An Open Letter to Senator Scott Brown

July 31, 2011

The Honorable Senator Scott Brown

United States Senate

359 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Washington, DC, 20510

Dear Senator Brown:

The It Gets Better Project, launched in September 2010, is a response to a number of young people who committed suicide in the wake of bullying in school. Since that time, there have been over 10,000 user created videos that have been viewed over 35 million times. Who has made these videos? President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Lambert, Anne Hathaway, Mathew Morrison of “Glee”, Joe Jonas, Joel Madden, Ke$ha, Sara Silverman, Tim Gunn, Ellen DeGeneres, Suze Orman, the staffs of The Gap, Google, Facebook, Pixar, the Broadway community; people of faith such as Bishop Mark Hanson, Bishop Gene Robinson, the United Church of Christ, Jewish Seminary Schools, and small congregations like St James Episcopal Church in Groveland Massachusetts; and thousands of everyday people around the world.

A few days ago all but one of our elected officials who represent the Commonwealth of Massachusetts added a clip of their own to this project. I offer my sincere and deep thanks to Senator John Kerry and Representatives Ed Markey, John Tierney, Jim McGovern, Bill Keating, Stephen Lynch, Richard Neal, Niki Tsongas, John Olver, Mike Capuano, and Barney Frank.

As a psychologist who works with teens and a voter in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I stand with these courageous, outstanding, and dedicated legislators. I support our teens. I support the deep desire to make the world a little better place to be. As Barney Frank said in the closing of the sixty second clip, “It will get better. It will get better because you are helping it to become better—and this is in the end going to be the kind of world you want to live in.”

            Senator Scott Brown chose not to participate in making a sixty second clip. Through his spokesperson, Senator Brown’s office said: “Scott Brown has a strong record at the state and federal level against bullying and believes that all people regardless of sexual orientation should be treated with dignity and respect.” The spokesman went on to say “his main focus right now is on creating jobs and getting our economy back on track.”

The Senator doesn’t have the time to be the eleventh voice in a sixty second video clip?

            As for Senator Scott Brown believing that “all people regardless of sexual orientation should be treated with dignity and respect”—the facts add up to neither dignity nor respect. A simple search reveals the following about our senator (all facts found on the website Think Progress and then verified elsewhere):

-          OPPOSES SAME-SEX COUPLES RAISING CHILDREN: In 2001, Senator Brown attacked state Sen. Cheryl Jacques and her domestic partner, Jennifer Chrisler, for deciding to have children, calling it “not normal,” though later said he chose the wrong words.

-          CALLED OUT YOUNG PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT EQUALITY: In 2007, Brown “crossed the line” when he quoted profanity from a Facebook group and identified the students who used it when he was invited to King Philip Regional School District to discuss his opposition to marriage equality.

-          TRIED TO BAN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE MULTIPLE TIMES: As a Massachusetts state senator, Brown voted twice in 2007 to ban same-sex marriage after voting for two similar amendments in 2004.

-          TRIED TO CENSOR HOMOSEXUALITY IN SCHOOLS: Brown cosponsored the “Parents Rights Bill,” which would have allowed Massachusetts parents to prevent their students from learning anything about same-sex families in school.

-          TRIED TO OVERTURN DC MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Brown took a “state’s rights” position on same-sex marriage in his campaign for U.S. Senate, but in March of 2010, Brown voted for a referendum to overturn marriage equality in the District of Columbia. This was in contradiction to previous statements leaving marriage to the states. 

-          OPPOSES NONDISCRIMINATION PROTECTIONS: Brown has made it quite clear that he would oppose passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would protect LGBT employees from unfair hiring practices.

-          ACCEPTED MONEY FROM ANTI-GAY GROUPS: Many of Brown’s electoral victories have been thanks to the support of anti-gay PACs and organizations like hate-group MassResistance and the National Organization for Marriage.

-          NO SUPPORT FOR ANTI-BULLYING BILLS: Though Brown’s spokesman said he has a “strong record…against bullying,” Brown has not signed on to support any of the anti-bullying bills currently before Congress.

The senator has a strong record of supporting the dignity and respect of all American’s regardless of sexual orientation?

I’ve grown very angry and tired listening to politicians tell me what they think I want to hear. I’ve grown very tired of hearing politicians lie and get a free pass.

