I can’t begin to explain how many false starts I have had at trying to get my thoughts out into the world. There are so many methods available to us, to aid in the dissemination of our thoughts and processes. There are podcasts, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, blogs, books, magazine articles, press. I have thought about the "how and what" for so long, that I have become frozen in my process.
I have realized, though, that it doesn’t really matter how this happens. What matters is that it happens. What matters is that I can find ways to share what I have learned, what I have unlearned, what I am thinking about, the ways that I am thinking about it, and to start to be in a broader dialogue with a community outside of therapists and clients. I have been a therapist for 18 years. That’s a lucky number when you are Jewish, it represents both luck and life. Given that it has been 18 years, I want to mark the passage of time by sharing my process across several platforms. I don’t really care which, I will find my groove and footing. Right now, this blog is one place where it starts. In a lot of ways, being a therapist trains you to talk very little and to think a lot. I am hoping to recalibrate a bit and to say some more. I don’t want to think less, but I also want to comfortably admit all that I do not know. I am a thinker and I am thinking all the time. Sometimes I imagine/hope that what I think about and feel might help people beyond the therapy room.
These are the things that I think about most of the time: queerness, neurodiversity, attachment, trauma, societal deterioration, mass dissociation, politics (body politics, national politics, socioeconomic politics, international politics), racism, ableism, and the ways in which white supremacy, ableism and cis-heteronormativity continue to metastasize in our culture. I think, more specifically, about the ways in which the world of mental health aids in this metastasizing. I think about desperately wanting to stop the harm: The harm that therapy, psychology, and psychotherapy can wreak on those who experience themselves as different or other. I hope that you will find a lot of pockets of relief on this website, whether through joining a supervision group or just liking a post on Instagram or joining a discussion on TikTok.
The point is that the loneliness is too much for all of us. I have felt incredibly alone in the world of mental health and in practicing psychotherapy. I feel more and more alienated from the field all the time. This blog, this website, is a way to come together. There aren’t going to be simple soundbites on here or memes that reduce the complexity of our internal worlds into just a few sentences. At the same I am going to heavily rely on language, and for increased precision in my use of it, to build community. Language and words are everything to me, and for me, finding words that are relatable helps to create strong bonds in a world that feels so disparate and divided. So, welcome to Dr. Danna B. I am going to keep finding ways to connect with you, to learn with you, to grow with you. This is a wish for a dialogue, a deep and satisfying and ongoing one.
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