Page 21 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 16
P. 21

Daniel  Eytan






                                        Daniel Eytan (Israel). Living in Haifa, Israel. Married to Lorena and
                                        happy father of Haleli, Elishay and Liel. M.A Clinical Psychology,
                                        UBA (University of Buenos Aires). Working at Rambam Health-
                                        care Campus, and private practice. Languages: Hebrew, English,
                                        Spanish and Italian. Member of The Israel Psychological Associa-
                                        tion.


                                          Former contributions in our eJournal by Daniel available here:
                                                                       https://emcapp.ignis.de/15/#p=126
                                                                        https://emcapp.ignis.de/14/#p=46
                                                                        https://emcapp.ignis.de/13/#p=94



             Daniel Eytan (Israel) speaks                      to bother you.“ I received these comments

             with Brett Vaden about his                        about  me  as  compliments,  coming  from
                                                               adults I respected and from whom I sought
             article                                           approval:  family  members,  school  tea-
                                                               chers,  people  at  church,  and  neighbors.  I
             Daniel: „At one point in the conversation,        imagine that, in making these statements,
             however,  I  finally  realized  what  Rachael     they were saying them in response to see-
             getting  at“.  What  caused  this  understan-     ing how I was handling some difficulty or
             ding for you, after two hours?
                                                               hurt. For example, in school I was a hard
                                                               worker  who  rarely  complained.  Noticing
             Brett:  I  could  see  that  Rachael  wanted      this behavior, teachers singled me out with
             something  different  from  me,  but  at  first   praise, which encouraged me to continue
             I thought just in terms of different behavi-      it.  What  adults  like  these  did  not  see,  or
             ors, e.g., remembering things she‘d asked
             me to do, being more thoughtful about her         chose to ignore, was that though I didn‘t
                                                               express  it,  I  often  felt  the  same  negative
             wants. If she was asking me to remember           emotions as any child at school does now
             more of what she said, well, I could try to       and then: boredom, ambivalence, frustrati-
             do that. If she was asking me to do more          on, annoyance. And so in other areas of my
             things  that  made  her  happy,  then,  yes,
             I could put more of her wants on my “to           life,  my  outward  „easy-going“  demeanor
                                                               was fortified more and more, while my in-
             do” list. But that‘s not what she was asking      ner feelings and desires went unseen, and
             for. She was identifying a bigger part of me      thus I assigned them a lesser value, if not
             than my incidental behaviors, a part of me        outright liability.
             that was more like a disposition or way of
             seeing. Let‘s give this part of me a name:        Thus,  because  „Easy-Going  Brett“  was
                                                               something other people liked, it became a
             „Easy-Going Brett.“                               part of me that I liked and was proud of.
             This self-description was not one I created       To be „laid back“ was a virtue. Moreover,
             by myself, but one I saw through the mir-         I not only expected extreme patience and
             ror of others in my life who said things like,
             „Brett,  you‘re  so  easy-going,“  „You‘re  so    flexibility in myself but also in others. Inner
                                                               feelings of frustration, anger, and the desi-
             laid-back,“ and, „Brett, nothing ever seems
                                                               re for retribution  or justice, on the other



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