A therapeutic alliance
How do you do?
Here, at least, for 40 days and 40 nights, a hard rain has been falling. But now, there's a small spot of sunlight on the wall opposite me, so let's crack on.
Which reminds me of Ronald Blythe quoting Camus
Albert Camus’s discovery – ‘In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.’
Or, on the other hand, one of Billy Collins' tiny poems:
I am twisting again
but not like I did last summer
or the summer before
or the summer before that.
I am twisting more slowly now
because it is cold
and I have grown heavy
and there is hardly any wind.
More perversion of incentives. From Expected Goals, about the data revolution in football.
Manchester City’s squad noticed that Pablo Zabaleta, their dogged and industrious right-back, had a habit of sprinting across the field during lulls in play. He had worked out that doing so helped him improve two key physical metrics: total distance covered and the number of high-intensity sprints he had produced. Others shuttled across the field while their own team was taking a corner. Tal Ben Haim, an Israeli central defender who played for both Bolton and Chelsea, won a reputation for playing endless short passes to his defensive partner to ensure his pass completion percentage was as high as it could be..
I couldn't resist Maybe You Should Talk To Someone because of the title. It's fantastic. There are some splendid little moments, like this idea:
He’s trying to establish what’s known as a therapeutic alliance, a trust that has to develop before any work can get done. In the early sessions, it’s always more important for patients to feel heard and understood than it is for them to gain any insight or make any changes.
And, I love this observation - the things we do to indicate the end of a conversation.
Before I know it, Wendell is patting his legs to indicate that our session is over.
We're off to the seaside next weekend. Just for a couple of days. Whenever we do that I try to remember this (from The Seaside):
In 1936 the poet W. H. Auden offered advice on this new fashion of holidaymaking for those unsure about how they were supposed to enjoy themselves. In The Way to the Sea, a publicity film to mark the electrification of a railway line to Portsmouth, then promoting itself as a resort, Auden urged:
Be extravagant
Be lucky
Be clairvoyant
Be amazing
Be a sport or an angel
Imagine yourself as a courtier or as a queen.
Accept your freedom.
Here was a new set of aspirations, the precise opposite of the working-class habits that chapel and factory master had vigorously promoted for the previous century, requiring a re-orientation away from a culture of hard work, thrift, modesty, caution, where collective endeavour was privileged over individual achievement.
PROMOTIONAL NEWS
I'm talking at this on Wednesday 27th of March. If you're in the area of Wilton's Music Hall why not pop along?
Get yourself an Interesting ticket!
Let's roll. And let's be careful out there.
Bye
(There are 973 of you. Belgium has a population density of 973 people per square mile, making it the 6th most densely populated country in Europe.)