Psychology Book - Circa 1937

A cousin recently contacted me to ask if I wanted some of my mother's teacher-training books.

Clearing out her parents' house, she had found them in her father's bookcase...

They were texts my mother had used in Edmonton Normal School - the one-year program she had attended in 1938-9 to prepare for teaching.

My cousin's father - my mother's older brother - had quit school at the age of 16 in order to get a job. The family was simply too poor at that time to support him as a student. He had wanted to attend college but never did go back to school.  But he loved to read.

Here they are, years later... my mother - age 90 - and her brother - age 95 - in a picture taken almost 10 years ago.

I was vaguely intrigued by the Educational Psychology textbook published in 1937... (What did they know about psychology then...?)

But would I read it? Probably not...

No... Give them away. I replied. I'm trying to get rid of  enough books of my own!

I noticed that the editor of the book was Charles E. Skinner - not the famous B.F. Skinner I studied about.

But I wonder if they were related!

The Gift of Being Heard

The year we lived in Toronto, Terry was a student at the Institute for Christian Studies. He wanted to deepen his understanding of counselling before entering the Pastoral Counselling Program at St. Paul's University in Ottawa - which is why we moved to Ottawa all those years ago.

One of the ICS instructors whose approach he appreciated - and continues to appreciate - is Jim Olthuis, who has written a number of counseling books, among them, The Beautiful Risk, published in 2001.

As I did my winter mall walking, Terry often read in the food court, over coffee. (I would leave my winter coat and hat with him...)

Recently he shared a nugget from the book... about listening to other people's stories: Listening is a primary gesture of love... Listening with the ears of the heart is to take in the other, not as a problem to solve, but as a mystery to meet... Being available to the other gives hope... (P. 153)

The book is about counseling, but - though I'm no counsellor - I am reminded that listening compassionately to others is a simple but important gift I too can give.

Before Psychology

Psychology was a fascinating new science when I was growing up.

I remember my father's excitement when he first encountered the concept of inferiority complex (probably in the Readers Digest).

That's what I have! he announced, suddenly understanding himself. When you grow up without a father, like I did, that's what happens. You get an inferiority complex.

Inferiority complex became one of his favorite expressions... He wore it with pride... Understanding made it easier to bear.

I'm not sure my mother ever took a psychology course. In any event, she never referred to it - and she never embraced psychology as a personal tool of self-understanding. In later years she was haunted by remorse, remembering my young brother's tears when she left him from Monday to Friday with her mother, who lived a two-hour drive away, during a period of time when she (a teacher) couldn't find a babysitter near our home.

I still think of how he cried and clung to me, she said. (What could I say?)

Well, that's the past. I told her. You can't do anything about it now.

Maybe confessing it helped, as she never mentioned it again.

I first encountered psychology in my first year English literature course at university. As our prof focused almost entirely on deeper levels of mind and motive - subconscious desires, Freudian slips, hidden fears, phallic symbols... - we asked each other:

Where does he find all that stuff? Is it really there? Or is he making it up?!

Literature (and life) suddenly became more complex...

And so it remains: Trying to understand the psychological reasons for what is happening around me (and inside me) is simply the way I look at life.

How would I view life differently if I had lived before psychology?

Left Brain? Right Brain?

A good friend recently revealed that for Lent she was giving up - not her favorite food - but her favorite puzzle: sudoku, a logical left brain activity. Instead, in her free time, she was trying to develop her right brain by coloring circles with her non-dominant hand. (And she was finding it boring!)

I have never given a lot of thought to whether I was left-brain dominant or right-brain dominant, but I would guess that I lean to the right... as I'm impulsive, rather than logical, more intuitive and random than rational, characteristics described in this online explanation. (Though I, too, enjoy sudoku puzzles! How then can this be?)

Perhaps I should do an online test to make sure...

After doing the test, I see that yes - I am more artistic than logical... though the difference is small. On the test, it was only two points. (Which may explain why I like sudoku. But I am definitely right-brain dominant: I'd much rather take a trip tomorrow - impulsively - than plan one a few months down the road.)

Why did my friend decide to try to exercise her right brain for Lent? Because she had come to an impasse: She was finding it hard to follow her heart when her logical left brain kept blocking her plans!

I have undertaken no lenten disciplines... Is it because my right brain abhors rules? I don't know, but my excuse is that I view in Lent its original meaning... "lent" (meaning SLOW in French). So I have decided to simply slow down, and see where that takes me!