Jonathan L. Grindlinger, MD
Training Director, Silvan S. Tomkins Institute
During elementary school I discovered that music could produce experiences of emotional intensity as powerful as those provided by science. This intensity grew to passion when I started guitar lessons at 13 and a year later purchased my 1973 Les Paul Deluxe, which allowed me to express affect in ways my family and earlier interpersonal scripts would never have allowed. Shortly thereafter I felt confident enough to get involved in "garage" bands. Before I knew it, I was invited to join a very talented "cover" band, performing real gigs. My musical development paralleled my medical education and by my mid-20's, I had put together a band that eventually performed its own original tunes in small Philadelphia venues. The growing demands of a medical career made it unrealistic for me to play in that band, so I assembled a home recording studio. Each year my studio acquired more equipment to allow for the production of increasingly sophisticated music. By 1988, racks of equipment, multiple keyboards, "miles" of cabling, and a speaker monitor system to die for allowed a wonderful musical experience. Now don't get me wrong – I truly enjoyed psychiatry and most aspects of my residency. But truth be told, it didn't hold a candle to the fun I could have in my studio.
As I moved forward in my medical career, I became increasingly passionate about what goes on during intense psychotherapy, constantly seeking better theoretical explanations. Working now in Central Pennsylvania, I sought the best psychodynamic supervision available by telephone, but felt that the theories I was encouraged to apply did not fit what I saw in my office. I had always strived to connect with my psychotherapy patients at the same level of emotional intensity that I had achieved linking (through music) with band members. Unfortunately, most of the available theories seemed designed to distance me from my patients and to limit the degree to which we could be linked. So I searched for new theories while at the same time attempting to explain on some fresh basis what I knew from my practice. In late 1993, an issue of Psychiatric Annals simply dropped into my mailbox, one dedicated to new theories of emotion and their relevance to psychotherapy. Exactly what I was looking for, it introduced the work of Tomkins, Nathanson, and Kelly. What amazed me then and now was that these theories were directly analogous to the musical concepts I had learned in my home studio. Furthermore, they used contemporary scientific concepts to explain emotional experience. My passion for science and for the intense emotional experiences involved in music and psychotherapy had found a common source.
Attending a Cape Cod Institute course soon thereafter, I met Dr. Nathanson and began what has become a steadily growing friendship. The more I studied, understood, and applied the psychology of affect and script, the more I was able to achieve intense and productive emotional connection with my psychotherapy patients. The resulting excitement and awe propelled me to increasing levels of commitment to the Tomkins Institute, as the result of which Dr. Kelly transferred to me the responsibility of Training Director. I am proud to have had this opportunity to learn and teach with so remarkable a group of thinkers and doers, who have become the best band with which I've ever played.
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