The Stress Doc Letter
Cybernotes from the Online Psychohumorist ™

MAY 03, Sec. I

Fight when you can
Take flight when you must
Flow like a dream
In the Phoenix we trust!

Table of Contents

Offerings:        Training Kit & Book; AOL Chat
Shrink Rap:     A Cruise, "The Blues" and that Mid-life Muse
Main Essay:     Customer Service:  A Psychotherapist's Perspective

Sec. II
Readers:          The Florist, Funny, I Don't Remember..., The Army of the Lord, The
                        Truth About Men                   
Heads Up:        Women's Day, April 15th Edition, NASW Conference, Army Corps of 
                        Engineers, Celebrity Cruise Lines Feedback
 

A.  Offerings:

1. Training/Marketing Kit: Want to strengthen your ability to lead or market a stress workshop or any kind of speaking/training program?  Consider the Stress Doc Training/Marketing Kit, which includes both "how to" manual and articles and the opportunity for phone coaching.  For more info:   Training/Marketing Kit http://stressdoc.com/kitbook.htm or email.

2.  Stress Doc Book:
From Stress Brakes and Shrink Rap to Safe Stress and Cool Moon Cats:
The Wit and Wisdom of the Stress Doc, Stress Doc Enterprises, 1995

A 90 page compilation of my former syndicated radio essays, pioneering songs in the field of psychologically humorous rap music - "Shrink Rap" Productions - a creative visualization poem and other humorous lyrics/poems. "Stress Brake" radio essays are short (300 words), fast-paced and witty, covering such topics as stress, burnout, anger and conflict resolution, time management, creativity, men's and women's issues, romantic relationships, codependency, etc. (They make excellent fillers for newsletters.)

Price: $20 (which covers priority postage and handling)

Make check payable to:  Mark Gorkin

Send check to:

Mark Gorkin
Stress Doc Enterprises
1616 18th Street, NW  #312
Washington, DC 20009-2542

3. Chat Group:
Stop by my AOL/Digital City Shrink Rap (TM) and Group Chat DC Support Chat, Tuesdays, 9:30-11pm EST DC Support Chat. It's a dynamic, lively, at times witty and always warm, thoughtful and supportive problem-solving group. We raise questions and share our ideas, hopes and experiences with each other.
 

Shrink Rap:

The Stress Doc playfully and poignantly reflects on luxury cruise life and the aftermath -- a return to reality.  Challenging career and relationship issues await at home port.  Has the Doc discovered a "seriously funny" land based life jacket?


A Cruise, "The Blues" and that Mid-life Muse:
Dreaming, Dreading and Designing "The Big Picture"

Once again it is transition time, hopefully, a season for rebirth.  I need it.  The golden glow from my excellent Caribbean venture as a speaker on Celebrity Cruise Lines is steadily fading.  And spring presentation season this year doesn't get into high gear until May.  I've likely been struggling with speaker withdrawal.  The six-day cruise offered four "Celebrity Enrichment" programs -- each well received.  This past month only one gig, unless we count the lunchtime series on April 14th at the IRS when six folks showed.  Bad timing.

Clearly, some of my malaise reflects the return to shore bound reality.  These liners are more than just hotels at sea.  Cruising feels like primal regression:  you are immersed in a floating womb.  There's food, food and more food, even a midnight spread.  Breakfast and lunch buffets that could probably feed several war torn Iraqi towns.  And heaven forbid you should even experience a pang of hunger before dinner.  Not a problem with 4-6 PM pizza by the pool.  (My guilt buster was brisk walking around a portion of the upper deck outdoor jogging track after breakfast -- 14 times to a mile -- and doing my threefold workout -- treadmill, Nautilus and stretching -- in the health club before dinner.)

And speaking of dinner, they must have brought in waiters trained by Jewish mothers.  Our waiter appeared insulted if you didn't accept his offer for seconds on everything, especially deserts.  Really, how can you have Baked Alaska and Tiramisu?  I mean the guy even begged one woman to allow him to cut up her steak.  The service definitely encouraged the coming out of your inner prince and princess.  You couldn't take two steps from the buffet line before an attendant appears, practically snatching the tray out of your hands to deliver you and your repast to a table.

