Hello Annabelle,
Call it a matter of curiosity or trust or whatever, but I would like to know about your qualifications to disseminate advice. I know that your site states that you have a doctorate in psychology, but I need to know where I can cross-reference this information, i.e. what graduate school
did you go to?
Or simpler yet, to establish credibility - how about your full name?
I know, perhaps you might claim that I have issues with trust, but I think you would agree that it is not too much to ask of person who says they are qualified to give advice, to at least verify some of there qualifications.
Would you be willing to share this information with me?
Just Wondering,
Rob
Rob.....
Ingenio has taken the guesswork out of this for you (for all of us with advanced degrees are thoroughly checked out before we’re allowed to put those letters after our names). I graduated both from UCLA and from the California Graduate Institute.
The blog is not so much advice, it is more dissemination of what I consider to be important information, personal opinion, general nagging and whatever else may seem of use.
The concepts themselves are often lofty, complicated and convoluted, but they can, in many cases, be translated into ‘street talk’ and I have never thought it necessary to feel ‘above’ anyone or to seem ‘more than’ just because I earned a doctorate. We all live in the same world and sharing the decoding of life’s mysteries, pains and pleasures seems a decent thing to do.
The blog serves as something of an ‘interpreter’ between what seems obscure, and the real world in which we must all live.
This is more along the idea of introducing folk to a way of thinking that may not have occurred to them and to allow someone to, possibly, see another way of approaching a difficulty.... sort of crossing theorists, Freud, Jung, Klein, Horney, Erikson, Wittgenstein, Bion, Hedges, and others, with a touch of Bombeck, et al.
It can be seen as a way of allowing someone, who is ‘standing on a railroad track and squarely in the path of an onrushing train’, to realize that they ARE ON said ‘railroad track’.... and that light that they are seeing IS, indeed, a ‘train’ and, if they don’t step OFF said track they are, once again, going to get ‘run over.’....and why.
It’s about the discussion of possible choices.
People get into difficulties that have, for the most part, understandable patterns to them and they can, more often than they realize, (through better understanding of their part in their own lives), begin to make different decisions that will, by the very nature of decision making and action taking, make a very big difference in how they are experiencing existence.
No, no one ‘died and left me in charge’...... this blog is what it is.... my, often, never-to-be-humble-opinion. I’m sure that I will, sometimes, say things that are just really, well, dumb.
I prefer to remain, more or less, anonymous because my private life is just that, private. The blog is not 'about me', but about ideas and about stimulating new thoughts and understanding in others..... and, (it’s my hope), .....sparking resolve... to make better choices.
If you were to read all 5000 letters in the AskAnnabelle archive, you would, over time find out 'who I am' for the answers are, of necessity, a reflection of my self and my outlook on the world and it's workings.
I'm of the opinion that readers may, or may not, find the information useful and new ways of looking at things may, or may not, be of interest or have validity for any one, particular, person.
That someone uses what I have to say is up to that person. All questions are answered.... what someone then does with that information is up to them. Am I always right? Good heavens, no.
If I’ve been writing just after having downed one of Ben & Jerry’s lethal chocolate delights I may be over stimulated and silly.... at other times I may just feel stupid.... and, at other times cranky.
Sometimes it’s easy, other times it’s like slogging through glue.... but always, I take it seriously because the folk who have taken the time to write deserve respect.... and some of their pain is palpable.
Your life is your own.... and to take someone else's ideas as
gospel is not nearly as useful as observing a new possibility as a way of dealing with an ongoing difficulty.
Knowing who someone else 'is' is not nearly as useful as learning who you are....... for the lens of your life is filtered and focused through those experiences.
Finding modifiers to your filter is part of your journey.... and the direction of that journey, as are the adventures along the way, is up to you.
Annabelle