I love going into the Hope Café, never quite sure who will be there, apart from Josh and Susie behind the counter. Teresa from the Brazilian delicatessen next door occasionally pops in as does Duncan, the Hope’s manager. As you will appreciate, finding copy for my postcards is an on-going, delightful chore and places like The Hope, or on the bus, or in the supermarket, or on television, or traveling here and there, prompt ideas that sometimes take root, germinate.

Last year there was a programme on television I found fascinating. It was simply called ‘Couples Therapy’ and was a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the interaction between an Israeli-American psychoanalyst, Doctor Orna Gurainik and those seeking help with their relationships.

Interviewed about it, Orna said: “I think good TV, like good literature, gives people a space where they can imagine themselves in the shoes of someone else. It’s like a rehearsal. It’s the way play prepares us for a real experience. The participants in the show are incredibly courageous and generous. They’re giving the audience the option to jump into their shoes and go through the experience with them. (Ed: I find myself equally in either Orna’s shoes or those of the clients!)

My take on what makes things easier for couples and families is to be really mindful of boundaries and space. Create boundaries, respect boundaries, even artificial ones, Create space because there’s so much mashed togetherness in a ‘state of anxiety’ that I think is adding distress rather than helping. That would be my prime advice.”

I am much taken by the third series, airing now of British television, and was ruminating about one particular aspect as I entered the café, when I spied Mo, sitting at a corner table, head down into her mobile. She looked up and beckoned me over. I am always intrigued by people’s ‘back stories’ and knew nothing about Mo, apart from the fact she had been reading ‘Act of Oblivion’, Robert Harris’ latest book when I had first met her, (See PC 322 February 2023) so I was keen to elicit more!! Sometimes I have to preface the conversation with: ‘I am sorry if I appear nosey, it’s just that during my 16 years of 1:1 executive coaching, I found it fascinating to hear my client’s answers to “So how did you get to be here? Tell me about yourself?”

Mo admitted she had been a senior teacher in a private girls’ school but had decided to move to Hove to be near her aging mother, a fiercely independent woman who lived on her own in a retirement complex in Shoreham. We talked about this and that …… and what she was watching in television …… and she mentioned the Couples Therapy programme.

“Fascinating isn’t it?” I said; “This new series started when we were in Brazil so I recorded it. We’ve watched the first episode.”

“Well, I think I am up to date but I was stopped in my tracks during the first session of India and Dale, when they were explaining how they got to be where there were, on the couch so to speak”.

India and Dale

“Tell me more?”

“Firstly I needed to understand exactly what was said ….”

“At the beginning?”

“Yes, so I wrote it down:

“India: “I was born in Georgia and am an actress; have been in The Lion King here in New York for 8 years now. I met him, Dale, after my first three months and we dated for 4 years.”

“Dale: I come from an immigrant family. I was born in Guyana and then moved to Antigua when I was about four. We moved up here to New York City when I was a teenager. I feel like there are definitely underlying issues we struggle with and it sometimes it shouldn’t be as stressful as it is, it’s hard.”

 …. and this is the bit that rocked me back on my heels, so to speak ……

“I think as Afro-Americans we come into relationships with a lot of trauma that we are not necessarily willing to acknowledge, ready to accept, and there has to be a lot of soul/self-searching in order to understand how real life affects your relationship.”

 …. he seems to separate real life and relationships ……”

“You can’t have a relationship in a vacuum can you?”

“Don’t think so! A relationship with anyone, with anything, happens within the physical, emotional, spiritual boundaries of ‘real life’ There’s no other artificial place surely? But what about his belief that Afro-Americans carry a lot of trauma?”

“I can only assume he means from their historical past, going back to days of slavery?” And as one does these days, when the information lies through the Google portal, I got my laptop out and found, inter alia, “The Traumatic Impact of Structural Racism on African Americans” (Note 1)

“It’s interesting, something I have never been aware of, but there is a great belief that historical trauma, created in this case by the Slave Trade, is an example of intergenerational trauma whose effects can be felt generations later.”

Got me wondering whether other groups subconsciously are affected by ‘historical trauma’, such as Jews, persecuted over centuries, or the English with the invasion by the Vikings, and whether it really does play out in our relationships today, or is it just a crutch for some to lean on? And at this important point, I looked at my watch:

“Sorry Mo, could we continue this discussion next week, I really have to dash?”

“Sure!” a little surprised, “Next week? Wednesday?”

I nodded to Susie as I was passing the counter: “Has Sami been in recently?”

“Oh! Didn’t he tell you? He and Lisa have gone off to a yoga retreat in Kerala for a week and then another week exploring Goa.”

“Lucky chap!” I muttered as I thought of the heat of southern India and headed out into the March cold.

Richard 17^th March 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Traumatic Impact of Structural Racism on African Americans 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8352535/