Psychological Meanderings

2018 Jon A Shaw M.D., M.S. All rights reserved.

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transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/25/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4041-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4040-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4042-6 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905294

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CONTENTS

EARLY FAMILY HISTORY

PERSONAL HISTORY

SECTION I: TRAUMA AND WAR

Unmasking The Illusion Of Safety : Psychic Trauma In War

Children Exposed To War/Terrorism

The Acute Traumatic Moment; Psychic Trauma In War: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

SECTION II. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF TRAUMA

Children, Adolescents And Trauma

The Legacy Of Child Sexual Abuse

SECTION III: NARCISSISM AND AGGRESSION

The Origins Of Aggression In Human Behavior

Narcissism As A Motivational Structure: The Problem Of Personal Significance

Narcissism, Identity Formation And Genocide

SECTION IV: CREATIVITY

Adolescence, Mourning, And Creativity

The Post Adolescent Crisis Of John Stuart Mill

Goethe’s Elective Affinities: Themes On Loss And Restoration

Thomas Wolfe: Study Of A Wanderer

Andrew Wyeth And N.C. Wyeth: A Psychodynamic Perspective On Father And Son

Edward Hopper, A Study Of Character: Aleination, Aloneness, Misogyny And The Obsessive-Hysteric Marriage.

A Summer Walk In Provence

SECTION V: PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANDEAINGS

A Pathway To Spirituality

Chance Happenings In Life And Psychotherapy

The Capacity To Mourn: Thoughts For A Developmental Line

SECTION VII: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

EARLY FAMILY HISTORY

Our great maternal grandfather, Mr. George Stitt, came around the Horn during the Gold Rush (1859) spending time in California, Alaska and eventually arriving to Oregon. Not having found gold. He arrived in Beaverton Oregon, and started farming, raising onions, potatoes and other garden vegetables. Twice a week he would hitch his wagon and drive to Portland, Oregon to market. He died in 1924 at the age of 81 years of age. Our maternal great grandmother was of Norwegian origin, came from Wisconsin. They had five children: One of whom was our maternal grandmother, Ms. Lillian May Stitt, (DOB: June 1, 1884).

As a young girl, Lillian, 16-17 years of age, would run off with Mr. Will Gaskill, whose family was of French origin and who worked for the Mott family on a Hop farm. An early scandal. They divorced on 20 July 1904. Ms. Vena Gaskill, who was our mother, would be a product of that relationship.

Lillian, our grandmother, would subsequently (1909) marry, Mr. George Otis Thyng, who would be our step grandfather. He was a business man, who all his life as I knew him, always wore a suit, vest and a tie. He would subsequently be mayor of Beaverton Oregon, owner of an Ice Cream Parlor during the Prohibition; and, subsequently a tavern owner. He installed the first telephone exchange in the city. He was an adamant baseball fan, the Portland Beavers, a nightly ritual listening to the play by play on the radio and also a reader of western novels.

On the paternal side of the family not much is known. Mr. Daniel Shaw, (DOB June 6, 1870), the paternal grandfather, was born in Scotland, traveled across Canada and settled in Aloha Oregon, a dairy farmer. He was described as an excellent farmer and a very tight Scotsman. Daniel Shaw was an avid member in the Masonic Temple. I can remember him making disparaging comments about those Catholics. His wife, Mary, was born in Northern Ireland, (1/5/1873). They married July 1, 1899. She died in the early 1930’s from a heart attack. They had one child, Leland, our father, (DOB 4/26/ 1903).

