A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I am currently enrolled in an expensive graduate program at Antioch University, to get an MA in clinical psychology with a specialty in Trauma. I intend to become a psychotherapist specializing in survivors of trauma, such as child abuse, domestic violence, war, serious accidents or illness, secondary trauma (such as police, war reporters, even trauma therapists), and so forth.

This degree will enable me to help others, and have a satisfying career for myself. It may enable me to write books on the subject. While I am in school, I have been honing my skills and amusing you by diagnosing fictional characters.

If you would like to help support me in all or any of those endeavors, I have put up this "donate" button.

Final papers done with 45 minutes to spare!

That is the most down-to-the wire I've gotten on an assignment since I was an undergrad. The Psychological Testing paper required so much data analysis that it took way more time than I'd allotted to it, causing everything else to be rushed.

Two more classes to go, then I'm on vacation till July. THANK GOD.

Antioch continues its tradition of registration fuck-ups. This time they varied the cause by putting a hold on my registration for lack of payment of fees. Needless to say, my fees had been paid in full. Amazingly, despite having to throw sequential fits at the registrar's and accounting offices, I still got all my classes.

Full classes

Group Therapy. Apparently in this you can choose to be a rotating group leader, a member of the group, or an observer. Haven't decided which I want to be; I'm torn between leader and group member.

Personality Theory II: Postmodern Theories. I gather that the professor teaching this is very experiential. I have heard some interesting descriptions of this class. Could be wonderful or bizarre or both.

Conflict Resolution, PTSD, and Self-Care Issues for Mental Health Professionals. Taught by Colonel Professor Jack Kempton, who taught my military PTSD class and is awesomesauce.

Frontiers in Integrative Depth Psychology. Totally unenlightening title conceals actual subject, which is generational and cultural trauma/dysfunction. (ie, your family was persecuted because they were Jews (cultural trauma) and your family tree is full of alcoholics (generational problems. What does that do to you? How do you deal with these larger-than-individual issues in therapy?)

1-2 Day Workshops

Assessment and Treatment of PTSD in Civilian Populations

Domestic Violence in Military Personnel and Military Couples/Families

Introduction to Jungian Sandtray. SO EXCITED.

No word yet on the traineeship. If I get it, I might have to rearrange my class schedule.

Also, I am totally exhausted and cannot wait for the break. The Japan trip was wonderful but not exactly relaxing. I have been working or going to school or spending the whole day doing school work an average of six days per week since January.

I managed to write three of my four papers due on Monday or Tuesday. I have to write the Trauma paper today. (And then bake a cake and go to dinner with classmates.) Cheer me on!

I had an amazing anxiety dream last night, combining a grand total of 10 separate anxiety-dream elements into a reasonably unified narrative. Well, maybe only 5 if you count all the purely toilet-related stuff as 1.

( Cut for dream and the eternal search for a toilet )

The Cause: I am holding a two-day read-a-thon to raise $2700 to attend "Japanese Approaches to Mindfulness," a 10-day study abroad in March staying at Shunkoin, a Zen temple in Kyoto, to study Zen, mindfulness, and Japanese concepts of psychology and mental illness. The abbott is active in the local LGBTQ community, and we will be meeting with LGBTQ activists as well as with practicing psychologists. I think this will benefit me professionally, and will also be helpful to my future clients. (I am studying to become a psychotherapist with a focus on survivors of trauma.) I will blog and take photos, for your enjoyment.

How to Participate: Please comment with an offer of an amount of money per book read and blogged. You may put a cap on the amount. ("I offer $15/book, with a cap of $150.") In two days, I can read 6-10 books. If you sponsor me, you may propose a book for me to read. I will do re-reads, but not of books already blogged. (Check tags by author.) You may also make a general proposal, like, "Something by Robert Heinlein/an Old West memoir/one of your childhood favorites."

If a book is too hard to obtain, I will ask for an alternate. Please don't propose anything extremely long or dense.

FYI: I happen to have obtained a copy of the sequel to Sexteen, which I have been saving for a special occasion.

Please consider linking this post, to pull in more participants. If I have more sponsors than books I can read, I will give special consideration to larger donors and/or and/or prior participants whose books didn't get read and/or especially interesting nominations and/or hold a poll.

ETA: Day One of the read-a-thon will be held on SUNDAY, January 8. Day Two is TBA until I find out more of my schedule, but will be on Wed, Thur, Fri, or Sat of that week.

ETA The bookshelf photos are only for possible inspiration! Absolutely no need to limit yourselves to those!

