READ CHARLES’S FORWARD

His name was Thomas Murphy. He played first chair violin for the Metropolitan Opera for thirty one years. A true virtuoso, he was hired within weeks of graduation right out of my/our grad school after his first and only formal audition for a seat in the MET’s “orchestra pit” while I was still studying psychology and English Lit as a graduate student myself. We became very good friends over the three years we were in grad school together and remained so for nearly forty five years thereafter.

Tom was a fabulously entertaining and energetic drinker, and there were many occasions for drinking in grad school with profs and fellow students, friends and lovers and a number of notables among us, grad students and professors alike, some still majoring in minors: i.e., college freshwomen and nubile undergrad sophomores.

Being in grad school for another four years after college seemed to put off the transition to adulthood for a bit, during which you could see the molds of Self forming within and around you. There was plenty of room for introspection (a.k.a. navel gazing). This was the time for putting the finishing touches on our respective Identities for many of us soon to be embarking on professional career paths.

Tom’s path and destination were never in question: they were one and the same. He was a lifelong student of music, specifically of the Romantic Era, more specifically Italian opera and German lieder which, as it turns out, seemed to make him susceptible to bouts of depression masked by the frivolity of partying, drinking and playing violin or piano.

Invariably, at some point during the merrymaking, Tom would pull one or another of us aside and ask: “What is the meaning of life?” That’s when we all knew he was “in the zone,” a kind of twilight zone between sober and drunk, in a space or place he loved arriving at once he got “there” but which caused leaving “there” to become psychologically troublesome at times. He always asked that question with serious intent, as though asking it for the first time every time: “What is the meaning of life?” No one, including myself, had an answer that held up to scrutiny, and this was among the best and brightest people I knew!

Some years later, Tom, with his beautiful wife, Maggie, had two lovely daughters: Cloe and Zoie. Twins who, by all appearances, were born a few years apart. But within sixteen years, Tom lost Maggie to a cruel cancer and Cloe first to a pedophile, then to her intentional ligature seventeen months after “the incident.”

Toward the end of Cloe’s funeral, Tom raised his swollen, bloodshot eyes to me. “What is the meaning of life?” he asked in a ghostly voice very much removed from the here and now. I was in no mood to pursue his infernal question, for which there was no answer. I just shook my head and stared at the temporary grave marker.

“I know now,” he said as he put his hand on my arm. “I know,” he nodded.

I turned and looked at him.

“Life, itself, has absolutely no meaning whatsoever, only the meaning you lend it,” he said as he turned and shuffled off alone down a cart path to the final notes of bagpipes playing “Danny Boy” even though Cloe was a girl.

The tragedy that has befallen the Murphy family didn’t end with the death of Maggie and Cloe, it’s ongoing: Tom struggles to keep himself alive with depression so severe he’s sometimes immobilized for days. Zoie’s been on suicide watch and institutionalized several times having survived being sexually assaulted during the first semester of her sophomore year on a campus in New York State. Two lovely girls who were traumatized beyond full recovery. Both victims of sick minds and predatory motives. Both seeking to put an end to their torment which Hanna refers to as “closing the door.”

The “problem” with the Murphy Family story is that it’s not an isolated event, just like mental illness isn’t isolated or confined to a particular race, color, creed or gender. If that were the case, we might be able to “target” specific sub populations with specific drugs and therapies, much like researchers attempt to do for certain biologically occurring diseases or to identify specific genes associated with the source of certain diseases. But those are all diseases that can be clinically diagnosed and “treated,” even if only with modest or short lived success. Mental illnesses are not, for the most part, classified as diseases. Rather, they’re listed and defined in a separate medical handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as “disorders,” “disabilities,” “syndromes,” “states” and “illnesses.”

There are few if any clinical textbooks being used in medical schools today that deal with the pathology of the human mind, perhaps with the investigative exceptions of Dr. Thomas Mayo’s Elements of the Pathology of the Human Mind (1838); and Dr. Maudsley’s The Pathology of the Mind (1879) which, although entertaining, seems only to muddy the waters in distinguishing “brain” from “mind.” A far more interesting and challenging read is Dr. Trigant Burrow’s The Neurosis of Man (1949). Perhaps that’s because “the mind” is not part of human anatomy: it’s not listed among the seventy eight or so human organs. Clinically, “mind” doesn’t exist unless you consider “psyche” as a pseudo organ. 

The Gentling of Hanna Johansen is a personal story about her coming of age as a stranger in a strange land, one in which predators prevail, where nothing is sacred and innocence is lost in the hype of social media, sexting, the dark web, a locker room and, most importantly, in the betrayal of trust. With that said, The Gentling is really a love story or, rather, stories of loves won, lost and found again interwoven among the lives of the three main characters as they come together during the spring and summer of 2023 (portrayed as present day for the purposes of this narrative): fifteen and a half year old Hanna; her (step)grandfather and retired professor of psychology, Andy Collins; and Hanna’s grandmother, Mackenzie, who’s also Andy’s ex wife. In that sense, it’s an intense “family affair” with supporting roles provided by Alexa Muybridge, Hanna’s psychiatrist; Nyke Roundhill, Hanna’s new Native American boyfriend; and Sara Devereaux, Hanna’s girlfriend and lover.