Our mother, Ms. Vena Gaskill, was very active politically at the University of Oregon as she was secretary of the student body, head of the Association of Woman Students, and was awarded the Gerlinger Cup as the outstanding student in her senior year. A lifelong Republican, she served as Executive Secretary for an elected governor in the state and as Chairman of the League of Women Voters. She would marry our father, Leland Burdette Shaw, August 14, 1929. They settled in Portland, Oregon. Our father an attorney. They were not only active politically but also raised Greyhounds as a hobby, participating in dog races at the Multnomah Kennel Club, Multnomah Stadium and reportedly had several outstanding contenders. I have only vague memories of many greyhounds, trial runs around a track on a distant field and walking dogs. As a young college boy I would work as a groom marching greyhounds around the track at Multnomah Stadium to the music of Bridge over the River Kwai, stuffing them into the starting box in preparation for the race, for which I was paid a stately sum of $10.00 an evening.

Our father, Leland B. Shaw, entered the US Army (1942) as a major and had a distinguished military career. He received the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and a Purple Heart, having been wounded while serving with the Second division under General George Patton in the invasion of Sicily. He subsequently was in the advance party that first landed in Japan on 30 August 1945 and was Deputy G-1 under General Douglas Mac Arthur. I remember playing with the son of General MacArthur while in Japan and being put off by his general effete manner.

PERSONAL HISTORY

The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of the life cycle. Each one of us navigates the life cycle from birth to death emerging out of our early family and contextual experiences. An early childhood trauma would ultimately become the well spring for much of my professional and creative endeavors.

Just prior to my fifth birthday in the year following Pearl Harbor, onset of WWII, my mother, grandmother, an older brother, Robert, and my twin brother, Richard, undertook to travel by automobile from Portland, Oregon to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas to see our father, a Major in the U.S Army who was undergoing advanced officer training.

There is little that I remember on that fateful day. We three boys were in the back seat of an old four door Pontiac, on a lonely country road in Kansas, when showers of rain began to blur the road and sheets of water slipped across the highway. A fateful but unknown event resulted in my mother losing control and the auto skidded off the road headlong into what seemed to be the only tree in Kansas. There is a memory of being trapped inside, trying to find a way out, doing so with a feeling of confusion and disorientation, stumbling around the car searching for I know not what, hearing sirens of oncoming vehicles. Sirens to this day which leave me with an unsettled feeling. We were placed in an ambulance.

The next memory is of walking down a curving stairwell in the hospital with my father on purple carpeting, paradoxically the color, a symbol of death and mourning. We were told mother had died. Unable to comprehend a mystery beyond all mysteries. A long train ride back to Oregon with my grandmother and brothers who were relatively uninjured. A funeral, mother in a casket. Being told that mother was in heaven led to an image of her being in a casket floating through the heavens, somehow not knowing of us left behind.

The family gathered in Beaverton, Oregon amongst the relatives. Contentious discussion occurred as to what to do with us boys. Father in the military. There was discussion to separate us, one or two of us to go with different relatives, the others to stay with my grandmother. Lastly grandmother announced in spite of her age that she a woman of 60 odd years would take us all.

I had the good fortune to be raised in the rural community of Beaverton, Oregon. My grandfather served as the Justice of the Peace for this little town. His office separated by a short hallway from his livelihood as owner of a tavern, hosting pool tables and a bar which seemed to reach to the sky. Originally the bar had been an ice cream parlor during the prohibition. Few memories of the ice cream parlor except that he also sold comic books, seemingly endless in numbers which became a refugee for us boys. Alas if we kept them, wealthy we would be. As young boys we would go with grandfather to the tavern in the morning and help clean the spittoons and other debris for 25 cents, a considerable sum of money as an ice cream cone was 5 cents.

It was a quiet life with loving grandparents, my grandfather, with a prosthetic leg; his leg having been lost when he 17 years of age, attempting to hop a ride on a train and slipping under the wheel, a visual curiosity to a small boy as we would watch grandfather engage and fit the stump of his leg into the prosthesis each morning. A maternal grandmother of Norwegian origin steeped in traditional values and a work ethic, cared for the family: eternally cleaning, shopping each day for the evening meal, hand washing clothes, drying them through a cycled rolling pin wringer, and hanging cloths on the cloth lines. Other times she was waiting for blocks of ice from the ice truck (no refrigeration) to preserve food, constantly canning vegetables and fruits to be put away in storage for the long winter such that she always baked two pies every Sunday after church for the special Sunday meal: warm crusted encapsulating berries, peaches, rhubarb and other delicacies.

