The False Memory debate continues to fire, and provoke intense opinion. This month, Richard Moskovitz, MD, in his latest novel Carousel Music, describes in fictional form the dynamics of this contoversial issue. He writes...Sharing the exploration of a personal history is a sacred trust. It requires a therapist to suspend judgment and to listen attentively to the story and to the emotions between the lines of the story, all the while trying to divine the connections between past experience and present day struggle. It requires sensitivity both to the emotional needs of the person reaching out with his or her story and to the powerful influence that the listener can have upon how the story unfolds. Read the full article

I cannot stop thinking about all the losses in my life.
By Cary Tennis

May 18, 2006 | Dear Cary:

You probably get a million letters like this, but I am sad all the time and I'm not sure I can cope with it much longer. In 1997, my mother died unexpectedly at the age of 52. I was 27. A few years later, my brother and I had a falling out, and I haven't spoken to him since. (In fact, I can't even find him; I've tried!) Last year, my wife of 11 years and I divorced through every fault of my own. Two months later, my best friend of 25 years died very unexpectedly (age 39). Since his death, I have not stopped, even for a second, feeling like bursting into tears.

At 36, my life has more or less been nothing but a series of self-inflicted catastrophes, and I've been depressed for nearly as long as I can remember, stretching back into my early adolescence. I mention that just to avoid sidetracking into that area. Yes, I'm a depressive person who has never really sought assistance for that problem (and really cannot because of an ongoing lack of medical insurance). But what I'm really concerned about now is the feeling of sadness and loss for not only my friend and my mother but also my brother and ex-wife, all people I loved who are, for one reason or another, now gone from my life.

Everything I do, everything I see, everything I enjoy reminds me of one of them, and it cripples me. Emotionally, that is. Mentally, physically, I've been going through the motions: Since my mother's death, I've accomplished a lot both artistically and professionally. But the aggregate losses I've suffered are catching up with me, and I'm beginning to feel like I just can't take it anymore. I have no family, no one close, and I am finding no joy whatsoever in life. I simply don't understand how I can go on without my family and without my friend. I can't see the point in going on without them and, really, don't want to go on without them.

But although I think about suicide a lot, I know that I must go on. So my question is this: How is that done? How does anyone do that? Since my divorce, I've begun considering converting to Judaism, and in the process of that examination, I've reencountered stories of Holocaust survivors. Not to equate anything I've gone through with that experience, but the fact that so many of them did go on (although some did not) after suffering such indescribable losses tells me that this is possible. But how?

Thank you,

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