Luke Ford

As I absorb the news that a friend offed himself, I am thinking about what binds us to life. For me it is friends, families, passions (Torah, literature, Alexander Technique), my belief that tomorrow will be better, that I am on a good track, improving my health (physical, psychological, social).

I am getting back into psycho-therapy after a hiatus since January due to scheduling and other issues. I’ve had about six years of the stuff. I think another four years and I’ll be close to normal.

My friend David says: “Maybe if you get laid a few times per week, even pay for it probably cheaper than a shrink, you will be sorted out quicker.”

Greg Leake emails: Hi Luke,

I see that you are considering a re-involvement with therapy.

I always admire your eagerness to make an effort to resolve things that are bothering you. Whatever criticisms people may lay at your feet, they cannot criticize you for being neglectful or indifferent about resolving your own issues.

I apologize if this suggestion is presumptuous, but I wonder if you have considered therapy with a psychotherapist from the school of Alfred Adler.

I do not suggest this simply because Adler has more success than the other schools. My own favorite theorist is Carl Jung, but I am mindful of the kind of problems that you write about so eloquently on your blog.

You are constantly involved in appraising yourself relative to other people and other groups. You have a strong desire to be included as a member of different groups. You often discuss your hopes for upward mobility in terms of acceptance from one group or another.

You know, I think one of the issues that operates as a determining factor in your life is that you try to resolve your issues by acceptance in a community. I don’t find fault with the fact that you traded in Jesus for the Torah, but I do wonder why your answer to certain problems was simply to turn around and join another religious community (albeit more to your liking) rather than finding your own authentic self irrespective of some necessary conformity.

You seem to frequently want to resolve your issues in respect to your identity with groups and communities and the perception of other individuals.

That is why it occurs to me that working with someone of the Adler school might be a productive step. Adler’s theory comes out of a consideration of the power drive just as Freud’s derived from the sex drive. Adler’s approach has had huge success with people who have a lot of issues that connect with group and people relative to who’s up, who’s down, where one is is the scheme of things, and how to understand one’s identity in relationship to all this.

Nobody has influenced me as much as my father.

Despite the best of my intentions, I constantly find myself measuring up against him. Most of the time, I’m not even conscious that I’m doing it. Consciously, I’m measuring myself up against Dennis Prager (and losing very badly).

Dad and I very alike. Of the three kids, I’m the most like dad. I have his tendencies towards ideological devotion, but I’ve made very different choices than he did.

In his teens, my father chose against journalism and for God.

At 23, I chose to dedicate myself to God and then found myself to my chagrin, pursuing something very different much of the time, well, honestly, most of the time, I found myself pursuing a cult of myself.

I had a wise asian girlfriend who told me when I was 23, “the more you try to be different from your father, the more you will be like him.”

A different girl, four years later, when I asked her if I was like my father, told me, “he’s not as pompous.”