Of course, we're not just talking oral overload, but aural as well.  From a poolside Calypso-Reggae band colorfully clad in island shirts at lunch to contemporary and pop performers in the various lounges.  There's a talented piano man by the proverbial bar taking requests throughout the day and evening.  Oh yes, and at night, you have the Century singers and dancers doing their best to capture a little Broadway, a little Vegas, a little '60s.  (And after performing a workshop "Shrink Rap" ™, a participant roped me into doing raps for an on ship guest talent show.  As I said, it was difficult escaping the music or the absurdity.  Have no fear American Idol!)

If you do, somehow, find yourself out of earshot and are having musical withdrawal, you can always wander into the casino. No sensory deprivation there with its jangling slots and psychedelic lights.  And speaking of lights, on a Caribbean cruise all you need is some sun and a chaise lounge for constant stimulation -- from dripping sweat to dreamy sultriness.  And when the lights went out, sleeping at night was blissful; preverbal memories (or fantasies) while being gently rocked and swayed to sleep by the ship's and Mother Nature's natural seafaring rhythms.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Like I said, just about everything is geared to evoke a totally sensuous, womb-like state.  (Of course, some have the equivalent of morning sickness.  One convenient rationale for the continuous feeding is that eating supposedly reduces the likelihood of seasickness. Yeah right!  Fortunately, after brief first night queasiness, I quickly got my sea legs.)

Obviously, this cruise scene is not hard to take…but not for twenty-four hours a day, especially if you are out at sea for several days before getting into an island port.  While others questioned interrupting Eden-on-the-seas escapism with work, call me Type A (certainly better than calling me Ishmael. ;-)  Preparing and delivering on board programs added some structure, if not determinism, to all that irresistible freedom.  Maybe my New Yorker genes are still stronger than my laid back, Big Easy N'Awlins ways from the '70s and '80s.  (And my quip for moving to DC in the '90s:  If NYC and New Orleans had a baby it would look like Washington, DC.  Though, naturally, I can't vouch for its legitimacy!)

Actually, if you want tranquil without feeling tranquilized, then at sunrise or sunset head to one of the ships higher decks.  Grab hold of a railing and simply look, north south, east and west.  For 360 degrees there is only a never-ending, as far as the eye can seescape of water, horizon and sky.  Oh yes, there's also the mesmerizing white foamy wake as the ship plows through this expanse of sun shimmering royal blue and gold or through the moon and star cast, darkly mysterious, if not foreboding, horizontal purple majesty.

Suddenly, the all too human cacophony, hedonistic indulgence and over the top absurdity fades away.  One is face to face with an eerily still "big picture" -- the vastness of earth, the smallness of homo sapiens and, even, of seemingly massive cruise ships.  I'm part of nature's canvas, billions of years in creation, connected to a higher power.  Simultaneously, I feel humbled.  And there's also an existential emptiness within head and heart that mirrors this seemingly infinite, ineffable and solitary seascape.

Of course, this is just surface; out of sight is an incredible panoply of sea life.  Actually, this contrast truly hit home snorkeling off of St. Croix, Virgin Islands three years ago.  Watching the Discovery channel just can't create the same reality, as when a fish the size of a moving mailbox glides by while you instinctively gulp and intuitively grasp that if this monster shifted direction by three feet, you could be a lunchtime deposit.

Still, I can't deny the parallels between my "Tale of Two Cities" existence back home:  limelight intensity, sights and sounds and connections while performing on stage, including the performance anxiety upon diving into the unpredictable array of audience creatures; in contrast, feeling alone, lacking needed pressure and somewhat adrift when off.  The intensity and anxiety seems to help keep some of the existential demons at bay.

The Winter of Despair

Some of the disconnect is related to the breakup of a long distance, electronic affair.  An intense relationship that, in the end, despite thousands of phone hours, was more elusive hope than substance, more virtual than verifiable, more "romantasy" than reality.  Also, since returning north a dozen years ago, mostly business contacts and a men's group have replaced a once strong circle of friends.    Why?  One rationale:  DC doesn't have the same collection of readily available artistic N'Awlins "oddballs and outcasts" with whom I felt at home.

