Uncle Harold and the importance of objective understanding

It’s the hardest thing, says George, just paying attention, being present and turning off the noise in my head while I try to enter your experience.

It’s taken me a long time to finally master, perhaps only briefly, a skill which has been so sadly lacking in my life.

The lesson I learned yet failed to absorb occurred only 52 years ago.

An eager schoolboy in my final term, I had written an essay on “The Origin of Life”. Researching the topic, I was particularly struck by the “Miller-Urey experiment” in which they simulated the conditions thought at the time (1952) to be present in the atmosphere of the early, prebiotic Earth. They fired electric discharges, emulating lightning, through a mix of inorganic substances – water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen – to see whether organic molecules would form, (which they did, which is how I come to be writing this and you to be reading it!).

Being very friendly with David, the music master at school (also a climber), and his wife Janet, I went to have afternoon tea with them at their tutor’s apartment in the school boarding house. Virginia creeper embraced the windows.

Janet’s parents, Mick and Marion, were visiting and so too was Uncle Harold, grey haired, a bit rotund, a benign smile on his face. We talked about the Lake District and geology (Mick was an expert) and I shared my story of having learned about the Miller-Urey experiment. They seemed to be appreciative.

A couple of days later I passed David in the school grounds and thanked him for the tea.

“Of course,” he said, “you know who Uncle Harold is?”

“Uh?”

“He’s Harold Urey.”

I was gobsmacked. He had just sat there maintaining his benign smile and said nothing. No claims. No corrections. No “Well done son.” He just smiled. Such restraint. Such humility.

There’s something we often do which my psychotherapy supervisor, George Sweet, once described to me as “self-listening”. It goes like this.

You and I are sitting together and you start to talk about something, perhaps a trip to the mountains, maybe a car you have haggled over, it could be a book you have read or an argument with a close friend, whatever.

Within seconds of you opening the subject I begin to think of my own experience of what you’ve raised – my trip to those hills, my story of haggling for that hat in the Florentine market, how I resolved some argument (or not!). So, at this point, I’ve stopped listening to you and am just waiting for a break in your discourse when I can share my experience or (God forbid!) my wisdom on the matter. It’s the hardest thing, says George, just paying attention, being present and turning off the noise in my head while I try to enter your experience.

The same thing easily happens in our consultations when we get distracted from paying attention when what our patient is saying triggers our own memories and stories or that of other patients’ experiences and we bring “I know, I know” into the conversation. How hard it is to clear that slush, stop thinking and start trying to imagine what our patient has been experiencing.

(Famous line from the Morse TV series: Lewis: “What do you think, Sir.” Morse: “I don’t think Lewis, I imagine.”)

So, recently I had another chance to get it right and perhaps I more or less did. A friend had returned from the UK and started to share his excitement as he saw for the first time the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford from the waters of the Avon, describing the beauty of the environment and historic buildings.

Karol and I happen to be very familiar with the place – in my school days, my mother would drive us there in the evening from Oxford to see the plays; in the ‘70s, Karol worked at the RSC as a costumier; we even held tickets for two plays there in May.

To our mutual relief without even sharing a glance, we managed to remain tight-lipped and simply enjoyed his joy.

Only 52 years. I must try it again sometime.