Discovery

 I have been caught up in many conflicts in life and now face a conflict as to whether I should impose on the memory of an old friend from Natchez Mississippi.  He has since passed on and I now remain very old and unsure as to what I should be doing at this point in my life.  For the last several years I have been working on a group process.  This group process is aimed at the discovery of a very elemental human situation.  How do two people become so accepting of each other that they, as a pair ,have a force greater than themselves as single individuals?   There is no doubt that human beings communicate very readily in words, but have we lost a more basic nonverbal communication as we have raced through history and language development?  When I first developed the double circle group or supporting personal group it was seemingly too complicated to understand and very uncomfortable for the people participating in it.  But over the years I returned to the time and time again.  There is something mysterious going on in the double circle group which I cannot explain but I am determined to discover and expect to my dying day.  At times I felt a sensation while in the group that gave me reason without rationale, hope without fact, expectation without the slightest evidence that something material could be brought out in this group.

During my 10 years in Natchez Mississippi I came to know Ben Chase Callon.  This man was a mystery to me.  He seemed to jump right out of a Faulkner novel.  He had a way of speaking that almost was entirely metaphorical although I often groped for the metaphor.  As I began to decide to leave Natchez and go into psychiatry I thought he would object.  He helped me build the Morgantown Clinic and had been very supportive of me and my family.  But, in fact, he did not object to my leaving and told me that there was something important that I had to do that I could not do in Natchez.   At the time I just believed that I should go into psychiatry because I had always planned on it since high school.  Even though my family objected strenuously to pulling up roots, I dragged them to Gainesville Florida.  My wife was so upset about leaving that she said she played Beethoven's ninth Symphony over and over again just to ease the pain.  

 The strangest thing about Ben Chase Callon  was that he did not seem to have an ordinary ego. Rather than an ego he seemed to be in constant observation of everyone else in his life.  Over and over again  he spoke to me about the strange things that he would see in those about him which he found amusing.   Although he was a part of a several brother operation in the oil business event never really spoke about the oil business.  He talked about personality and the quirks  that he saw in personality.  I shared his interest in personality and talk to them as much as I could.  Twenty-five years after leaving Natchez and during the midst of my career as a psychiatrist, I return to visit briefly and found Ben Chase Callon there at a party for me hosted by former employees.   Again he told me that there was something important that I was supposed to do.  He did not know what it was but he was certain of it.

After a distressing period of rampant alcoholic fog in Venice Florida,  I sought the help of my long time friend, Bob Baringer, in St Augustine and limped to him for relief. In Venice I totally lost my spiritual rudder. I had also lost sight of Ben Chase Callon. I knew that there was nothing in Venice for us as a family or for me, professionally.

 Bob and I developed a practice down on St George Street in the heart of the touristy section of St Augustine. It was surreal but delightful to be in a session with a psychiatric patient and suddenly have a tourist burst through the door blurting out, " Is this house on tour?"  The patient and I laughed while the tourist sheepishly backed out of the door.  By some quirk of fate or God's blessing Bob and I gathered a men's group together. That men's group brought me to task as to what psychiatry was supposed to be about. Our group was composed of vets of three world wars and  a vet of the most notorious psychiatric hospital in the South.  At times the group unfolded into sunlight as our words failed us. Sometime later I asked myself  again and again."What was that all about?" After all words make up sentences and sentences go together to bring about enlightenment and positive change. But the stunned silences brought us all in the group to cohesion, annealing and finally relief of private pain into a shared bearable one.

So I left this idyllic practice and followed Frieda( my wife) to Gainesville.I decided to return to the University of Florida in the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry. But in a marriage one cannot go on very long with one having boucou of fun while the other sits on the beach. So when my wife decided to return to the University of Florida and find her own niche in the world of  niches. I felt vaguely permitted to tag along.They were desperate for someone who had experience in general medicine, so they welcomed me. Soon after in 1978 I began a new group method at Shands on the 8th Floor which was to become the Double Circle Group 28 years later. She gained a bachelors in psychology and went to work.

  Using my own imagination I assume that the important thing that I was supposed to do was some discovery.  I knew that Ben Chase had  little interest in wealth although he enjoyed a good life but I also knew that he thought there was something to discover in the human personality that was worthwhile.  Since then I have wandered around the state of Florida sometimes in the depths of alcoholism and sometimes in the heights of discovery.   Now at 83 I wonder how to bring this can opener into the light.  

The can opener is the Double Circle Group. This group is a method for discovery of forms of communication that predate the verbal one and may be effective in deepening and clarifying the communication level among people who are feeling the stress of modern life.