But there's more.  Until recently, the paucity of Post-9/11 speaking and training work and concomitant diminished income evoked those ancient, still gnawing cockroach-like inner voices (you know, ones immune to extinction) berating me for not being more productive, not earning more money…not being "successful" (like my six-income figure brother).  Not to mention credit card debt to stay "afloat."  (I wish a pun was intended.)  Perceived unworthiness may breed solitariness.

And hovering in the shadows is the Holy Grail quest to get published…"The Endless Manuscript."  A new editor must be found to give a final proof in order for me to self-publish.  And the enthusiastic Acquisitions Editor from the midsize publishing house lost the first round with house decision makers:  "Too many stress books out there."

But perhaps most troubling is that my life may be imitating my art.  Am I experiencing that self-created Bjorn Bored Syndrome?  The syndrome is named for the late '70s - early '80s Swedish tennis great, Bjorn Borg.  Despite a stellar career, for example, five back-to-back French and Wimbledon titles, Borg suddenly burnt out on the circuit.  Perhaps it was the mind-body numbing from endless hours of practice.  Maybe the novelty and thrill of winning titles was waning.  My Bjorn Bored formula:  "When Mastery times Monotony provides an index of Misery!"

Even securing a prestigious contract providing management coaching and team building services for an office high up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) food chain doesn't truly rev up my motivational motor.  I've walked this consulting/coaching talk many times before, under significantly more difficult circumstances.  At present, the intensity and challenge is lacking.  Of course, I'm pleased that the Office Director really appreciates my counsel and that he's getting very positive feedback from staff.  (And I am very thankful for some steady income.)

I don't even feel excited or driven to write.  I'm surprised this much has flowed from my pen this late afternoon.  It's not just the up in the air status of the book.  There's little sense of something new or compelling to express.  My best writing comes from the heart and is birthed by angst or some hypomanic state (or both).  Currently the writer's mind appears fallow.

Alas, there is no engaging woman on the psychic and libidinal radar screen for intimate connection and inspiration or, even, mutual distraction.  There's still unfinished grief from recent aborted relationships.  Most critical, though, is understanding how my loneliness, how a sometimes too unstructured life and how the biochemical war between the sexes, sparking those hormonal highs and lows, drive unrealistic expectations and impatient fantasies of instant intimacy and magical love.  With these issues so close to home, head and heart a writing project anxiously awaits, a project I periodically approach...then some large, still somewhat vague sadness wells up and I back away.

The fear may also be artistic:  I want to stretch as a writer, placing my relationship sturm und drang in a short story frame.  Exploring a new writing style and format feels a bit dicey.  (All of my relationship issues confined to a short story...Talk about another fantasy.)  Still, perhaps it's time to walk my Stress Doc talk, to try breaking out of the Bjorn Bored Box and "Confront the Intimate FOE:  Fear of Exposure."  In my head I know the drill:  shake up the life puzzle; grapple with the angst, start designing and assembling new pieces.  Now test out the product or process.  Engage with the feedback, generate a learning curve and nurse any ego wounds.  Then start all over...until it finally feels right.  But the vision, alas, must come from the heart and soul.

Finally, just turning fifty-five, I suspect age needs to be thrown into the psychic mix.  An artist friend seems to have done a fairly extensive social survey of folks in the mid-life to preretirement crisis range.  Her conclusion:  after turning fifty it definitely becomes harder meeting a compatible partner.  Even for men.  Is it because we post-'50s know ourselves better?  Have we become more picky?  Or do we prefer being somewhat unhappy alone rather than miserable together?  (What do you think dear reader?  Email and I'll post your answers.)