The evening hours were taken with listening on the radio to the Portland Beavers, a Triple A baseball team, an evening ritual for my grandfather. When not listening to baseball, the young’uns would listen to the Lone Ranger, Sargent Preston of the North and other adventures. An idyllic childhood woven around the traumatic loss of a mother. The family ambience with my grandparents would always be associated with the feeling of being loved and valued, although rarely when we transgressed, my grandmother would chase us with a yard stick but we were equally able to elude her.

We had little knowledge of our father during those years. I wore an army web belt obviously a talisman which I associated with him. Remember on one occasion he came home on leave with a military parcel which seemed gigantic in size but from which he gave us mementos from his military experiences in Australia, a kangaroo, sitting on a dinner ringing bell, which still sits on my living room shelf. He seemed distant and we would soon learn that while sharing fatherhood, being a father, was not something that easily set with him emotionally. An only child raised on a dairy farm he early strived to escape the expected livelihood of farming. He did escape, attended the University of Oregon, graduated in law, married mother and opened up a practice in Portland, Oregon but was devastated economically by the depression which would have a lasting effect on him parsimoniously. The war came and off he went, rising to the rank of a Colonel in the infantry.

When the war ended father came home to Oregon with a new wife, Tess, an army nurse, a very likable and caring woman. We soon boarded at ship for the Far East, arriving on the first ship carrying family member to Japan after the war. Remember well the ride through the city and seeing devastated, demolished and burned out buildings. We, however, ended up on a hill overlooking the city and harbor living in a 36-room house with a Japanese garden, a swimming pool, a manicured stream running through the backyard and 6-7 servants, thus reaping the benefits of victory in war. Suddenly our lives had been transformed from lower middle class to a luxuriously dwelling, our father of significant rank and responsibilities, worked under the auspices of General Doubles Mac Arthur.

It was strange year in Japan, our father lacked the emotional embrace of our grandparents. His new marriage soon tottered. We attended an American School and soon discovered we were ill prepared to handle the academic demands of a more progressive school, albeit in a home with little emotional life nor academic expectations. We never did homework. We both failed but since father was chairman of the promotion board we were promoted to the fifth grade. There are memories of playing baseball with the Japanese, having my first kiss with a young girl in a snow field, watching father hitting golf balls across a racing track and alas a long hospitalization (eight weeks) for pneumonia, and being one of the first recipients of penicillin, a shot every four hours. Remember the isolation and loneliness of the hospital room at night. One day a new visitor, a Red Cross Lady came with presents, a model airplane and seemed usually attentive. She would be our new mother.

Returning home from the hospital I discovered separation and divorce was in the air. My stepmother sat us down and strangely enough suggested that we leave father and go live with her, an idea totally outside the realm of possibility, as we had discovered our livelihood depended on his governance.

The divorce concluded we returned to live with our maternal grandparents for two years in Beaverton, Oregon. When the Red Cross Nurse, Dorothy, materialized as our new mother, we traveled to live in Columbus Georgia, in a small house on a dirt lane, all too often caught in the sweltering heat and torrential rains. Home life was initially good, the new mother bought baseball magazines and books home as I imagined being destined to be a professional baseball player.

With time we obtained military housing at Ft. Benning, Georgia, again discovered grand living, dwelling in a large house with servants, facing the parade field on which we would see marching soldier, climbing a tree on one occasion and seeing President Harry Truman review the troops. Discovered economic independence with a paper route. The marriage soon began to totter. Conflicts with Dorothy wanting children, alas a younger sister arrived, against my father’s wishes.

