
waived confidentiality).  This has added a new dimension to the relationship
I have with my mother.  And it has helped me "to not take personally" some 
of my father's responses to me as I went through adolescence.  It had a 
whole lot more to do with his own hang-ups than with who I was as a person.

It would have been wonderful if my family could have accomplished this 
without the crisis...but the roles are cemented by those many years of living
together.  The silver lining to the cloud lies in the honesty that has come
with the need for completion, and in being able to appreciate each member's
contribution to the family unit.  

Retrospectively, I'm not sure what this has to do with net.singles, except
the theme that friends dont always have the means to provide what I need.

					Moira Mallison
					tektronix!moiram