The Spring of Hope

Well, maybe there's both self-doubt and a glimmer of hope.  In my current mental state -- parts feeble, parts febrile -- trying to escape the boredom box, I've stumbled into a deep, dark Alice In Wonderland-like hole.  My ego and confidence inflating and shrinking through the bipolar free fall.  Then, just as the hole seems devoid of light and life, a spark…illuminating, perhaps, "the pass in the impasse."  Capturing my attention is a Washington Post Book World review of, Seriously Funny:  The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s.  And I grab the book and open it and, blessedly, it becomes a parachute slowing a rapidly cycling downward spiral.

This holy passage leads me back, once again, to that expansive mindscape, both seemingly infinite and empty.  But now, inspired by these "seriously funny" iconoclasts, the book has morphed into a life jacket and oxygen mask allowing me to view my existential surroundings without feeling as if I'm going under.  Reading is slowly breathing life into a seemingly exhausted imagination.

Yes, hype still springs eternal.  For several years people catching my "Shrink Rap" performances would temper praise with familiar advice:  "But don't quit your day job."  My customary refrain:  "It's too late!"  Now, however, people are saying, "You should be playing the Catskills."  (Hey, it's a start.)

I can't say when this transformation of psychohumorist to fledgling standup comedian exactly happened.  Maybe it's an evolution.  Six months ago, maybe a year, I began to consciously play with all the artistic elements -- pacing, intonation, volume, nonverbal gestures; knowing that nearly every word was potentially a dab of color and I could decide how to lay it on the canvas.  And now I'm truly bantering with the audience right from the start.  For example, the first few folks in a room become our "Stress Poster People."

It isn't just clever lines; the delivery, my whole essence contributes to the laughter and a more playfully provocative and electric connection.  The DC Improv says they will market me with their corporate training ("Motivational Humor") division.  Big surprise...for months they've been saying that their site will be up and running in two weeks.  Rites of passage never are easy.

Of course, I'm treading on dangerous water.  Is audience laughter and high speaker ratings a substitute for love, for acceptance, for self-worth, for my "higher power" source?  Okay, my narcissistic side cannot be denied, but there's more.  There's also a skillset, a confidence, an outrageous side that's been growing for many years.  And I want to display (and, yes, show off) my talents, a charisma, this maturing persona, and these thoughtfully clever lines on a variety of stages.

So I'm anticipating Spring Training and, especially, Opening Day.  The land based 2003 Stress Doc season begins in earnest next week.  Believe me, there are still plenty of trials and tribulations ahead.  And when I don't sufficiently connect with an audience or the audience doesn't get me, we're talking pain and ego-deflation.  For example, in a recent presentation to a 120 mental health professionals, a number were uncomfortable with my Stress Doc presentation.  Perhaps there were too many standard deviations from an acceptable or familiar professional persona.  For me, for a couple of days, the post-mortem was more postpartum.

So once again Freud was on to something.  He claimed the mature individual has the capacity to work and love fully or, at least, meaningfully.  (And I'm sure he would add rebounding from disappointment and psychic injury in a timely manner.)  Challenges on both career and home battlefronts lie ahead.  But this essay has opened up a window to my brain and soul.  Until I'm in a real ball game -- whether as a dynamic speaker or a more relaxed suitor -- if I can at least passionately express myself in words then I'm not a "paper tiger."  I can begin to shape this trying transition.  Hey Stress Doc, listen to your own hard-earned and exploratory-based wisdom:  "I don't know where I'm going…I just think I know how to get there."  Surely words to help all of us wrestling with mid-life dreams or mid-career identities generate new possibilities and realities and to…Practice Safe Stress!

 

Main Essay:

The Stress Doc presents both engaging concepts and key interventions from a psychotherapy perspective for shedding fresh and strategic light on the familiar yet vital topic of "Customer Service."


Analyzing Customer Service:  A Psychotherapist's Perspective

While contemplating an approach to this article a question started crystallizing:  Might a philosophy and skillset developed over thirty years as a psychotherapist (Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker) shed some fresh light and insight on the ever challenging subject of customer service?  Of course, in the psychotherapy realm the customer is usually called a "client."

