Remembering Dr. Helen Borel : The Opaque Window
Perhaps the most influential figure in my life. This is Helen in her own words followed by a video of clips from some of our sessions.
Once upon a time, a 2-year-old girl with dark brown bangs and freckles, whose mother died, grew up in an orphanage. There, she later assuaged her loneliness writing poetry and playing melodies, by ear, on the spinet piano in the solarium. Alone in the world at 18, she was determined to go to Nursing School, became an R.N. and worked in New York City as a charge nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital and University Hospital on medical, surgical and psychiatric wards.
Focused on blending her medical background with her literary interests, she earned her Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and her MFA in Creative Writing, both at New York University. All the while spending 18 years on what she calls “Medicine Avenue” as a Copywriter and Creative Director creating ad campaigns for Rx drugs, medical devices and lab tests for diseases from Asthma to Anxiety, for drugs from Aspirin to to Zolpidem.
Intrigued by the pioneering work of Dr. Sigmund Freud and by subsequent psychiatric advances, she embarked on 10 years (during her time in advertising) studying various psychoanalytic disciplines with Master Analysts like Gertrude and Rubin Blanck (Ego Psychology), at the William Alanson White Institute (Interpersonal Psychoanalysis in Schizophrenia), at the Society for the Advancement of Self Psychology (InterSubjectivity) …and more.
Parallel to her medical writing career and her psychoanalytic studies, she underwent rigorous psychoanalysis herself to work on her childhood losses and her shyness, growing to the secure, self-confident professional she became, helping others achieve similar results in their lives. Mother of Jonathan, an actor and fitness guru, and Nana to boy actor Sean, she traced her family’s creative roots to her father’s cousin,
Death of a Salesman playwright Arthur Miller.
All of the above experiences culminated in her Doctorate in Psychoanalytic Studies and her 500-page dissertation JOURNEY INTO SELF: Holistic Interactive Integrative Psychoanalysis. A tome of research in psychotherapeutic methodologies, its final chapters lay out her pioneering theories of treatment she devised to help emotionally troubled patients feel better faster and live fuller lives sooner.
Her Interactive Feedback method is therapeutically counter to what she calls “The Silent Treatment,” where most professionals say nothing, leaving the suffering patient to figure things out all alone…which doesn’t help at all. Her rich feedback to her patients creates rapid resolution of sufferings like anxiety, depressed mood, repetitive love losses. Mood elevation, anxiety quelling and mature love choices occur swiftly with her technique, beginning with the very first session.
For over 25 years, Dr. Borel successfully provided Compassionate, Expert In-Person and Telephone Therapy to patients suffering Major Psychiatric Conditions like ambulatory schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, intrusive negative thoughts, borderline disorder…and Common Problems and Sufferings like Grief, Career Issues, Family Troubles, Love Loss, Childhood Traumas, Sadness, Loneliness, Fear of Failure, Stage Fright, Writer's Block… Everything is Emotional.
Dr. Borel’s combined her expertise in Medical Illnesses, Prescription Pharmaceuticals, Direct Care of Severe Psychiatric Conditions, and Published nonfiction and literary writing has made her the Go-To Therapist for her subspecialty in Creative Personalities and Other Highly Sensitive Persons.
That little orphan girl became Helen Borel,RN,MFA,PhD. You, too, can fulfill your life’s dreams and deserve to get the love you want in your life…no matter the depth of misfortunes you’ve faced or are going through right now. I know firsthand for myself, and for you.
Here's a recorded session by FdlM with Helen's wisdom to creatives: