Tag: Dr. Hare

“Dear Dr. Hare,

Marian just called to update my address and all. I’m intrigued that going to your office from my new place at Central Park West will now literally be a walk through the park – and a nice part of the park at that, with barely any tourists. I’ve confirmed our next appointment for Thursday [this] week.

This is a time of change for me. If it weren’t totally out of question, I’d love to invite you to see the new apartment. Doesn’t the place one lives in say so much about one’s personality? But I know, this is not appropriate (though I hate that word). I have to report that my arm may not fully heal, but it’s alright, it’s good enough already, and still getting better.

I’m back to work. Right now, I’m putting the final touches on my book, my most autobiographic yet, which I am quite excited about. And here’s a confession: I am putting in anonymous quotes from our correspondence. Appropriate? No? Oh dear! I assume that many people are not going to understand it. But I see that as a plus. It means that you cannot really object. Or can you? I think it makes the book better, it helps the images speak.

Here’s another question that I want to talk about with you. My blog, which you kind of initiated, has gained an astonishing number of readers. I’ll admit that this makes me very happy. Especially since I’ve enthusiastically done everything wrong right from the start, thinking that, what the heck, what counts most is that *I* like it. So the idea is to share this platform with a few more like-minded people, creative minds, liberated from the confines of their daily grind in creative, academic, or corporate positions, and whatnot.

I’m much looking forward to our meeting next week, and to hearing what you think.

Take care, Jens”

“Jens,

it’s good to hear that we shall finally speak in person. I am much disturbed by your laissez-faire-attitude regarding your arm. This is you – your body, your person! You ought to care. Please promise that you will do everything to get better.

You are right, I cannot come to your apartment. As concerns your book, it may be best if we both pretended that you never mentioned this plan. You shall have to do what you shall have to do as an artist, and I will try not to be self-conscious in our correspondence (or, for that matter, resentful: am I a source of creative material for you, or a person whose ideas you value? – but I shall put this aside; if I were to go into the question of whether you can use confidential therapeutic correspondence in your art, I don’t know where this would lead us.)

On to more constructive matters. It sure is a very good plan to invite like-minded creatives to contribute to your blog. All these years, you kept telling me that photography simply is a harsh life, without a home, and without a stable circle of people to relate to. And I know that, as hard as this is, this feeds into your work in good ways. But still, perhaps your guest-writers can help you change this a little?

But more than anything, do not cancel again. It is important to come to your sessions and speak in person.

Sincerely,
Dr. Hare”

[More from my correspondence with Dr. Hare, by far the best reason to head over to the Upper East Side now and then, below…]

“Dear Dr. Hare,

I’m very much looking forward to next week’s appointment. I’m in the middle of reprogramming my website. In theory, I love doing this. Yet, there’s always a maddening difficulty involved: making it run smoothly on Windows Explorer, especially on the older versions of it (not compliant with Web Standards, if that means anything to you…). You end up coding all kinds of hacks into your site to circumvent the glitches, which is genuinely painful for a purist like me. Ah! There goes the beauty of simplicity. All this really bothers me. Why should a piece of poorly done software have such power over me? And most of all, why do so many people still stick to this software, when there are much better choices?

So, before I come to your office, do you have any consolation for me, or an explanation of the ways of the world?

Thanks so much,
Jens”

“Dear Jens,

what can I say, I know nothing about computers. In fact, I went to my assistant to ask her about this, because I’m so badly informed. It turns out that she too uses the Explorer, so part of my office here is running on it. When I asked her what version we have, she said she didn’t know. So, we are part of the world that makes your life difficult. (Of course, I have my little notebook here on my desk with Firefox, which you downloaded for me, as you of course know. But would I have this if you hadn’t helped me?)

I see your point: why not choose better over worse? Isn’t that an easy choice? Perhaps, but first of all, one needs to care about it. Yes, I’m glad that I switched to my lovely new notebook, and I’m glad that things are really easy. But did I mind my old computer? Well, you would say that I did, because it was all a mess. But in my own memory, I didn’t.

Now, please don’t think that I don’t understand your frustration. It is in fact a deep psychological question why people do not tend to make the choices that are, by their own lights, best. Perhaps that’s why I’ve gone into this profession, because I want to know why. So, your question is not unheard, and not unappreciated. But it really is the question of whether human beings are, on the whole, rational or irrational, and I am not sure that I have found the answer yet.

And yes, please come in next week, we should talk – not about computers, preferably.

Yours,
Dr. Hare”

Right before I left Manhattan for my European summer, I saw Dr. Hare in her Upper East Side office, and when I left made some bad joke about the tribal pressures to fit the stereotype of the lost but curious artist, “of having started to make photographs of myself to understand my own history, my own place in the world better” – I’m sure you know that very deep art talk well. Of course, Dr. Hare saw right through my pretense, and this morning I received the following message from her (with my response to her below it):

“Dear Jens,

thank you for your note from Italy, it was good to hear from you. I actually put some thought into your case (if you allow this impersonal formulation) since our last session. Two things have become clear to me. First, that you are not putting everything on the table in our conversations – surely not when it comes to talking about your childhood. Second, that your photographic projects have always been personal, but maybe, as a sign of progression in your self-understanding, should become even more personal. One way or another, I have come to the following conclusion: your next – and I dare to say, your defining – photographic project should be a biographical project. You have given away too little from your past for me to make any more definite suggestions, and of course I know that this is anyway not the role of the therapist (though I admit that I am tempted, I’ve always loved the creation of images). Could you go back to the places and the people of your childhood? Why not read the essence of your life from the faces of those who raised you? Or rather, from the pictures you would take of them? From how I know you, this may be the roundabout route that you need. Clarity will not come from therapeutic conversations. It will have to be an artistic process, since this is the medium in which I sincerely think that you will eventually face the issues that matter to you most.

Don’t be out of touch again for so long, it is important for you to pursue this. And think about my ideas. I look forward to touching base again, and to seeing you in our much-loved Manhattan.

Take care of yourself,
Dr. Hare”

“Dear Dr. Hare,

you know that few things make me happier than receiving mail from you, and in particular, mail in which you – as you so rarely do – leave the confines of your role as therapist, and talk to me as you did in your last email. It seems very possible that you are right, I should go and photograph the people who shaped my life, and I should read from their faces. I’m not yet sure that I can get myself to do so. The mountains, where I am right now, are interlocutors of a different kind (I know what you will say, they don’t talk back to me and they really aren’t interlocutors – that’s true and not true, but I won’t get into this).

I feel that I am at a turning point in my life and that I need some more weeks here in Italy before I fully turn to thinking about the issues that you address. But be assured, every word of yours sinks into my heart.

Do take care of yourself too,
Jens”