A bit steep

At the clinic this morning I talked to a colleague who had a photo and a quote pinned to the board behind his desk. The photo was of a man who looked like Oswald Mosley, and I asked why he had the photo. He told me that it was a photo of an important psychiatrist, and he liked the the quote. The quote was an incorrect rendering of the powerful assertion by Viktor Frankl. On P 75 of my copy of "Man's Search for Meaning" Frankl wrote: ...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.


I questioned whether this man (a German writer called Leonhard Frank, not Mosley) had truly written those words. My colleague was unsure, and I therefore googled Viktor Frankl quotes and was reassured that my memory was pretty accurate.

An hour or so later I saw a young man recovering from a severe depressive episode, which had arisen at a time of transition in his life; his emotional and cognitive difficulty in managing that transition had resulted in negative thinking and an intense depression. I talked with him about a life purpose, meaningfulness and the reality that pursuing happiness results in it becoming further out of reach. He has decided to read Frankl, and I hope he finds it as illuminating as did I. He is on a steep learning curve.

Later this afternoon, I was asked to see an urgent new referral. Once again this was a person whose life is in transition, and who is responding with distress. It made me aware once again of the steep challenges facing young people in finding their role in life, their purpose, their bliss, as Joseph Campbell termed it.

Back to the apartment, I went for a walk with my camera and was attracted by the sight of a woman cycling home after work, who chose to dismount at the bottom of this short but very steep hill. I was impressed by the nonchalance displayed by her right arm resting on the handlebar as she climbed the hill.

The human spirit can conquer the steepest hills.