A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Victor Bloom MD

Grosse Pointe Park

This is the time of year when "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is most appreciated. It is a time when hope springs eternal and redemption is in order. It is a magic time when anything seems possible, even that Santa Claus will deliver toys to children around the world, all in one night! It is a time we can believe in Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. We can even believe that all our faults can be forgiven and that we can be beloved and loving, warm and generous, outgoing and jolly.

Look at Ebeneezer Scrooge! He starts out bitter and miserly, cruel and nasty, antisocial, introverted and worst of all, materialistic, in love with money and what he thinks money can buy--- power and respect, maybe even security in his old age. He cares nothing for his honest, loyal and hardworking employee, or the plight of his family, and especially their feelings about Tiny Tim, a lovely child who is dying. He cares nothing for the poor or the poorhouse.

Fortunately for him, he carries unconscious guilt for his behavior and cannot sleep. He has fitful dreams, horrifying in their content. The ghosts plague him, take him on spellbinding trips, where he is forced to see the consequences of his attitude and behavior. Freud was tutored on the important of dreams by such as Shakespeare and Dickens. Dreams reveal the underlying truths residing in the unconscious. If they are correctly deciphered, the insights prove to be invaluable.

Scrooge is persuaded to see the error of his ways. He does not want to die alone and friendless--- he cannot take his money with him. He does not want Tiny Tim to die. He does not want the poor to languish in the poorhouse. He orders a Christmas goose for the Cratchetts. He enjoys the Christmas party of his nephew. He is bubbling with good cheer and good humor. How could this fairy-tale ending be possible?

Such things can happen. The dream-ghosts give him pause to think and feel and introspect. What he gains is insight. He even remembers how his father rejected him after his mother died. He remembers the love of his good sister, an echo of the love of his mother. It brings tears to his eyes. The memories crack the coating of ice in which he was entombed. He built a psychological barrier to protect him from the pain of his mother's loss and father's rejection, and so his humanity was buried, along with the rest of his good feelings.

The process of Scrooge's redemption and salvation is similar to the process of psychoanalysis, where the patient speaks freely without editing any words, and the unconscious streams to the surface. Early profound memories return and the psychological barriers to love and creativity dissolve. The real person emerges like a butterfly and takes wing. T'is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

So each Christmas is a time of searching one's soul for all the goodness therein, for us to reconsider our identification with Ebeneezer Scrooge, and think about how we can launch ourselves into the New Year with a heightened sense of love for our fellow man and woman, and a resolve to make future years better than the past.