GW Psychiatric Treatment: Letter to University Trustee

August 3, 1995
3801 Connecticut Ave., NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530

Harold F. Baker, Esq.
Trustee, George Washington University
1299 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Mr. Baker:

The enclosed memoranda, dated July 31 1995 and August 2, 1995, addressed to my current treating psychiatrist at the George Washington University Medical Center, Dr. Georgopoulos, are forwarded for your information in your capacity as trustee of the George Washington University.

I direct your specific attention to the memorandum dated August 2, 1995, paragraph 7, regarding the possible civil liability of the George Washington University Medical Center were I to injure an individual consistent with the determination of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss Hauer & Feld that I am potentially violent and possibly armed and homicidal. The Medical Center's refusal to consult with Akin Gump's managers to ascertain the precise facts concerning my alleged "volatile," "violent," "disruptive," and "bizarre" conduct as an employee may be negligent.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

cc: FBI
U.S. Secret Service
Office of U.S. Attorney [Eric H. Holder, Esq.]

GW Psychiatric Treatment: Risk Assessment

TO:          Dr. Georgopoulos
FROM:    Gary Freedman
DATE:      July 31, 1995
RE:           Statement
________________________________

At my consultation on July 24, 1995 you agreed to investigate the possibility of preparing a written statement regarding my potential for violence.

I believe that the statement should include at least the following:

1.  Mr. Freedman does not pose a risk of violence; he has not threatened to commit an act of violence.

2.  Statements made by attorney managers of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld that Mr. Freedman posed a risk of violence while employed at the firm are baseless.  Mr. Freedman's belief that he was a victim of job harassment while employed at the firm is not in itself evidence of a paranoid disorder nor do such beliefs indicate that Mr. Freedman poses a risk of violence.  See Eide v. Kelsey Hayes Co., 397 N.W.2d at 538.

3.  The George Washington University Medical Center credits the veracity of statements made by Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D. that Dr. Ticho did not have any communications with any Akin Gump personnel (attorneys or supervisory staff) of the nature alleged by the firm in sworn statements filed by Akin Gump with the D.C. Department of Human Rights.

Letter to Gertrude Ticho, M.D. -- Suggested Language for Statement to DHR

July 2, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC  20008

Gertrude R. Ticho, MD
3120 Brandywine Street, NW
Washington, DC

Dear Dr. Ticho:

This will confirm our telephone conversation on the morning of July 2, 1993 in which you stated that you did not make a representation regarding my mental status to Mr. Dennis M. Race of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld in late October 1991 or at any time.

I am enclosing a statement that I prepared which affirms that you did not make a representation regarding my mental state to my former employer, as falsely alleged by my former employer in documents it filed with the District of Columbia Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development.  I request that you sign and date the statement and return it to me in the enclosed envelope.

I am also forwarding that portion of the Department of Human Rights opinion letter that falsely attributes statements to you, together with an additional copy of the prepared statement which you may keep for your own records.

I greatly appreciate your assistance in this matter.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

The following is the text of the statement I prepared for Dr. Ticho to sign.  She did not sign this statement.  Rather she sent me a letter on her letterhead affirming that she had no contacts with Dennis M. Race, and affirming that she never saw me in consultation. 

TO THE DC DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT:

This statement confirms that Mr. Gary Freedman placed a telephone call to me on the morning of Friday July 2, 1993 and inquired as to whether I had ever made a representation regarding Mr. Freedman's mental status to Mr. Dennis M. Race of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.

Mr. Freedman read to me over the telephone the following portion of an opinion letter issued by the District of Columbia Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development: "Dr. Gertrude Ticho identified Complainant's behavior, putting a negative meaning to virtually every event as 'ideas of reference' and cautioned that individuals in similar circumstances may become violent."

I, Dr. Gertrude R. Ticho, affirm that I was never contacted by, nor have I ever spoken with, Mr. Dennis M. Race or any attorney manager of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, in late October 1991 or at any time.  On no occasion was I ever requested by Mr. Dennis M. Race or any attorney manager at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld to offer a representation regarding Mr. Freedman's mental status.  I do not know the identity of Mr. Dennis M. Race and have never communicated with him.  I do not know, nor can I explain, why attorney managers of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld would allege in documents filed with the District of Columbia Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development that I made the statements falsely attributed to me.  The only time I have ever spoken with Mr. Gary Freedman was the telephone call that Mr. Freedman placed to me on July 2, 1993.