I’m sending this letter to Senator Scott Brown—and sharing it publically—to request that he respond to me and the citizens of Massachusetts with truthful, thought out, and reasoned opinions. If Senator Brown indeed supports dignity and respect for all Americans, I’d like to know how he specifically supports the dignity and respect of the citizens of the Commonwealth that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. I would like to see specific legislation he has authored, supported, or voted for that documents his support.

Most importantly, I want to know the specific ways in which Senator Brown supports LGBT youth in the Commonwealth. How does he envision a better world for teens? How does he envision a better world for teens who are bullied, victimized, and lost in our schools?

What do you say Senator Brown? Will you be a stand up sort of guy and support our youth? Will you rise above party politics and strategy and respond with your specific thoughts and beliefs about how we can make our world just a little bit better for those youth who need a stand up sort of guy?

The world needs to be a little better. The world needs you to be a stand up sort of guy Senator Brown. I need you to be a stand up sort of guy Senator Brown. Stand up and support our LGBT teens. Stand up against bullying. Do it because it's the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

Jason Evan Mihalko, Psy.D.,

Licensed Psychologist

C: Boston Globe, Lowell Sun

The View From Here: Mine Falls Park

During the last few years of my doctoral program I moved to Nashua New Hampshire. I lived in a great old converted mill building that stretched along the Nashua river. In my back yard was Mine Falls Park, a 325 acre park. Supposedly in the 18th century prospectors minded low-quality lead from an area in the park near a waterfall. A hundred years later men equipped with mules and shovels dug a three mile long canal. In the end, the canal provided power to drive the textile looms that were housed in my former home.

I discovered today that the trail is part of the growing New Hampshire Heritage trail--a network of trails that stretches along the Merrimack river from Massachusetts to the Canadian border. Perhaps I'll feel industrious in the fall and plan a longer hike. For now, here are a few of the sights along the trail in Nashua.

Psychological Platitudes: It's not your fault.

One of my first experiences in the counseling profession happened in 1992. One of my final courses in college was a practicum--I arranged to volunteer at a local rape crisis center. Things didn't start off well for me. A social work intern from a local graduate program said "men do the raping, women do the healing. You don't belong here." Suffice it to say, we agreed to disagree.

I had all sorts of experiences there. I did an extensive volunteer training. I went out on hospital calls. I sat in my office and did my best to support people. I helped a group of college aged men set up a support group for male survivors of sexual abuse. I got to carry a pager--that was exciting--I felt like I was someone important.

Only important people had pagers. Well, important people, drug dealers, and people pretending to be important.  I know for sure I wasn't a drug dealer--it's unclear if I was important to just trying to look important. I'm getting distracted from my point.

I learned language of a rape crisis center well. I learned that a supportive person was supposed to say "it wasn't your fault." I learned it so well I stopped thinking about it. I said it over and over to countless people. "It wasn't your fault." I told a lot of people that it wasn't their fault. I was following a script I learned well--a script that is taught in psychotherapy programs across the country. It wasn't your fault.

Then I had to go pay attention to what I was saying and everything changed.

A couple of years ago I started listening to myself. I started listening very closely to what my clients were saying to me. I started listening very closely to their experience.

Nearly every single client that I have worked with that has experienced sexual or physical abuse has blamed themselves  Maybe it has been every single one of them. I told every single one of them it wasn't their fault. While I was so busy telling them it wasn't their fault I was ignoring all the ways in which they felt like it was. Worse yet, I was invalidating their experience.

I was wrong to do that. I'm deeply sorry that I've made this error with each of my clients.

My error was a very basic one. It is one that I find almost unforgivable. I got away away from the experience of my client and said something political. I said something that I wanted to believe. I said something that I wanted to help. Saying "it wasn't your fault" isn't something we say for clients--it is something we say for ourselves. It made me feel better--I doubt it really made anyone else feel any better.

Each time I said "it wasn't your fault" I made an inhospitable environment for a person to talk about how they felt it was their fault. Each time I uttered that particular therapeutic platitude I invalidated the experience of another and closed the door on an important part of their experience.

I learned something else while I was at the rape crisis center. The director had said that people need to do what the need to do in order to get through an experience--they need to do whatever is required to survive. Some fight. Some check out and dissociate. Some cry. Some might even pretend that they like what is happening.

What an awful situation. The only choice someone having in these particular situations in one in which someone can willingly do something shitty and feel shitty or unwillingly do something shitty and feel shitty. That's no choice at all. At least it doesn't seem like a choice. It seems like an impossible situation.

