Dear Dick
articles about wide ranging psychological issues
from "The Local Bulletin" (Brisbane Australia)
by Dick Rigby
©all articles are copyright 2006

Decemer 2005
I like Terry.  He’s a nice guy.  Everybody likes Terry.  He’s a senior doctor in a casualty ward in a major hospital.  He is very good at what he does and he loves his work.  He’s always busy.  There’s always someone’s life to save.
Terry is a family man.  He has three beautiful children and they adore him.  That is, on the rare occasions when they get to spend time with him.  You see, Terry is so busy helping other people that he doesn’t get much time to spend with his wife and children.  He says that he would like to, but there never seem to be enough hours in the day.
Terry is not just busy.  He is busy doing something very important.  He’s a “hero”.  He has status and he’s on a good salary.  Life is good – or so it seems.  There’s a problem.  It came to a head last Christmas holidays.
The family went down to the Gold Coast for two weeks.  Well, they were all meant to but Terry got called back into casualty at the last moment because the relieving doctor broke a leg.  So Terry joined his family for the second week of their holidays.
As soon as he got to the holiday unit, he was organizing a day trip to the mountains.  Busy busy busy.  Terry didn’t know how to slow down and spend time with his family.  He was used to living on the edge.
It all came to a head when his wife Julie said that she fed up with the way they were living.  She told him that they never had any quiet times together.  He never spent time just playing with his children.  He was always organizing something and the more challenging and exciting the activity, the more Terry enjoyed it.
Julie gave Terry an ultimatum about getting help.  Terry saw a psychologist over a period of nine months.  In this time, Terry learned how to spend quiet times.  He joined a yoga class.  He learned how to be in touch with his feelings.  He learned how to spend quality time with his children.  (He had not had quality contact with his own father.) 
He didn’t have to give up his job.  He still had the buzz of working in casualty and saving lives.  But, he learned to put it in perspective.  He learned that he had daemons and that he could face them.
He is still learning the discipline of balance.