Address to the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society Training Program Graduating Class of 2016

Abstract

Address to the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society Training Program Graduating Class of 2016 Michael Altshuler1 issn 0362-4021 © 2016 Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society group, Vol. 40, No. 3, Fall 2016 241 1 Private practice, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Correspondence should be addressed to Michael Altshuler, LCSW, CGP, 21 Jefferson Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. E-mail: altshulermichael@gmail.com. Good evening, everyone: invited guests, distinguished faculty, and, of course, you, the graduates of the 2016 Training Program. I am pleased to be here as you celebrate your wonderful achievement. It is an honor to salute your accomplishment and to welcome you as new colleagues. “THERE’S MORE TO DO?!” My theme tonight is the continuing education of the group leader. Some of you may balk at the thought of this. “Continuing! How could I possibly do more than I’ve already done?” If this topic evokes consternation, then think of my words as an invitation for future consideration. For those of you, however, still engaged in the sustaining embrace of group life, think of my words as a fist bump of recognition. In either case, let me begin with a question: Can you recall what you were doing at this time in 1992? Twenty-four years ago tonight, I was at my graduation from the Training Program—something I remember well. I recall, for example, my jealousy of the person chosen over me to represent our experiential group. Despite what I thought was my well-concealed fear of public speaking, I credit the wisdom of the group for joining my defenses and choosing someone else. I also recall how guilty I felt in the months before graduation, because I had stopped doing the assigned readings. I reveal this now, because the requirement to feel badly about it has surely passed. 242 altshuler But these memories are minor compared to the excitement I felt at completing the program and receiving what I viewed as my license to drive. I was on the road to becoming a Certified Group Therapist. My mother was happy. My wife was relieved. And for me, the productive weekly torture of exposing myself to fellow group members—a task one friend called “talking naked for the sake of professional development ”—was done. The rewarding misery of being a group member, though always illuminating, was now behind me! Or so I thought. After all, hadn’t the Training Program provided a solid foundation? Hadn’t it introduced me to the basics of group therapy and acquainted me with the tools needed to become a respectable group leader? Yes, it had. But I was wrong to assume that my education in the world of group was over. If I wanted to emerge from my agency practice at the time and discover where I fit—into what I perceived as the forbidding guild of successful group therapists (those whose papers I admired, whose books formed a shrine on my shelf)—I had to concede that there was more to learn. What I couldn’t know on that night in 1992 was that my wish to master the art of leading successful groups would be delayed because life had a different plan for me. DERAILED AND RERAILED During the last semester of the Training Program, my second daughter, Alice, was born. She was seven weeks premature, and within days of her birth, it was clear that something was terribly wrong. After much uncertainty and worry, my wife and I learned that Alice was born with a rare genetic disorder. We were told that there were only 400 known cases in the world. It was not detectable beforehand and not curable at any stage. This, however, is not the time to elaborate on Alice’s diagnosis or to suggest that being her dad made me a better person. Suffice it to say that from the moment we learned of Alice’s condition, neither she, my wife, nor I have lived free of the limitations and challenges that her physical and emotional needs placed, and continue to place, upon us. So why do I tell you this on your special night? Well, several years ago, when she was nearly 19, Alice...