Behind the scenes, which my editor calls “the backstory,” are two other scenarios, the first spanning 180 years of American history, a history of the starts and stops of providing mental health care in the U.S., beginning in earnest five years before the Civil War (when the first of thirty two insane asylums was opened in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1856) at the activist urging of a nurse (Dorothea Dix) based on her plea that care for the insane was a “moral imperative.” The housing, care and custody of these insane folks became known not so much as a moral imperative, but rather as a system of confinement, “treatment” and the management of “wards of the state” who were “institutionalized” in taxpayer supported facilities. A very idealistic but phenomenally costly and ultimately ineffective way of “treating” the mass population suffering from mental illnesses with little to no permanent, curative effect, which the skeptics were fond of calling “O I N O”: “once in, never out.”

Fast forward to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty fifth president of the U.S., who conceived off and later signed the Community Mental Health Act (in October 1963, one month prior to his assassination) to deinstitutionalize the currently institutionalized “patients” housed in state facilities nationwide.

His vision, supported by Congress, was to make seed money available to the states via federal grants to create a network of community based “residences” for the non criminal mentally ill, where local resources could provide services on an outpatient basis as well as to in residence clients under state and federal DHHS agency supervision beginning with staffing and clinician training.

It was Andy Collins’s grant proposal (to provide psychiatric social workers and clinicians with mental healthcare training, with best practices in coordinating care management among psychiatrists and case managers, and with statistical models to track inpatient and outpatient care plan effectiveness) which was chosen for implementation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The second “backstory” is the rise, fall and near resurgence of Andy’s professional and personal relationship with Mackenzie Sullivan, whom Andy hired to help him implement his newly funded grant proposal in her capacity as a psychiatric social worker with prior experience working in shelters for battered women, mental health social services clinics and agencies, and at a rehabilitation camp for male juvenile delinquents during a summer internship in Scotland while studying for her Master’s degree.

Unique to this narrative is not only Hanna’s relationship with her new psychiatrist, Alexa Muybridge, but also the way they communicate, which is almost exclusively via Zoom (interactive audio video conferencing over the internet). A number of their 1:1 sessions are recorded in this novel and affect the literary style of storytelling while revealing several of Alexa’s therapeutic approaches to Hanna’s complex psychological issues. Alexa, who specializes in mood, anxiety and trauma related disorders (and who provides psychotherapy for adolescent girls and young female adults), quickly finds herself in uncharted waters as she begins to understand the depth and seriousness of Hanna’s behavioral disorders, which include life risking acts to escape from the recurring, grueling pain of a past traumatic incident: what that is only Hanna really knows.

As Alexa begins to help Hanna “connect the dots” between her suspected past trauma and her current suicidal inclinations, the transcribed dialogues between them become a synthesis of dialectical behavioral therapy and cognitive processing therapy for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), therapies Alexa adapts for adolescents, specifically for Hanna.

Also relevant to Alexa’s therapeutic approach is deciphering the meaning behind the lyrics of Hanna’s songs, which she sets to music and plays on her guitar with Andy on piano in Andy’s retirement cabin on a lake in New Hampshire. Her lyrics also influence the literary style, which makes The Gentling of Hanna Johansen a rich composite of the many Hannas that comprise her complicated, conflicted Self. Understanding her lyrics and the notes she uses to accentuate her emotions behind the words provides insightful clues into Hanna’s quest to become “One Hanna,” but which one?

Central to solving “the riddle of Hanna” is her newfound relationship with Andy Collins (“Papa” to Hanna) as a kind of sophisticated “Adolph” (in Heidi), who cleverly teaches Hanna that, in order to trust other people, you first have to trust yourself, which means you have to know who you are. That’s part of Hanna’s dilemma: she has no idea who she really is and trusts no one, least of all herself, which Andy suspects early on in her stay in his cabin.

Now, about authorship. Yes, it’s shared. I’ve written numerous articles, chapters in manuals, textbooks and clinical white papers over the years, mostly dealing with PTSD, a few collaboratively but nothing co written from the get go before attempting The Gentling of Hanna Johansen.

Oddly or, maybe not so oddly, it was Hanna’s guitar teacher, Dominick, who first came up with the term “the gentling of…,” apparently after a music lesson involving two extremely different themes: “Wild Horses” by the Stones and Michael Murphy’s “Wildfire,” representing Hanna’s deeply conflicted states of mind as she struggles to leave multiple Hannas behind for “One Hanna” her new, highly experimental Self:

“So, now in captivity, humans appear to be the predator. Building the initial trust to be able to touch a wild horse can be a lengthy process. The dance starts as the person approaches the horse; when we get to the edge of their comfort zone, we pause, then turn away and release the pressure. Approach and release. Until we get close enough to encourage them to reach out and touch us, the connection is intense, and the relationship is very rewarding. These steps that our horses must take to trust people, and adjust to their new life with people, often feel like the same steps our veterans must take to re adapt to civilian life. The hypervigilance in the wild horse feels familiar and bridges conversations for several veterans. It is a lot easier to talk about the steps the horse has to take to be turned outside than the steps to be able to go to the grocery store, though sometimes they are the same steps.

“Gentling a once wild horse is a unique opportunity. It is an opportunity to see yourself from a totally different perspective. The trust built between horse and human is captivating and life changing for both participants.”

(To Gentle: Gentling Wild Ponies.

Summit Equestrian Center.
Fort Wayne, IN.)

Do not be deterred from these true to life struggles in The Gentling of Hanna Johansen: A Betrayal of Trust. It contains all the ingredients of a Hallmark ending.

12 May 2024
Newfound Lake, Bristol, NH.