Dear Walter,
How lovely to read your post and listen to your podcast. But what an irony! I never knew I could do this: could have a voice that was mine, could write anything other than transactional writing and email. Of course, your post reaches me while I’m angry about the very thing, the person who was and is no longer, who has been my muse (that’s a whole other post)! As you say, this has come as the cost of my pain. I don’t think you envy that.
Walter, I know that what pushes down your voice is not the technology, and is not the time, or you being an introvert. It is exposing for me, too. Maybe I’ll come to regret doing this. Professionally, of course, the issues are different for us but, really are they? Do I want my business clients or colleagues reading about my flounderings? It could affect the share price!
So you being a therapist makes it more exposing? Of course, I am familiar with the boundaries around this. The therapist’s business is not the business of the session. As client, one knows that there is a whole life there of which we know nothing – but do we? Did the clients of Freud and Jung have no idea whom they were being treated by? Do the clients of Orbach and Yallom?
Is not the self the primary instrument with which the therapist works? You speak of a professional blog. Client case studies anonymised, perhaps? When you use yourself in your profession, what could you authentically blog about in a professional blog, other than yourself?
You conclude your podcast saying “how do I click stop?”. I think the question is “how do you click start?”
4 replies on “Finding a Voice”
Dan, Like Walter I admire your writing skills and have commented before. At the risk of a cliche – you have a way with words! Walter’s ‘voice’ on the other hand comes over to me best in conversation – those wonderful hands that complement and express the wisdom that he so often expresses! His verbal skills are substantial. I think we all ‘find’ our voices in different ways and when ‘found’ articulate through the medium that’s most ‘natural’ to us. In this regard Walter, listen closely to your podcast – it’s a pretty good voice to me!
Dan, Brian, what a buzz to communicate here as opposed to behind the passwords of Group-L. Particularly to read your encouraging responses. I will keep going with my audio blogging, podcasting. So look forward to the next episode.
[…] Audio Blog post – at Odeo […]
[…] As spring bursts around us, my dear friend Walter appears to have found his voice, and it is in Thousand Sketches. It’s a project to put a thousand sketches on the Web in one year. I love the sketches that are there already, and I love the blog where Walter is making his process as visible as the sketches, and where sketches of that process are born, too. […]