I would like to take this essay to honour some of the greatest female healers in the history of civilization...Included in my list today are: Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell...and Princess Diana...
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I think Mother Teresa had a deeper insight -- and a more intense empathy -- into the 'reality', not the 'fantasy', of 'human neurosis' than Freud did...And with all due respect to Freud, I think she was by far the greater healer...
Not surprisingly in my opinion, Mother Teresa's insight into human suffering and 'neurosis' -- a name that she probably would never even use -- came mainly from a similar place -- traumacy theory -- where Freud had started his investigations into psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic healing in the early 1890s, not after he abandoned this position/perspective/theory after 1896. Mother Teresa, to my knowledge, was never interested in 'human fantasy theory' -- perhaps more of a product of the middle and upper class where people have more time, money, and energy to fantasize...-- no, she was too busy trying to encourage, support, and give people hope and love in the deepest depths of their suffering...
You saw some of this in Freud's work up to 1896 -- his 'empathy' for traumatized and/or victimized 'hysterical' women...But after 1896, something changed -- I think it was a combination of the Emma Ekstein nasal surgery fiasco and near tragedy, as well as the scientific meeting of April, 1896, where Freud learned directly and indirectly in no uncertain terms that 'patriarchal power ruled', that he was 'overpowered and outmatched', and if 'you can't beat them, you join them'.
Women like Mother Teresa -- and Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell, even Princess Diana -- were too busy 'working the trenches' trying to help and heal people in their highest states of misery, to think about 'political correctness'...and/or their own 'self-preservation'..
Mother Teresa burned a type, an intensity, a depth and a breadth of love that none of us are likely to come close to duplicating... If there is a connection here to the 'altruistic idealism' of Christianity -- or any other religion -- then I have the deepest of respect for any man or woman who can burn the fire and spiritual-religious idealism of their particular religion to the applied depth and breadth of these women...
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Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Mother Teresa
(If you can't help a hundred people, then help just one. -- dgb)
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
Mother Teresa
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Florence Nightingale Quotes
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/florence_nightingale.html
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.
Florence Nightingale
I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.
Florence Nightingale
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Florence Nightingale
It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
Florence Nightingale
So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.
Florence Nightingale
The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
Florence Nightingale
The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.
Florence Nightingale
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.
Florence Nightingale
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Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC (pronounced /ˈflɒrəns ˈnaɪtɨŋɡeɪl/, historically [ˈflɒɾəns]; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. A Christian universalist, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.
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I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
Edith Cavell
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell
Edith Louisa Cavell ( /ˈkævəl/; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse and humanitarian. She is celebrated for saving the lives of casualties from all sides without distinction and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I, for which she was arrested. She was court-martialled and found guilty of treason. She was sentenced to death and shot by firing squad. She received worldwide sympathetic press coverage.
She is well-known for her statement that "patriotism is not enough." Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved".[1] Cavell was also an influential pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.
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Mother Teresa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa
Mother Teresa in Calcutta
Religion Catholic
Order Missionaries of Charity
Personal
Nationality Albanian, Indian
Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
August 26, 1910(1910-08-26)
Üsküb, Vilayet of Kosovo, Ottoman Empire (today's Skopje)
Died September 5, 1997(1997-09-05) (aged 87)
Calcutta, India
Signature of Mother Teresa
Senior posting
Title Superior General
Period in office 1950–1997
Successor Nirmala Joshi
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu[1] (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was a Catholic nun of Albanian[2][3] ethnicity and Indian citizenship,[4] who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.[5][6]
By the 1970s, she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.
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http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/princess_diana.html
Quotes from Princess Diana...
Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.
Princess Diana
Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Princess Diana
Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.
Princess Diana
Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.
Princess Diana
Family is the most important thing in the world.
Princess Diana
HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven knows they need it.
Princess Diana
Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.
Princess Diana
I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
Princess Diana
I don't go by the rule book... I lead from the heart, not the head.
Princess Diana
I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just want someone to be there for me, to make me feel safe and secure.
Princess Diana
I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.
Princess Diana
I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am.
Princess Diana
I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.
Princess Diana
I think like any marriage, especially when you've had divorced parents like myself; you want to try even harder to make it work.
Princess Diana
I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.
Princess Diana
I want my boys to have an understanding of people's emotions, their insecurities, people's distress, and their hopes and dreams.
Princess Diana
I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and feel that I am needed. I want to do, not just to be.
Princess Diana
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Princess Diana
I will fight for my children on any level so they can reach their potential as human beings and in their public duties.
Princess Diana
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-- dgb, Easter Sunday, April 24th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
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