Subsequently my father was assigned to Japan, my stepmother, Dorothy, and we three boys went to live with my paternal grandfather on a farm in Aloha, Oregon. My paternal grandfather, a Scotsman, emigrated from Scotland, across Canada and settled with his brothers in Oregon. His brothers went into the lumber business and became millionaires, and he a dairy farmer who loved the land. My stepmother hated the farm, drank too much and demeaned my aging grandfather. I was close to my grandfather, with him I cleaned the chicken house and followed him around, my twin was closer to our stepmother. I was the rebellious one. On one occasion she threw a pair of scissors at me with a slight laceration on the neck. We soon learned to wash our cloths and do our own ironing and care for ourselves.

My older brother Bob went away to college to escape the morass. After a year our father obtained housing in Japan and we soon traveled by ship to the Orient once again. This time a modest home in the Japanese community off the military base. On our arrival my father told Dorothy that he wanted a divorce, and after much verbal discord she returned home with our little sister. On one occasion when a captain in the medical corps at Letterman Army Hospital I visited her, but our sister had been tainted and would have nothing to do with our side of the family.

We soon met the fourth mother, Millie, a wonderful woman, loving and caring, a source of happiness and confront to our father. A woman known to embrace children.

My adult life has been marked with wonderful happenings. An early marriage did not end well but was blessed with three wonderful children, Deborah, Daniel and David. Each would bring into the world their own unique personality and perspective and each would develop their own professional and personal trajectory.

Following medical school, a master’s degree in Psychology and with the Vietnam War ongoing, a military draft awaiting, I volunteered and entered the Army Medical Corps. After an internship at Letterman General Hospital and residencies in General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center my military professional life began.

I was assigned as Chief, Department of Psychiatry at Heidelberg, Germany. The introduction to the enriching and stimulating experiences of a new country, culture and language left me with an ever wandering lust to see the world. I have done so.

A military career in the U. S. Army provided an interesting and ever challenging professional life: Thus followed three years as a military psychiatrist assigned to Heidelberg, Germany. Interesting experiences i.e. Trying to encourage a psychotic soldier down from the hospital flag pole as he felt persecuted by the Green Machine, alas the army; and, was asked to evaluate a young solder whose platoon sergeant thought he was crazy because he talked about his Spanish Princess. In a cautious manner I asked if he would bring her to our appointment and indeed a young Spanish Princess drove up in a Porsche.

Following Germany I would subsequently complete a clinical research fellowship at WRAMC; tours as Director of the Division Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and ultimately Chief of the General Psychiatry Program at the Walter Reed Medical Center, Washington DC.

My life would also be enriched by my immersion in psychoanalysis and ultimately my certification in child, adolescent and adult psychoanalysis at the Baltimore-Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. It is difficult to describe the joy in learning of the many psychological intricacies of individual life which such studies opens for one, and the pleasure of knowing and attempting to understand the complexities of individual life, the development of personality structure and the value such training provides the student in knowing and accepting the limitations of the life cycle. My military career would be tapped off with an appointment as the Psychiatry Consultant to the Army Surgeon General and an assignment at the Pentagon, where the enormity and complexities of the military mission was revealed.

While at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center I would meet Seana, my wife to be, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst; upon meeting her I was immediately entranced by her beautiful brown eyes, always a weakness, her sensitivity and graciousness of spirt, markedly kind by nature and a wonderful smile. We would marry in the chapel of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Marriage provided a continuing home for our children, nevertheless a difficult adjustment for three children who now had to weather two different homes, the causalities of the early divorce.

Our lives together were characterized by harmony, good will and a loving ambience. We traveled, flourished in our professional careers. While on a travel to France and staying in a castle in Normandy, she mentioned she could not eat as much without having the experiences of being filled. I had the immediate thought of a rare form of stomach cancer, Linitius Plastica. I encouraged her to see someone, but she procrastinated. Six months later, an endoscopy revealed stomach cancer. The University of Miami surgeons refused to operate as she was deemed untreatable. I was able to find a courageous surgeon in the private sector, who operated and she would live two more years which allowed us to travel a bit more, thus a trip to Ireland, a country woven in green and speckled with castles. We would drive and circumvent the island, nostalgic as the home of my ancestors; sad as the future was inevitable with its anticipated loss. A loss which occurred subsequently on 6 February 2002, after many days as her life gradually waned away. A day always re-experienced with sadness

