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N T E R V I E W S
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Family Fixer
by Jill Kramer
in the Pacific
Sun September,
2002
Know
anybody who comes from a "functional" family? There may be no such animal.
But Suzanne Gold's family might even be a tad more dysfunctional than most.
She grew up in Philadelphia (a cross to bear from the start) with a mother
who would make Joan Crawford look like Mom of the Year, an ineffectual
father and a schizophrenic sister. She spent several years sorting it all
out and making a wonderful life for herself, then turned to passing on
to others what worked for her. She's been a practicing therapist, on and
off, since earning a graduate degree in clinical psychology at Temple University.
Her "off" times have been devoted to spiritual studies, singing and writing.
Last
year, she came out with a fictionalized autobiography based on her analysis
of what made her family tick-- or not tick. Although she called it Daddy's
Girls, it's more concerned with her relationship with her mother than
her father. The story is told through the eyes of three characters: Ruth,
the bitter, narcissistic mother; Cherie, Ruth's willful and rebellious
younger daughter; and Allison (read Suzanne), her timid, obedient older
daughter. The way Gold sees it, Ruth's parents insistence that she abandon
her dream of going on the road as the singer for a band led her to a loveless
marriage. She took out her frustrations on her husband and two daughters.
The younger daughter hears the voice of God from the time she's still in
the womb and eventually has a psychotic break. Gold's rosy spin is that
her sister's mental illness is designed by God to teach her fractured family
how to love. The book recently won first prize in fiction from ForeWord
Magazine,
a literary review for independent presses.
After
a few years working as a psychologist in the Philadelphia area, Gold joined
a commune in Boston comprised of fellow students at the Arica Institute,
an international network teaching Zen, yoga, Sufism and other Eastern and
Western practices of transformation. Two years later, she and several friends
headed west to San Francisco. They drove across the country to Seattle,
then south on the coast road. Gold fell in love with Marin County before
she reached The City. On the day after her arrival, she fell in love again,
this time with another Arica student-- Dan Cooper, her husband for the
past 25 years. Gold moved into his house in Sausalito, and soon launched
a singing career. She fronted a band that played local nightclub and corporate
gigs for ten years. Her musical claim to fame is an environmental anthem
she wrote for Marin County's 1990 Earth Day, "Let's Make a Promise," which
got some Bay Area radio play at the time.
Gold
and Cooper, an artist, collaborated on a book of aphorisms called
Being
Yourself: 24 Ways to See the Light, illustrated with 26 geometric designs
Cooper created. Gold is currently working on a new book about how to survive
a dysfunctional family. Organized into 10 steps, it's a formulation of
the psychological and spiritual work that has helped her come to terms
with and grow beyond her troubled childhood. She also teaches at local
colleges and adult education programs, and has a private practice. Gold
and Cooper, now an established artist, share a blue house in Madrone Canyon
in Larkspur. A piano sits in the vestibule, a book of Bach Inventions propped
above the keyboard. Cooper's landscapes hang on the walls. Gold settles
on a blue loveseat and chats openly about her life and work.
Click
Here for excerpts of Suzanne's conversation with Jill. |
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Interview
by Terry Mathews
at BookBrowser.com March
2001
| Suzanne
Gold,
author of the moving new book, Daddy's Girls, has varied interests.
She received her BA and MA degrees in psychology from Temple University
in Philadelphia. She's written two mysteries ("Kaaterskill" and "Cuckoo's
Nest") and a self-help book called "Being Yourself: Twenty-Four Ways to
See the Light." She's worked as a therapist, educator, singer/songwriter,
activist and artisan. She currently lives in Northern California, where
we caught up with her to talk about Daddy's Girls.
Writer,
psychologist, educator, singer/songwriter, artisan: You've done it all!
Do you have a favorite occupation?
Each occupation is
my favorite while I'm doing it. As a therapist, I'm inspired by discovering
patterns and perspective and transformation. The thrill is in helping someone
do the work they need to change right before my very eyes. As a teacher,
the reward is the same. When I taught spiritual philosophy and esoteric
techniques at the same time I was studying them myself, I was inspired
to witness teachers and students alike deepening and realizing new possibilities
and contentment we never suspected. Now my students inspire me in every
class. As a vocalist, I combined the passion of music with the joy of creating
an atmosphere in which people could celebrate and enjoy themselves. As
an artisan, I loved arranging unlikely materials until I felt an intuitive
certainty that it was art. As a writer, discovery, transformation, depth,
possibility, passion, celebration, and intuition all blend together.
You
now live in California. Your psychology degrees are from Temple University
in Philadelphia. Where did you spend your formative years?
I was born and raised
in northwestern Philadelphia -- Mt. Airy, Chestnut Hill, West Oak Lane
and Germantown. I went to a magnet high school for "academically-talented
young women" from all over the city, then spent a year at Albright College
in Reading before getting my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Clinical
Psychology from Temple and my initial professional experience and training
as a psychologist and therapist. After beginning my odyssey of self- discovery,
I felt too limited by the setting of my unhappy youth. At 25, I left Philadelphia
and never looked back. I spent the next two years in New York and Boston,
before heading for a new life in California, where I finally feel at home.
Your
resume includes a stint as a therapist at a state mental hospital and as
a psychologist/group therapist at a drug treatment center. What's your
opinion of the state of mental health care facilities and treatment in
this country?
In theory, I'm very
supportive of the mental health system. Those who can't care for themselves
because they're too preoccupied with their personal demons need somewhere
to go to be cared for. Unfortunately, there is too little money, too few
therapeutic facilities, and far too little treatment that honors the process
enough to attract people to doing it. Because our existing system doesn't
provide the most adequate or appropriate care, the issue is complex. Mental
illness may have various contributing causes--heredity, environment, or
brain chemistry--and there seems to be no reliable way to determine which
is operative in a particular case and how to treat it.
One of the hot buttons in the treatment of the mentally ill involves involuntary
commitment or medication. In some states, anyone who is a danger to himself
or others can be involuntarily committed, but almost no one is involuntarily
medicated. To me, involuntary treatment makes compassionate sense when,
for example, a paranoid who refuses to eat for fear of being poisoned is
starving himself to death. Some people believe involuntary commitment violates
constitutional rights, but I disagree. A dead person has no civil rights
to enforce. My sister is schizophrenic, unable to care for herself, and
a resident of a psychiatric group home. Left on her own, she would wander
the streets, picking up strange men and having sex with them. Our mother
and I agreed that this constituted endangerment and allowed her commitment
to proceed without protest. But involuntary medication to make a mentally
ill prisoner sane enough to be executed is absurd.
The sad plight of the mentally ill in our country stems from denial. No
one really knows what causes mental illness, and it frightens us. We don't
understand it, and don't want to confront the issue or even have the mentally
ill living in our neighborhoods, because we don't want to realize that
it can happen to anyone, even us.
Click
here for excerpts from Suzanne's conversation with Terry about Daddy's
Girls.
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