Personality and Talent

“My mother literally made gin in the bathtub; it was part of how she made money. She also had men ‘guests’ in the apartment, and unfortunately, she didn’t always protect me from them,” Daphne remarked as she spoke of her childhood in Brooklyn, New York.

“I never had, or knew, a father; it was always just me and my mother,” she said. “But I could sing, boy, could I sing! And that’s how I was able to fly away from Brooklyn.”

“No matter the noise around me, I always had singing going on inside me; I just sang and sang so I could stay in myself,” she said. “I didn’t have anyone to teach me, I just listened and learned when I heard anyone sing.” Daphne flew across Europe and across the U.S. as she pursued her singing career. “I sang for Kings and Queens in Europe, and I knew loads of famous people,” she wistfully reflected.

Daphne was now 84 and lived in a nursing home. She used a wheelchair, and spoke in a raspy voice due to polyps on her vocal cords. As a result, she would not sing one note, as she knew it would never again sound like it had when she was younger. But she would laugh, and she would share her stories, and she was always curiously asking about the stories of other people, even mine.

We often sat for psychotherapy in a small TV room in her unit. The room was about 8 feet wide by 10 feet long; just space for a loveseat, one chair, her wheelchair, a small TV on the wall, and a window looking out at the woods behind the facility.

During one session Daphne was speaking about the ironic balance of shyness and confidence of a performer. “How about you, you seem calm, but do you feel shy, or do you feel confident,” she asked? I explained that when I was younger I went to acting school, partly because someone wrongly suggested to me that taking up acting was a way to overcome shyness. Daphne laughed, and asked, “Well, so how did that work out, anyway,”?

Daphne had a regal quality, along with her charmingly refreshing genuineness. Her issues in therapy were related to acceptance of aging and reduced functional independence, and tolerance of the loss of her singing voice, and easing of suffering due to abuses experienced in her childhood. Daphne was intolerant of anything phony; she’d seen too much in her life; and seen through the disguises of so many persons. I could not have ‘played the part of a therapist’ with Daphne and hidden behind neutrality; my choice was to meet her on the terms she expected of authentic sharing, or nothing.

She roared with laughter as I told of the nausea and fear I’d experienced before a stage performance, and my delighted excitement during the performance. That pattern continued with each show - dread in anticipation, and elation while acting - and, no, I certainly never got over being shy, I explained, as she threw her head back and laughed.

“So, why did you give it up,” she asked? I did not think it would be a successful, or tolerable, career - I could hardly tolerate putting myself through those ups and downs, so I went back to school to get a master’s degree to practice psychotherapy. “Well, didn’t you still have those same ups and downs in your new career,” she asked, with her bright and penetrating gaze?

Actually, I would sometimes give talks or make presentations at professional conferences, and would experience the same nauseating apprehension, and then the same enthusiastic enjoyment while at the podium. “Of course, I knew it,” she laughingly stated! “Let me explain to you why that happens,” she said.

“That’s the difference between personality and talent. Your shyness and your anxiety about putting yourself in the spotlight, that’s personality. But the joy and enthusiasm you felt when performing, in one way or the other, is talent. Talent and personality are not the same thing, but so many performers harm themselves because they never understand the difference,” Daphne wisely explained.

Daphne used examples of famous performers who confused their personality with their talent, and who got caught up in the projections of fans who thought that their personality ought to match their talent; and who developed problems because they could not, and should not, blend the two things that were categorically different.

Sometimes in psychotherapy a client is vulnerable and in need of guidance and strict boundaries, and straightforward application of therapeutic techniques. In nursing homes, I sometimes work with residents who have diagnosed mental disorders, and who need formal and conventional psychotherapy. Yet sometimes the resident seen in therapy does not have a psychiatric disorder but may wrestle with real life problems such as illness or loss, and who may benefit from a less formal educational and supportive approach. 

Daphne was wise and resilient, and she lived vibrantly, even when she was less able to function on her own. Her wisdom, her humor, and her curiosity about the lives of others were key strengths, and they found a place in our therapeutic conversations.