EP, Behavior Genetics & Clinical Practice

I put 3 weeks of intensive concentration into this one, ignoring house, leaves, firewood, meals, and exercise. Cough and sinus infection developed and I breathed courtesy of sudafed for the last several days. My Vivitar projector died (after 6 years?) the day before class and I replaced it rather than switch over to a carousel. And I forgot my wallet on Friday morning, noticing the empty spot beneath my left hip some 20 miles down the road. I returned home and launched both me and the Z an hour after my original departure time. Cruising conditions were good even at ground level and she got me there 20 minutes before class. Delivered my talk on a breakfast of sudafed and Starbucks...the mixture elicited both mania, an obvious tremor in my right hand, and clucks of sympathy from several clinicians.

I gave 50 pp of outline and another 30+ pages of handouts and carried 200 slides.

Thirty came, listened, wrote, laughed, and asked many good questions. The room was full and 28 of the 30 stayed past the closing bell.

Hint for the future: Tidbits of "what to do if" were more appreciated than "the nature of evolutionary theory."

My presentation of a one-page, DSM 6, attracted more than passing interest. And my caricatures of Stu Kauffman's notions did likewise. Buss's material on mating was lapped up until there was nothing left. My idea of females as a quality control system for males surprised them.

I got through 1/3rd of my slides in the first 75 minutes and skipped most of the remainder as I crashed through behavior genetics and the idea that we are all twins of ourselves and should inquire of clients the details of their family history. Deriving freedom and personal will from genetics surprised and pleased them. They confused nonshared environment as simply another form of environment: my suggestion that NSE marches under a genetic baton was a little confusing for some. Likewise, the idea that clients pick and choose from the concepts that we offer to them.

There was appreciation expressed for a set of coathooks on which to hang their mini theories. One gentleman thanked me for my "plucky" style. Lots of warm, spontaneous laughter during the second hour. I probably clowned too much and bungled my explanation of why culture contributes less than we usually think and in ways that surprise us. I should have quoted Allport:

"That the cultural approach yields valuable facts we cannot possibly deny, for culture is indeed a major condition in becoming. Yet personal integration is always the more basic fact. While we accept certain cultural values as propriate, as important for our own course of becoming, it is equally true that we are all rebels, deviants, and individualists. Some elements in our culture we reject altogether; many we adopt as mere opportunistic habits, and even those elements that we genuinely appropriate we refashion to fit our own personal style of life. Culture is a condition of becoming but is not itself the full stencil." (Allport, 1955, p. 82).

Other things: The Association wanted an enrollment of 79, I didn't make it but I'm grateful for everyone who did attend, even the 2 who cut out promptly at noon.

I detected a soulmate and I'm both glad and sad that she's 35 years my junior...but reassured that the pattern does exist even if in a time frame other than my own.

Heartbreak: One psychology grad student wants to do an evolutionary dissertation in a non-evolutionary department. She wanted from me some awesome persuader that would enlighten her professors. My notion of a genetic loading for members of academic departments didn't seem to help...she was still "externalist"...learning and debate made them the way they are rather than their picking ideas and friends that matched their nature. I let her down by not taking her to lunch in order to review why her faculty may not listen and discover strategies that might please her without offending them.

Bottom line: I spent $100 more than I earned and have a new projector that I might never use. BUT I'd commit to do it all again in a msec.

JimB

Replies:

"Are You an Ecologist": The Next Generation, by James Brody, 11/07/03

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