Doc Warren

Sometimes love is enduring, lifelong and beyond. Sometimes you find that love lasts just long enough for bitterness or bigotry to destroy it. When this happens you have to wonder if the love was real to begin with. Our clients come to us with many kind of distress. Some have found their love denied them by those that they feel have a duty to love them unconditionally such as the love from their parents, grandparents and other close relatives. Society and nature teaches us that the love of family is without question; a birthright, but there really is no guarantee that this love will in fact be given freely. When it is denied for any reason, hurt, confusion and disillusion often result.

For generations experts and laypeople have recommended the benefits of spending time in the countryside, taking walks in the woods, gardening and other nature related activities. This feeling of well being is based mostly on personal experience or anecdotal observations.

I remember fondly those first few years of being a clinician; that newbie air smelled so fresh as I entered the therapeutic world with my head held high, my mind and ears wide open. I was a sponge and I absorbed every idea I could, experimented and put the ones that held the most promise into my clinician’s toolbox

As a guy who has lectured to folks from as far away as Japan on issues related to private practice (and wrote a chapter on the topic a few years ago), I always look forward to reading blogs related to the topic. Like any blog topic, sometimes I agree, sometimes I shake my head but I always feel that I have left with something from the process. From time to time I chime in with a thought or two on the topic, usually on an aspect that I have not seen covered, or that has not been covered in a very long time. Below are a few issues that I feel needed to be explored. I hope they help.

Up the street from me lived two elderly folks, a happily married man and wife. I don’t remember their names and in fact am not sure that I ever knew them in the first place but I remember them fondly. They were always dressed to a tee and acted proper. I recall seeing their newspapers by the road for trash pickup (years before recycling was heard of), how they were neatly folded and stacked and tied from all sides. I remember how he in bow tie and she in her Sunday finest would walk out of their nice but modest home, which was always picture perfect and he holding the car door open for her as she entered the car, then gently closing it for her before they set out on their ride. Time slowed down for them, the speed limit was in full force and never exceeded. They would drive to the market for supplies, one bag at a time, perhaps so they could have an excuse to get out together.