My clients have shown me this shitty situation over and over. Sometimes I've been so busy ignoring them saying "it wasn't your fault" that they've had to find creative ways to help me experience this shitty situation so I'd listen to them and understand their experience.

Once I stopped with the quasi-therapeutic political platitudes my clients started taking about all the different ways they felt the trauma was their fault. They started to talk about the most absolutely horrific and harrowing situations in which they had to choose to willingly do something shitty and feel shitty or unwillingly do something shitty and feel shitty.

I went off the reservation and started being a maverick (at least in most rape crisis and therapy circles). I started listening to clients and their experiences of blame, shame, and impossible choices. I started helping create a place where people can experience more of their experience rather than less of it.

I think it is in that very place--confronting the impossible choice of willingly doing something shitty and feeling shitty or unwillingly doing something shitty and feeling shitty--that everything begins to change. An experience is given its full voice. An individual can confront, mourn, and move forward. An individual can make a new choice.

What do you think? Am I off the reservation? Are you going to chase me down with flaming torches and pitchforks? Some have said that the this choice--willingly doing something shitty and feeling shitty or unwillingly doing something shitty and feeling shitty--"perpetuates victimhood... it perpetuates shame."

What do you think?

I think rather than perpetuating shame, it can birth a sense of radical acceptance and liberation. I think that confronting that shitty dilemma allows us all to confront a reality--and give us the space to become fully alive.

Attachment

Our love lives, all of them, forge links in a healthy chain of normal development: maternal love, infant love, paternal love, friendship, partnership--one connecting to the next and then the next. The early attachment is the first link of that chain, the start of our ability to connect with others.

Deborah Blum in the book Love at Goon Park

Lasting Gifts from our Patients

Our patients often give us lasting gifts. Sometimes we know what those gifts are right away. Sometimes it takes years to discover them.

I moved to New England around this time of the year twelve years ago. I said goodbye to a lot of things--family, friends, familiar places from my childhood and young adult years. I also said goodbye to the first patients I worked with as a psychotherapist.

Between earning my first masters degree and starting work on my doctorate I spent two years working at The Free Medical Clinic of Cleveland. It was a crazy time to be working at the clinic. Started by a group of committed activists in the 1970s (click here for a YouTube clip about this history of the clinic), the clinic had outgrown itself and was transforming itself from a grassroots movement into a vibrant agency. It was a painful time to be there. 

It was also a transformative time to be at the clinic--it's where I learned how to be a therapist. I had already learned some important lessons about the craft. I hadn't yet learned how to be a therapist. I had yet learned to sit with all sorts of people with all sorts of needs. I hadn't learned to just sit and experience the experience of another.

I remember my very first patient. He said he wanted to me two questions before we began. "Are you gay? Are you HIV positive? If you are neither of these things how dare you think you can speak to  me."

I remember one of my last experiences at the clinic. A man who had been HIV positive since we knew what HIV was had told me "You have been more than a therapist to me. You've taught me how to die, and now I know how to live."

I learned many things during my two years working at The Free Medical Clinic of Cleveland. It's not the foundation my work as a therapist is built on but it certainly has provided me with a copious amount of raw materials to built what it is that I do.

What comes to mind today is the very last client I met with. He had a hard time with me leaving. He had a hard time saying goodbye to me. He left me with a gift--a Patsy Cline CD. In the card, he wrote that he believed that a good gift should represent something of the gift giver--some part of him. He hoped that I would take the CD with me on my journey forward and remember part of him.

I do remember that gift. I remember that gift most of all. It taught me about the gifts I give as a therapist. It taught me about the gifts I receive. It taught me about the part of me that carries on forever in the experience of my patients and the part of them that carries on forever within my own experience.

What gifts have you received as a therapist? What gifts have you received from your therapist? 

Here is a group called Women's World Voices singing a little Patsy Cline. It is a good reminder of a gift that I once received.

The View From Here: Summer in Boston Edition

A summer walk along the Fenway and the reflecting pool at the Christian Science Plaza...

Spiritual India: River of Compassion

"To explore is to dream, to grow, to learn, to experience." This video introduces us to some people who are working to save the Ganges river in India from pollution -- and in the process have something to teach us all about compassion.

"Sharing is life. Share with them whatever you have. Bring others also together to share that, whatever they have... When compassion is in the heart it is not that you are giving something to somebody. You are about to give. You melt. It is not that somebody is telling you to give. You melt." --- Swamiji Muni Baba.

Interested? Check out the video for more.