Over the course of blogs, I have, for very good reason, rather concentrated upon – and in that way I hope, paid tribute to – the manner in which, over millions of years of our evolution as a species, man has successfully faced up to every new requirement and stage of that journey, surmounted each and every obstacle, (more often than not, placed in his way to promote and bolster growth and development accordingly) and as a species, is very much on course to undreamt of achievement and further growth. Had it not been so, man would, at some stage of the journey to date, have failed that test and would quite simply have become extinct.
Yet clearly, you and I possess the on-board potential to cope with every contingency and cope you and I can and will, if we so much as grasp the central truth; namely, that we control this moment; then the next and the next beyond that but always, ever, only when it becomes, “now”. This is of course, not to say that we should not maintain historical records for posterity or keep diaries and plan ahead, as indeed we do and must. However – and as we have seen in earlier blogs, headed, “Living each day at a time”, we live in a succession of “now’s”. It is all we ever had and will ever have. Much more to the point, it is all we shall ever need.
If I have learned one thing from life generally and from my days in clinical practice in particular, it is this. The real challenge is not to shy away from, but rather to seek through every available door and pathway, to awaken belief, stimulate interest and motivation and all in all, generate that exciting climate of the possible and feasible. Fortunately, this can be (indeed is) most successfully achieved with no more than bite sizes of information together with the “let life unfold” approach. Furthermore, it has its truest beginnings when the question with which we commence every day – or in the clinical sense, every session – and which resonates through every thought and sentence is not, “how are you/am I today?” but “how have you/I come thus far and coming to know our own shared, yet unique reality?” i.e. how do you/I see and interpret and manage the world that you/I know and live in?” and what are you/am I, learning from your/my successes and failures, in order to improve your/my rate of success?
No one doubts or would in any way dispute the primary need to promptly and expertly perceive the evidence and where feasible, diagnose the cause of any functional (daily performance) or indeed, organic brain impairment, where it is shown to exist. However, it is and will always be the individual himself/herself who remains the sole authentic witness to what they have experienced and are experiencing. By no means will it be only in isolated instances that they will have much to tell us and – as they engage in the process of articulating it – themselves also, of what they think and how they feel, given, that is, the opportunity and encouragement to do so.