The Heart Is My Beat by Gregg E. Bernstein

Author:Gregg E. Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2018-07-23T14:23:01+00:00

Secretariat and Me

I’ve been reading a fascinating book about horse racing: Inside Track by Donna Barton Brothers, a former jockey and current racing commentator. I heard her interviewed on NPR in the days leading up to the 2014 Belmont Stakes. It was a big deal because California Chrome had won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, the first two storied major races for three-year-olds, and thus had a shot at that rare feat, the Triple Crown, the summa cum laude of horse racing, if he went on to win the Belmont.

Well, California Chrome didn’t win the Belmont, but Donna Brothers did win me over, and I went right out and bought her book. I didn’t really know why, until I was halfway through the book and read the name Secretariat, and felt a thrill run through me.

Secretariat—that’s where this story begins…

In 1973, I was a graduate student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It was my third year in the program, plugging along toward a PhD. Studying, attending class and more studying was pretty much my whole life. I knew we were supposed to be fascinated by research, and shooting for a professorship somewhere, preferably at a “good” school. The phrase “clinical work” (i.e., doing psychotherapy) was usually accompanied by a tolerant frown. Oh, sure, you were supposed to know your transference from your elbow, and maybe “keep your hand in” by seeing a few patients after you became a professor, but beyond that, well—making a career out of it was simply beneath a serious “scholar-researcher.”

But not for me. In my mind, I was at a trade school, learning my trade: psychotherapy. And to get a license to practice it, I had to jump the hurdles they put in front of me. A make-or-break test the first year, called Comps; a make-or-break test the second year, called Generals (I still shudder at the name); and of course, the crowning glory, a Dissertation, which you defended during your Orals. There may have been even more make-or-break tests, but now, so many years later, I have developed a blessed amnesia for all of it: I may be the only psychotherapist around who has repressed memories of his training! Nowadays, of course, one can get a PsyD at many different schools, which is probably as close as you can get to an actual trade school for doing therapy. After all, medical school is basically trade school for doctors, isn’t it?

But not then. It was Research or Bust, and I was determined not to bust.

Well, one day someone happened to mention that, for a nominal sum, you could go see the Kentucky Derby with a group of students, Louisville being not all that far from Knoxville. Imagine that: there was a real world out there, where people actually did real things, and had actual fun! It appealed to me immediately, and my wife and I came up with the necessary funds to go along. By the way, when I say “nominal,” I mean

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