Good advice

“When I was young, people told me: you’ll see when you’re fifty. I’m fifty. I’ve seen nothing”
Eric Satie

There’s a meme that crops up on social media with some frequency where older people give advice about life. What’s really important, when it comes down to it? Here’s an example. It’s mostly good quality. You know, don’t focus too much on work. The simple things are the best things. The moments of connection with those you love are worth more than your professional successes. Floss. Stuff like that. Here’s one I’m not so sure about: “Don't marry someone just because you love them. Make sure your lifestyles, dreams and plans are compatible in addition to loving them. Those little quirks and character flaws you overlook for love can become huge problems later in a long-term relationship, especially if they conflict with what you planned or where you want to go with your life.” Not terrible advice, but I found myself reacting to it negatively. What about trusting your instincts, being spontaneous, taking a chance on an intuition? Life can’t always go to plan, but seize the moment, right? You might disagree, but I’m hoping that some of the people I love aren’t too bothered by my ‘little quirks and character flaws’, or I could be in trouble…

This kind of advice is famously lampooned by Shakespeare in Hamlet, through the character of Polonius. In his speech to Laertes he gives lots of good advice, but in that sanctimonious tone that could drive anyone to distraction. Polonius is an old bore, to put it bluntly. Of course it’s a good idea to “Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment”, but don’t keep going on about it… There are at least two responses to ‘good advice’: 1 listen carefully, because you might learn something and 2 ‘Whatever Grandad’. The first is probably the more sensible, the second the more adolescent. Thing is, I like that second response. It appeals to the adolescent in me and it’s much more expressive. It’s an assertion of individuality, the wish to make up one’s own mind about things, to learn from experience, the hard way, which, when it comes down to it, is probably the only real way. As a parent of teenagers I’ve often found myself in the Polonius role, bored by the sound of my own advisory voice, imparting the best course of action to an eye-rolling 15-year-old (when they’re being polite).

Richard Frankel, in The Adolescent Psyche, talks about the transition in adolescence from prohibition to inhibition, in other words, the development of what you might loosely call a conscience. This transition is where the eye rolling comes in. Once you’ve started to figure certain things out for yourself it’s unbearably tedious to have them pedantically explained to you by an old bald bloke. My capacity to connect with that feeling is, I hope, the piece of floating driftwood that sometimes helps me not to sink, as I negotiate other people’s adolescence. I read ‘older people’s advice’, feel irritated, and can then empathise with the teenagers I know. And they’re not only understandable, they’re also often right. Older people are full of it, and younger people have often got to the solution first. This also helps when working therapeutically. The therapist might be in a position of power in the therapeutic dyad, but they’re not much use to the adolescent client unless they can empathise, unless they can understand how irritating they are, just sitting there. One client I was working with was appalled to discover that I was the same age as a certain pop icon they identified with, because of their adolescent stance. Maybe this was a moment of realisation for them – ‘I’m on my own, because even Eminem is old now’.

Advice to my younger self? I’m with Eric Satie: ‘Relax. When you’re older, you still won’t know anything’.

The Flip Side

It's pretty grim for anyone on the left right now, or indeed for anyone not on the extreme right. How could all this stuff be happening? There are lots of explanations of course. The big puzzle for me was that people could vote for Trump once he'd crossed that line. Once the recording came out I assumed it was all over. No matter someone's policies or other appeals (bit vague on those too myself to be honest) surely the blatant misogyny would be the end of it. But if you're looking for a saviour, then you can become complicit in the con. That infamous recording contained the clue as to why it wouldn't be Trump's undoing. The key is the ignored first part of the statement, so distracted were we by the description of sexual assault - "when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything". 'They' being the women he was boasting of assaulting, but perhaps also, metaphorically, the voters. 'When you're a star...'. What clearer description of idealisation, of positive projection, could there be? Here's someone who understands how to abuse power. Once those projections have been elicited you're invulnerable. It's not that you can do no wrong, but whatever wrong you do will be forgiven, because now you're the man. You're a 'star'.

I have often worked with victims of domestic abuse in music therapy. Children with abusive fathers feel enormous ambivalence towards the perpetrator. Often, they want to believe the best about him (it's usually a 'him') despite evidence to the contrary. It's a terrible 'Catch 22' situation. The person they want to attach their hopes to is not someone who has their best interests at heart, but it's almost impossible to let go. This kind of therapy is slow work because just as it's difficult to disengage from unrealistic hope of the father, so it's also difficult to form new attachments based on a more integrated view of the other.

As music therapists, we have to be very mindful of the dangers of idealisation, as it can flip very quickly the other way. The client who loves you is a hair's breadth from disappointment, envy, hatred. If the music is exciting and fun it can easily become empty and repetitive, and if your music is admired it can equally be resented and suppressed by the client when they hit idealisation's brick wall. There's no future in idealisation, but in the meantime the idealiser is vulnerable to exploitation. It's only by repeatedly not choosing to exploit our position of power as therapists that we gradually build trust over time with the trauma victim. They know really that their illusions are fragile, so they try to maintain control. The play can be rigid, stultifying, accompanied by a feeling of stuckness. As a therapist you can start to lose your sense of identity. But this is better than being idealised. It's the beginning of the next step. The path to integration is tortuous and takes place incrementally, and disillusionment is an inevitable and healthy part of the process. Donald Trump would make a terrible therapist.