( If you need inspiration, here's some photos of my to-read shelves. )

Attempting to get a jump on and also organize my required reading. Long.

( Read more... )

Registration this go-round was much less painful than last time, when the computer enrolled me in classes at the same day and time (Help desk guy: "That's supposed to be impossible,") causing me to madly enroll last in whatever was still open.

This time I did do some mad rushing last night to formally declare a double specialization in Trauma (non-combat) and Spiritual/Depth Psychology before registration to get into classes held for people with specializations, but everyone was very helpful and it worked out. I am seeing the benefits of belonging to a small, private college, because if this was anywhere else I've ever attended, I would probably still be at the registrar's office now.

I still don't know if I can go to Japan. Registration for that was delayed for everyone due to some technicality. When it opens, we all put our names on a wait-list, and then they hold a lottery.

My classes for next quarter:

Monday 10:00 AM: PSY 548 Ethics and the Law
Sect 1: Joel Andres 3 units

Monday 1:00 PM PSY 501A Process/Psychotherapy I -
Sect 1: Zari Hedayat 2 units

Monday 4:00 PM: PSY 531A Personality I -
Sect 1: Doug Sadownick 3 units

Wednesday 7:00 PM: PSY531H Intercultural Transpersonal and -
Depth Psychology
Sect. 1: Thomas Mondragon 3 units

PSY522 Effects of Trauma on Human Development and -
Neurobiology; Social History and Current Issues.
Sect 1: Joel Andres 2 units
Dates: Jan. 15 and Jan. 29 , 9am - 5pm


MAYBE

PSY 525F Japanese Approaches to Mindfulness and Mental Health -
Sect 1: Matt Silverstein & Marli Kakishima 3 units
March 14-March 24, Shunkoin Temple, Kyoto, Japan


Three classes on Monday - yikes. But all three are core classes I need to take next quarter. I haven't had any of those professors before. The Wednesday class is taught by my favorite professor from this quarter, so I pounced on it. No idea what it will actually be like, but judging by the class I have with him now, it should be intense and amazing.

[Poll #1799574]

Final paper is looming terrifyingly on the horizon. I have limited time this week, and it is due Monday. I have widely varying knowledge on the topics I listed on the poll, but I would have to do substantial research for any of them. So if anyone has tips like, "This one slim volume is the single best resource on the soul-figure/asexuality/fisting which can be read in a short period of time," please go for it! (These are not all the possible topics. They're drawn from a much longer list, whittled down considerably by factors like lack of interest and the phrase "object relations," which in my very short experience so far tends to point to excessively eye-glazing articles.)

I got so frazzled last week that I misread the due date for the final paper for another class, and madly wrote and turned it in yesterday... a week early. I guess that turned out to be a good thing, all things considered.

Also, I have to register for classes tomorrow and am worried that I won't be able to get into the classes I am most dying to take, now that I know who the best professors are.

Given my current state of stress-driven absent-mindedness, I should probably mention now, since it randomly popped into my mind, that there is a new Sarah Tolerance book out! I have my own copy of The Sleeping Partner: A Sarah Tolerance Mystery, and am saving it for the winter break, when I will have more relaxed time to read. Also, Sherwood Smith's Blood Spirits (Coronets and Steel), sequel to Coronets and Steel, is out! I read it in manuscript, and it is excellent. Both series will satisfy all your "women who fight with swords amidst a background of history and intrigue" needs.

ETA: Okay, I'm doing fisting. I found the Pat Califia essay I had recalled. It's called "Gay Men, Lesbians, and Sex," and it's worth reading. On Google Books. If anyone has further good fisting resources, online or offline, keep them coming!

I don't know what this is called - fake etymology? - but it's the academic practice of breaking up or altering words in order to produce an insight which is either obvious and unnecessary, or a ridiculous stretch.

My annoyance is brought to you by an article by John Bradshaw, "Healing the Shame that Binds You," which contains both "un-family-iar" (unfamiliar) and "at-one-ment" (atonement.)

You will be unsurprised to learn that I am also not big on "herstory," "womyn," and "re(member)ing."

We will see if I manage to get all the way through grad school without producing a paper parodying this, like "Re(store)ing the di-vine: Dionysian X-stacy and the pow!er of for(merely)bidden s(pee)ch."

10:00 AM on Mondays. That's what I call starting the week with a bang!

Awesome: One of the required texts is The Clitoral Truth: The Secret World at Your Fingertips.

Less Awesome: It also requires a course reader costing $140. WTF!