In Memory: Joyce Warshow

I'm including a link to a write up about Joyce Warshow that appeared last fall, shortly after she died. http://jwa.org/discover/weremember/warshow/, and I will be linking this webpage to their memorial page.

Joyce Warshow was my therapist from 1980 to 1983, when I was just getting out on my own as a young single woman. I went to her for a consultation because my relationships with men had fallen into an unfortunate pattern.

Although Joyce was only supposed to meet with me the one time and then refer me to another therapist in her group, she managed to get past some of my defenses and rattle me in that very first meeting. The other therapists I'd met with did not. So after a few days I called her back and firmly stated that I did not want to be referred on to someone else, I wanted to work with her. Joyce made room for me in her schedule, and so we began.

Many times we did not see eye to eye. I told her I was against the establishment, and she pointed to my corporate attire and told me I had joined the establishment. I didn't want to hear that. Another time, speaking about the difficulties I had with men, she told me that some men are like wild horses and need to be corralled. I replied that I didn't want to have to "corrall" a man. I wanted him to want to be committed to me.

But I was getting out the residual angers from my childhood, and learning to grow up and be my own person. I was ruled by myself and not so influenced by my parents any more. For a year or more I participated in group therapy also, but then I felt it became too expensive and I pulled away.

When I finally left we had an exit interview, and at the end of our last session, Joyce hugged me and I went out, ready to face life on my own terms. Yes, I had one more stupid relationship with a man whose major attraction was his anti-establishment attitude and his beard. That was my old pattern. But when that broke up I saw it for what it was, a hangover from an earlier time. And when Bruce came along, the "nice guy" I would have ignored a decade earlier, I was more than ready for him.

I called Joyce about 9 years ago, when I was grieving for a friend and yet not able to dissolve that grief into healing tears. I felt I couldn't afford her prices, but it was good to connect with her however briefly. The last thing she said to me was that I had always been resourceful.

At Fund Raising Day in New York I found out that Joyce passed away last year. This was one of those non-coincidences. At a workshop on branding, the presenter mentioned a coalition of GLBT organizations with reproductive rights organizations, working together for common goals. I was puzzled to note that HMI was not represented on the list and afterwards I went up to the presenter and asked her if she knew why HMI was not part of the coalition. For some reason she mentioned that Joyce Warshow used to be involved there, and when I said she used to be my therapist, the presenter told me that Joyce had died. It was so strange to hear that in the middle of a professional conference, by supposedly sheer accident. Only I don't believe in accidents.

I believe Joyce was sending me a last goodbye.

When she was my therapist, I had no idea she was a lesbian, a filmmaker, and deeply involved in the GLBT community. In fact, I think it was SAGE she was involved with and maybe not HMI, but that doesn't matter. Would it have mattered to me if I'd known this when she was my therapist? Back then, I might have wondered how she could teach me how to get along with men, if she was in a relationship with a woman. But now I know better. I know she was really teaching me, first and foremost, to get along with myself.

Now I'm curious to see some of the films she made, and I'm going to investigate and see whether they can be rented somewhere. In any case, cancer took her too soon, at only 70 years old. Farewell, Joyce, you have clearly touched many many lives. Mine is just one of them.