Now I do bring a nontraditional practice perspective as a therapist.  My foundational training and subsequent experience encouraged an active, directive and educative professional role, whether as therapist or, with an expanding career path, as a management consultant.  No just sitting back and rubbing the chin and saying, "Hmmm."  (Though asking probing questions to better understand a person's needs, pain, vital history, desires and resources still remains a critical tool.)  Perhaps most important, I've come to understand that therapy or coaching is most successful when the learning process is relationship-focused and also stimulates cognitive-behavioral awareness and skill-building.  And communication is often the key; the service provider needs to convey empathy and understanding.   At the same time, a real, mutual back-and-forth that allows for difference, disagreement, even, some conflict (which still feels safe for the client) often becomes a catalyst for that customer service foundation -- a sense of trust.   Genuine engagement also facilitates: 
a) a sense of connection and healthy dependence; with trust a client shares an array of emotions and is able to lean on a service provider's judgment and experience,
b) which enables the letting go of unrealistic or, even, self-defeating expectations and fantasies while supporting calculated "out of the box" risk-taking,
c) often generating unconventional planning and purposeful problem-solving; remember, optimal difference and the process of resolving conflict often spurs novel and effective thinking and action, thereby
d) helping individuals and systems -- whether couples or families, departments or organizations -- experience a sense of competence while achieving healthier, more productive and rewarding goals.

The Dance of Flexibility and Firmness

Clearly, responsiveness to feedback and being flexible are vital for providing good service.  At the same time, being able to affirm the uncommon quality of your product and service, even in the face of doubt and skepticism, may also determine whether you gain and win over a new client.

Let me give an example of "flexible persistence."  A few years back, NIH (National Institutes of Health) was interviewing several training vendors to provide a half-day seminar for 150 attendees in an auditorium setting.  The panel of interviewers was skeptical when I proposed a very interactive program (including a small group discussion/drawing exercise) with these numbers in a confined setting.  I carefully listened to their objections, acknowledged their concerns and the importance of this high profile campus-wide event.  I was also amenable to adding content they deemed essential.  However, I steadfastly maintained a commitment to my interactive design and process.  Despite my step-by-step clarification, the client group still was having difficulty embracing their collective mind around the concept.  Nonetheless, the session closed on my confident note:  I would deliver a highly successful program.

Upon leaving the interview room, I wondered if my stance had negated a chance for the contract.  But, a month later, I was informed that the panel appreciated my specificity, clarity and confidence, especially in light of their skepticism and challenge.  Much like an anxious client, by leaning on the knowledge and experience of a therapist or coach, they were able to move forward into unfamiliar territory.  (Of course, client or customer caution may also reflect having been burned by a previous service provider.  When it comes to a client's history as a service consumer, you may need to explore before you can reassure.)  And their trust was rewarded with a program that garnered this testimonial from a committee member:

I must confess that I was skeptical about whether the interactive exercises would be appropriate for such a large and diverse group (about 150), but you pulled it off. You got their trust and I was surprised how enthusiastically they got down on the floor to bare their souls in the drawing exercises. We got great feedback from the audience.

Five Keys for "Therapeutically Engaging" Customer Service

Here are key therapeutic techniques and communication and relationship building strategies.  Consider their potential as parallel tools for cultivating effective and efficient customer service.

1.   Start Where the Client Is.  Understanding what the client is asking for or "where they are coming from" is critical.  Too often, even skilled counselors can lose sight of this starting point axiom.  Sensing that a client's presenting problem with a boss or a "bossy spouse" has its roots in an entangled family tree, the therapist begins to dig prematurely for the deeper stuff.  The expert knows this is the path of real insight and personality transformation, not just superficial behavioral change. (Never mind that the latter is what most clients want, at least initially.)  Big surprise.  The client feels discounted and not understood, and even more vulnerable or angered by such a confusing process.

The moral:  make sure the person you are trying to engage truly believes you understand his presenting problem or request and feels like he has some input in and control of the service delivery -- problem-definition and problem-solving -- process before selling the client on bigger and better ideas and solutions.

2.  Speak the Client's Language.  Beware dazzling a client with psychobabble.  (Of course these days, technobabble has become public communication enemy # 1.)  Especially when dealing with abstract concepts, provide visuals and hands-on demonstrations.  For example, I'll often draw (or encourage clients to draw) interaction maps to better see and get the web of authority/dependency relationships or actual patterns (one-way, mutual, etc.) of communication in a nuclear and extended family.

