Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Wired
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 12th, 2011.
Recently my smart phone crashed. Contact information gone. Calendar vanished. Text messaging history obliterated. While some of the data had been preserved on the SIM card, much of it couldn’t be transferred to the new phone because the charge port on the old one had broken. So I had to start from scratch, reprogramming my new Android and reconstructing from memory, as best I could, all the details holding my life together.
OMG! I panicked in a way I knew was entirely excessive but also sadly indicative of just how much we’ve all come to rely on technology to manage our daily existence.
Until then I hadn’t thought of myself, a so-called digital immigrant, as someone who’d become totally assimilated into the culture of 21st century communication. I don’t prefer texting to calling. I keep a paper calendar to back up my electronic one. I’d rather phone a restaurant to make a reservation than book it on Open Table. And I can’t completely rely on my phone’s GPS to get me to unfamiliar destinations, especially since it’s led me astray a few too many times late at night. Yet without my phone and all its capabilities, I felt completely unmoored. Rudderless.
I’m plenty old enough to remember life before cell phones. Before personal computers, even. The recent death of Steve Jobs generated slews of reflections on how much his contributions to technology have changed the way we live. So I’ve found myself musing about how different it used to be before we were so connected.
When I was in college, for instance, I spent an agonizing ten hours waiting for friends to meet me at a train station in Milan. I had no way of contacting them, and no way of knowing if they’d ever arrive. They might have gotten into an accident. They might have gotten arrested. They might have gotten lost. I paced, looked at the clock, and contemplated my options. Should I leave? Find a youth hostel? Unroll my sleeping bag on a bench in the station? As I was about to venture out into the night to look for a place to stay, they drove up. I don’t even remember why it had taken them so long to get there. All I can recall is the overwhelming relief and joy I felt at their arrival.
In the retelling, this incident sounds as quaintly old-fashioned as a buggy ride. Or the famous literary story arcs, no longer plausible, which unfolded from similarly crossed signals and miscommunications. Think of Romeo and Juliet. Had Friar Tuck been able to text Romeo about Juliet’s potion-induced coma instead of sending a messenger who failed to deliver the news in time, the young lovers could have been spared their tragic fate. And how about Candide, who might never have embarked on the harrowing journey to reunite with his beloved Cunégonde had he been able to stay in touch with her through Skype?
Nowadays, the wealth of information at our fingertips and options for instant communication leave far less to chance. There’s more certainty, to be sure. But we’ve also lost a little magic. That is, unless our phones die. Then, just imagine the dramatic possibilities.
Tags: uncertainty
Posted in General |
People Unclear on the Concept
By Lynne Gots, posted on September 26th, 2011.
Lately I’ve been the target of phishing. I think that’s what it’s called. I’ve received a spate of emails from foreigners claiming to be in some kind of psychological crisis brought on by a breakup or work stress. They ask me in fractured English to schedule a series of therapy sessions because they’ll be coming to the US for an extended business trip or vacation and will need emotional support. Oh, and by the way. They’d like to prepay, so would I please contact their assistants and supply the number of the bank account where they can deposit the funds.
OK, I’ll admit it. I did reply to the first one, saying I’d be happy to set up a consultation, but that I don’t accept prepayment. See, I’m not that naïve. I wonder why I never heard back.
The most recent offering gave me a much needed hilarity break in the middle of a long workday. I was drinking my afternoon Starbucks iced coffee when I checked my email and did a spit take before I nearly fell off my chair from laughing so hard. I cannot do the message justice without sharing the main body of the text, verbatim, with you. Please note that, in the interest of protecting the confidentiality of the scam artist, I’m not revealing his full name, although I’ll tell you his first name is Eric. Here’s what Eric wrote, unedited:
Greetings,
I want to book for 2 weeks checkups and counseling, 1 or 2 hours each day Monday to Friday (morning or evening hours) for a group of 10. We will be coming for a one month vacation/holiday in your country from 15th Nov. 2011 and in line with our plans we will require 2 weeks checkups and counseling to help maintain our mental health due to the nature of our job and also to make our stay fun. After working consecutively for 6months, the lonely environment and the noise of the engines, we have decided to see a psychologist during our vacation for general mental health checkups.
He concluded by requesting to make the usual arrangements.
I’m intrigued by the part about the “lonely environment and the noise of the engines.” Is he a terrorist, practicing take offs and landings in the desert? Or an astronaut, maybe? And what’s with the bit about making “our stay fun?” Wouldn’t he rather go clubbing in Adams Morgan, or visit the Air and Space Museum to see some planes?
Eric should have done his homework to learn more about psychotherapy before scamming me. Now that I think about it, a lot of people (some members of my own family, even) have strange notions about what psychologists do. So if you’re contemplating seeing—or scamming—a mental health therapist, educate yourself first. You’ll have a better idea of what to expect from treatment and what you’d like to get out of it. But please don’t call me if you’re only looking to make your stay in DC fun. There are other kinds of professionals who’d do that much better.
Tags: psychotherapy
Posted in General |
School Daze
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 29th, 2011.
It’s been decades since I last boarded a school bus as a student, but seeing those behemoths swarming down my street today like giant yellow jackets still made my stomach knot up. I no longer have homework or new teachers to worry about, or even my kids’ homework or teachers to concern me. Yet that old, familiar mix of melancholy and dread returns every August as soon as the lunchboxes and thermoses show up in the supermarket.
September has always gotten to me. It must have something to do, I guess, with being reminded of the inexorable march of time. Unlike many of the moms I know, I never counted the days until summer ended or kicked up my heels in unfettered joy at the prospect of “me” time. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I was just too caught up in the sadness of letting go to feel excited. While the other PTA parents were toasting their freedom with Mimosas at a neighbor’s annual, first-day-of-school brunch after dropping their kids off at the bus stop, I was holding back the tears.
I often think about a conversation I had with a friend when my oldest daughter was two and his only child was about to graduate from high school. Looking wistfully at my curly-haired toddler, he said: “Enjoy it now. It goes so fast.” At the time, caught up as I was in the bedtime battles, temper tantrums, and endless viewings of Disney’s Cinderella, I brushed off his advice. But he was so right. That strong-willed two-year-old has, herself, long since graduated from high school, and she went back to school today—as a second-year law student.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not always wallowing in nostalgia. When I’m not sniffing my kids’ pillows like a rooting sow, trying to catch lingering whiffs of their scents, I do see some advantages to an empty nest. I don’t have to pack lunches. I can relax at the end of a long working day without having to start fashioning igloos out of marshmallows and decorator’s icing (yes, I really did this). And my husband and I can eat dinner together at 9:00 pm without hearing any complaints. Besides, the dogs make great child surrogates—superior, even, to their real counterparts in some ways. They rarely talk back, don’t leave their clothes all over the floor, and never keep me awake into the early morning hours, unable to fall asleep until I hear a key in the front door.
And, best of all, they won’t ever grow up and leave home.
Tags: back to school, empty nest
Posted in General |
