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Shortly after September 11, 2001, my good friend and colleague, Liz Goren, left me a voice mail asking if I wanted to join in on a project she was working on, connecting psychologists to firehouses in New York City that had men die in the attack on the World Trade Center. On the one hand, I felt pulled to do it-to give whatever I could to these men1 who had risked their lives and lost their friends, their brothers, on September 11. I was already doing work with some of the traumatized employees from Deutsche Bank who were working in their building across the street from the World Trade Center on September 11, but I could have squeezed another morning or afternoon a week into my schedule.
I began to imagine what the work would be like. Out of my own history and stereotypes I imagined it would mean working with a group of guys who weren't very open or receptive to emotional life, scoffing at the idea of a “shrink” helping them out. I imagined a lot of sarcasm and humor at the expense of the psychologist. On the other hand, I imagined that in the end the men would come to accept the psychologist and welcome her or him into their family, a family that was incredibly loyal to one another, willing to give anything whenever one of them was in need, a band of people who “had each other's back.” Sitting with these two images, I realized I didn't know how to build the bridge between them. That is, I personally knew that I didn't have what it would take to move from one place to the other, and I was quite sure that would be part of the job. I knew I would shut down at the first signs of derision or rejection. And so, I called Liz back and thanked her but declined her invitation.
But she did know how to build the bridge, which is abundantly clear from her book Beyond the Reach of Ladders: My Story as a Therapist Forging Bonds with Firefighters in the Aftermath of 9/11. Goren was doggedly determined to find a way to get through to and touch these men in very profound ways. The cha