Naturally, to speak a client's language, you also must look and listen for their body language, facial gestures, and tone of voice, loudness and emphasis.  These cues will help you gauge interpersonal comfort level, interest and mutual pacing.  For example, are you moving too slow or too fast, providing too much direction or not enough?

3.  Allow for "Yes, Butters."  Frequently, service professionals try to meet a person's questions, concerns or objections with relevant or convincing data.  We are trained to be problem solvers.  However, sometimes people raise questions or barriers as a way of testing a relationship or for establishing a sense of power or equality in the interaction.  Providing the client with an irrefutable, "knockout" answer prematurely will likely only short-circuit a chance for providing service.  Actually, encourage skepticism and doubts.  First, handling this challenging communication in a non-defensive manner is trust building.  Second, social psychology research shows that after allowing a rebuttal to our position people are often more open to persuasion or some modification in perspective.  Again, people don't just argue facts and figures but also the status and security of the relationship.  As I like to say:
If we can allow people who say, "Yes, but"
To rebut
Even if they are a pain in the…
Then we can often get them to say, "But…Yes!"

4.  Develop Four Keys of Active Listening -- Clarifying, Paraphrasing, Reflecting Feelings and Summarizing.
a. Clarifying.  Ask questions to help a client sharpen his or her thinking on a subject and improve your understanding of the client's perspective.  Many people hold back from asking questions for fear of being perceived as intrusive or pushy.  Exploration often helps a client consider ideas and issues that heretofore had seemed puzzling or foreboding.  And when you accept a client's signal that he or she wishes to go no further down a "questionable path," you respect his boundaries and allow for client control.  Ironically, allowing others to assert control may eventually loosen a fixed position, help overcome resistance and/or induce attitude change.

b. Paraphrasing.  In your words repeat your understanding of the client's message.  Conversely, especially when sharing complex or substantial information, ask the customer to paraphrase what they heard you to say.  Warning:  Paraphrasing should not be used robotically or prematurely.  The goal is to affirm that, "Message Sent Is Message Received."  This is no small feat as most words have multiple meanings, and spoken words are always embedded in a verbal and nonverbal context.

c. Reflecting Feelings.  Again, don't just try to win an argument or win over folks with facts.  Especially when pained or passionate about an issue, people want to know that they have been truly heard and that you "get them" on a feeling level.

d. Summarizing.  Before reaching closure, whether one-on-one or in a business meeting, recognize and share your understanding of key individual points, interpersonal processes and agreed upon future plans.  Don't leave the room without around the table acknowledgment or without mutual recognition of issues still to be resolved.

To maximize active listening, consider this thoughtful trio:
* connect with a person's pain and predicament, purpose and passion
* equalize the relationship as much as possible; hopefully, you are still the authority and the client, while needing assistance, is still being engaged as a capable, problem-solving partner
* help other's accept, if not laugh at, their own mistakes or flaws.  Be a "healing humor" role model.  By comfortably acknowledging and playfully sharing your foibles and imperfect humanity, you will definitely put others at ease, make friends and win followers.

5.  Close Thoughtfully.  Here are my four closing questions, especially after an initial meeting:
a. how did the person or group experience the session?
b. was there anything in my communication style or our interaction with which the client was uncomfortable?
c. did the client get at least one tangible idea or tool in our session? And
d. does the client wish to continue?  A "yes" here often signals the start of a working relationship.  You now have a foundation for building upon and sustaining solid client or customer service, for evolving a mutually beneficial client-professional alliance and for helping all parties…Practice Safe Stress!
 

Heads Up: 

1) I received the inaugural National Association of Social Workers-Metro-DC Chapter Social Work Entreprneur Award.  I informed the audience that this shows that the journey is as important as the destination.  With all the uncertainty, all the financial and emotional peaks and valleys, you have to truly love what you are doing, or feel compelled to your path, if not bliss. ;-)