an interview with Ron Charach

This interview was conducted in January 2005.

Robyn Maharaj: If you are asked to introduce yourself or if you are required to describe yourself, where does Ron Charach, the poet, fit into the description?

RC: At a party it makes for better conversation to be identified as a poet rather than a psychiatrist. The latter may lead to a request to explain the concerning behaviour of a relative and how best to convince that relative to get help. Worse, I may be asked about my views on the theories of Freud or Jung.

I often include in bylines the phrase “psychiatrist/poet” or “poet/psychiatrist.” There are fewer upturned eyebrows if I say I’m a psychiatrist who writes poems rather than a poet who practises psychiatry. The latter implies a degree of poetic licence that might alarm the public or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.

RM: As a doctor of psychiatry, you no doubt have a stressful career both mentally and emotionally. How are you able to work on writing as well?

RC: When people learn of my rare dual calling, some ask, “Where do you find the time?” One answer, given by many a working mother of young children, is, “I make time.” But there is never enough time. It is a source of frustration, but I try to treat the hours in my life as precious commodities for the incubation or the execution of new work, or alternatively, as the recovery (sabbatical) time one needs after the exhilaration of having produced new work. In both the careers of psychiatrist and creative writer, it is important to learn to pace oneself—to know when to work and when not to, to be what Atwood called “a writer at rest.”

At times, being a psychiatrist who treats both adolescents and adults is mentally and emotionally demanding, but that is a good stress. There are, of course, moments of the other kind of stress, such as having to deal with someone potentially suicidal or violent, more often an aggrieved spouse. Generally, I don’t find my career nearly as stressful as I would have found, say, window-washing, or legal editing, since what I do and the people I work with are endlessly challenging.

There are moments of boredom in non-productive psychotherapy sessions, but if one remains observant and listens with the third ear, there is always the potential for facilitating a discovery or a turnaround in someone’s life—the patient’s or my own!

RM: Does poetry fit into your work as a psychiatrist?

RC: I don’t practise anything resembling “poetry therapy,” and rarely advise patients to write poems. Of course, my reputation as a creative writer results in physicians referring to me people who are writers, actors, visual artists, and the like, or young people who aspire to those identities. Poetry works for me in that it does not demand large blocks of time, in the way that novel writing would. When a patient does not show up owing to illness or cancellation, a poem-sized block of time comes open during which I can write, or, more often, edit—provided I’m not swamped with overdue paperwork. I imagine that’s how Wallace Stevens used many a lunch hour or coffee break at his insurance company job.