As the Psychiatric Consultant to the Army Surgeon General at the Pentagon, I was the U. S. Army representative to the National Institute of Mental Health (1987-1989) wherein I complained about the lack of research in Child and Adolescent Disorders Research in this country. The Director of NIMH asked the army to appoint me as Director of the Child and Adolescent Disorders Research Branch at the NIMH. The assignment was professionally beneficial, but left me with an increasing awareness of the difference between my experiences in the military with its sense of mission, purpose and élan vital compared to the life of a public servant in government with practitioners often demoralized, just putting in time until they could retire. As a side note, having discovered sailing, I spent many hours, sometimes weeks sailing the Chesapeake Bay with its 6000 thousand miles of shoreline in a 30 foot Cape Dory.

Leaving government service (1989) I became Professor and Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Following Seana’s death, there was a sense of hopelessness as I could not imagine another life or finding a mate at my station in life. A few attempts as dating left me even more forlorn. Suddenly a woman emailed me as she knew a woman I had dated and indicated she wanted to meet me as she had been enamored by what she perceived as my poetic English in an email I had sent her friend. This led to a scheduled brunch on a Sunday morning. As Shakespeare noted, whoever loved, who did not love at first sight. Again it was the brown eyes, the delightful smile and a sense of graciousness and femininity. The attraction was mutual and we would soon marry. She is ever kind, generous and good willed. How is it to be so lucky to meet two such wonderful women? Her life has been markedly altered by a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease which she has challenged with true grit, without malice or ill will, but a challenge to be managed each day, in spite of the severity of the clinical symptoms which are so compromising and occur all too often.

Having left sailing behind in Annapolis, Maryland, and finding the warm sun of Florida I undertook the cruel game of golf which has been a source of pleasure as one pursues the perfect game; alas there is periodic reinforcement with the unexpected great shot which leaves one to come back again and again.

In the meantime my three children, Deborah, Daniel and David have procreated. Deborah, a social worker, separated from her husband has mothered two wonderful children, Jessica and Matthew, well mannered, introspective, and focused on living meaningful lives. They have internalized a sense of moral virtues and self-discipline which will enable them to succeed in life. Daniel, a tax attorney with Microsoft, has been burdened increasingly with Multiple Sclerosis, a burden he has handled with equanimity; somehow able to maintain a positive disposition and a focus on maximizing what is possible from a constricted life experience. Supported by a loving and dedicated wife, Anne, who has suffered all the consequences of being an interminable caretaker. Her support generously supported by their two wonderful daughters, Rachel and Rebecca. As a mother, Anne, has inchoate in them a wonderful sense of personal responsibility, loving dispositions and a generosity of spirit. Rachel has chosen to be a nurse a testimony to her commitment to her father and her wish to be there for him. Rebecca has taken the other trajectory and has followed her father’s career focused on a career in finance with an anticipated MBA.

David my youngest son would find his way through medical school, a brief sojourn in the military as a physician in Korea, subsequently completing a residency in neuroradiology. He would marry Peraza, a young woman from Iran, a computer engineer. Together they would have four children in a span of five years. Cognizant of the uncertainties of the future, they have martialed a home environment, disciplined and enriching, committed to learning, Peraza provides constant individual instruction, learning workbooks even in the summer to stimulate their minds. Their father continuously ushers them from one soccer field to another, swimming lessons and alas to ice hockey games in Austin Texas,

As I approach my 80th birthday the limitations of the life cycle are ever apparent with diminishing options. A wandering spirit has enabled me both professionally and personally to travel much of the world. Always interested in the history of man I gave up an interest in Anthropology to enter medical school. In the first year of medical school I promised myself if I didn’t like medical school I would go back to Anthropology so it is not surprising that I undertook the study of psychiatry.

The mystery of life on this planet has always puzzled me, as this shiny blue orb cascades through this immense universe, seemingly devoid of life; 14 billion years old, life 4 billion years; and, the history of man 2-3 million; and, many of the early distinct species of man having disappeared leaving only Homo Sapiens. So much of my wandering has been prompted to observe others forms of life as they navigate the exigencies of life on this planet and have stimulated a recent fourth trip to Africa to personally observe gorillas, distant relatives, in Rwanda and the magic of the world of lemurs on Madagascar.

I have always wanted to know the life and thoughts of those who preceded me in my family of origin. They remain a mystery to me. This book is written so that my life will be known to my children and grandchildren, that they will know the opportunities of a good life, the pleasure of a profession with purpose, meaningfulness and continuing enrichment and the gratitude for the wonderful derivatives that come to one from a wonderful wife, children and grandchildren who are already seeking to better their life. I trust and hope their lives swill be as meaningful as mine has been.

The maternal grandparent home where the Shaw boys were raised after the untimely death of their mother and after father went off to WWII

Grandmother Thyng, the maternal grandmother, who provided love and care for the Shaw boys after their mother was killed in an auto accident in 1941

Grandfather Thyng, Mayor of Beaverton, Oregon and owner of the local billiards and card tavern

Father, an attorney, a graduate of University of Oregon Law School. He practiced law until WWII called him to arms, and he would achieve the rank of Col. US Army

Vena Gatskill, the mother, an author and political advocate for the GOP

Richard, Robert and Jon Shaw, home in Ft. Benning

Twin boys, Jon and Richard, not sure who is who

Jon with chipped tooth, a bicycle accident will do that

Young student, Jon, reading Kafka, quite absorbed

Jon as a Col. US Army Medical Corps would serve as Chief Psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington DC and in the Pentagon as the Psychiatric Consultant to US Army Surgeon General

Deborah the oldest one with the youngest, David

The youthful trio

David Shaw, a happy camper in the Outer Banks

Young Daniel Shaw, a student and lawyer to be.

Seana, wonderful wife of Jon, physician, pathologist and psychiatrist, she would pass away from stomach cancer in 2001 with Rachel, the oldest daughter along with her parents Anne and Daniel Shaw

Son David and his four children: Melissa, Melody, Brian, Brandon and grandfather, Jon

Boating down in Biscayne Bay

Daniel, Rebecca, Rachel, and Anne

Jessica’s joyful meanderings

Matthew, thinking of the future

Family and friends at the wedding of Jon and Maria, November 13, 2002

Escaping with his new bride, Maria

Maria making new friends in Madagascar

SECTION I: TRAUMA AND WAR

UNMASKING THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY : PSYCHIC TRAUMA IN WAR

The author examines psychic trauma and the traumatic situation resulting from exposure to threats of injury and death in the 1982 Lebanon War. Clinical vignettes of Israeli soldiers who became psychiatric casualties focus attention on psychic trauma as an experience that overwhelms three processes: (1) the narcissistic defenses associated with the idealized self, (2) the mechanisms of denial, and (3) the illusion of safety. The author discusses the developmental origins of the illusion of safety, rational and irrational contributions to its configuration, and its importance as a psychological construct in the life of the individual soldier. (Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 51, 49-63)

Trauma has been defined as a stimulus, arising from an external situation or from massive inner sexual and aggressive excitement, which is experienced as overwhelming the ego’s capacity (Moore & Fine, 1967, p. 91). In this paper, I will examine the notion of psychic trauma that occurs as the consequence of overwhelming external influences. These influences may take the form of natural forces beyond human control (e.g., accidents, disasters of nature, illness) or they may be inflicted intentionally in the form of assault, rape, or war.

War is a vast laboratory that provides opportunities to observe how individuals adapt to an actual psychic trauma inflicted from without in the form of continuous threats of injury and death. To illustrate various modes of adaptation, I