Natasha Josefowitz

In 1971, at one of the monthly lectures held at the child-guidance clinic where I worked, Dr. Marshall Klaus came to talk about his research on maternal infant bonding. He had been to South America and the United States and was now studying the same in Switzerland. As the only bilingual staff member, I became his translator since he could not speak French. After his lecture, he asked if I would be willing to accompany him as his translator during his travels through Switzerland. At the time, I was working on my Ph.D. thesis on children services in French-speaking Switzerland and thought we would have similar interests. I accepted his offer. [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D]

As we sit in our homes by ourselves month after month without in-person social interactions, we become acutely, even overly, aware of ourselves. Because we have only ourselves and our own responses, we have a tendency to become self-centered by default. And since there is no one to interact with, all of our ideas, thoughts, and feelings are experienced without feedback. This is where self-reflection can become dysfunctional. Like cows ruminating their cud, we can become obsessive and compulsive, reexamining the same thing over and over, driving ourselves nuts. Without another person to assess and appraise the conclusions we come to, we may leave reality behind as we follow some increasingly irrational tangent. [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D]

What is the clonal effect? It is the tendency of individuals, groups, and organizations to replicate themselves or others that are familiar to them wherever they have an opportunity to do so. The dictionary defines a clone as “a person or thing that duplicates, imitates, or closely resembles another in appearance.” [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW; Ph.D]

As I get closer and closer to departing this planet—being in my mid-nineties is a warning bell—I look around and wonder what will I miss? Actually, this is a stupid question. When I’m dead, I will obviously not miss anything. What is it that makes this so uncomfortable? It is not death itself; it is the leaving of people and things that have mattered. [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D]

When we are in a conversation with another person our bodies begin to synchronize with each other, our gestures and facial expressions mirror each other. It is when this happens that we begin to truly hear one another. When we are face-to-face, we unconsciously pick up small changes, which give us clues as to what the other is feeling. It might be a slight flush, an enlargement of pupils, a change in voice pitch, a stiffening of the spine, all unconscious reactions to either the subject or the tone of the conversation. We are constantly monitoring peoples’ responses to what we are saying. In texting and emails, we miss the most important part of the interaction, which is the impact our words are making. [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D]

What a wonderful opportunity the pandemic has given us—the gift of free time to sort through old files and letters that we have been procrastinating about for years. The time has come to unearth them from the bottom drawers and old boxes stuffed in garages and store rooms. We hang on to these memorabilia to connect us to a past event or time in our lives, and, when we touch them again, they trigger a flood of memories unavailable to us without that little piece of paper, that letter, that card, that document. [Natasha Josefowitz]

The world as we knew it before the pandemic has been altered. We are experiencing a different way of living; some of those changes will continue into the future. I am neither an economist nor a historian nor an epidemiologist, so my predictions are based on what I read as a lay person and my guesses are as good as yours. I may not even be around to see how far I have gone astray. [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D]

After I lost my husband ten years ago, I wrote about the seven steps of grief from loss to healing. Now with the losses experienced because of the coronavirus, I have come up with four stepping stones that may identify the journey we need to go through to deal with these different kinds of losses. [Natasha Josefowitz, ACSW, Ph.D]