__________________________
Gertrude R. Ticho, MD
3120 Brandywine Street, NW
Washington, DC

(202) 244-2113

_________________________
Date

Western Union Mailgram

Western Union Mailgram
January 12, 1989

This is a confirmation copy of the following message:

Mr. Craig W. Dye
Hogan and Hartson Computer
Applications Department
8 West 555 13 St. North
Washington DC 20009

How is my credit rating?  Let's do beer/video interface.  Is Danny game?  Seek to avoid telephonegate.  No one ever said I couldn't telegram.  Smoke signals still at my disposal.

17:54 EST

Letter to FBI -- 1995

April 6, 1995
3801 Connecticut Ave., NW
#136
Washington, DC  200008-4530

David M. Bowie
Supervisory Special Agent
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, DC  20034

Dear Mr. Bowie:

Enclosed for your general information is additional background material.

1.  Letter of reference dated April 24, 1979 prepared by Mrs. Elena P. Saboe, a former coworker at the Franklin Research Laboratories in Philadelphia.

2.  Letter of acceptance issued by Gonzaga University Law Review in the summer of 1980;  I had no significant personal contacts with the letter's signers.

3.  Contents page of The Jurist (Spring 1981), a publication of Temple University Law School on which I served as an associate editor.

4.  Bibliographic material from a publication "Biological Effects of Nonionizing Electromagnetic Radiation: A Digest of Current Literature," prepared by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.  I assisted Mrs. Saboe with the preparation of the publication during the period Fall 1976 to January 1979, and later managed the publication myself during the first half of 1979 prior to my entering law school in the Fall of 1979.

5.  Comments by Professor Seymour J. Rubin regarding a paper I had written for his course at the American University Law School in 1983.  Attached is background information concerning Professor Rubin.

6.  Billing statement issued by the George Washington University Medical Center indicating the diagnosis Delusional (Paranoid) Disorder: DSM-III-R 297.10.

Dr. Bruce H. Kleinstein served as my supervisor at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia during the period 1972 to July 1979.  I believe he currently serves as President of his own company, Information Ventures, in Philadelphia: office telephone no. (215) 732-9083; home telephone no. (215) 732-xxxx.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

Attaching a Negative Meaning to Trivial Events: That's What Psychoanalysts DO!!

The YouTube video is an episode from a PBS dramatization of the Tolstoy classic, Anna Karenina. In this episode Anna Karenina commits suicide by throwing herself in front of an oncoming train. After the suicide a group of people gather around Anna's lifeless body. Anna's illicit lover, Alexei Vronsky arrives on the scene and picks up Anna's purse (12:00 on the video), which is pink in color and shaped like a small pouch. To the layman, the purse is just a purse. A psychoanalyst might have a different view. He might see a symbolic representation of a vagina: pink in color and shaped like a small pouch. A subliminal communication, perhaps.

Psychotherapy: Center Clinic

During the period February 2003 until May 2004 I was in weekly psychotherapy with a psychology intern at The George Washington University's Center Clinic for Professional Psychology.

The following is the text of a bill from the Center Clinic:
_____________________

Center Clinic

2300 M St NW, Suite 910

Washington, DC  20037

(202) 887-0775

Date of bill:  9/12/03

Name of Therapist: Ms. Meghana Tembe

Name of Patient:  Mr. Gary Freedman

For Professional Services Rendered

Psychotherapy

2 50-Minute Sessions at $5 per session

Dates of service

Month of July

Total= $10

Balance=

Services provided under the supervision of:

Dr. Richard Ogden

Name & Title

#10261

Letter to Sister -- 1992

Dear Stell,

I may be wrong, but I vaguely recall that Dr. Brenman-Gibson mentioned in her biography of Clifford Odets that creative individuals have a special need for mentoring.  I have two questions about that:

1.  Is the special need for mentoring among the creative related to the healer's "peculiar sense of having been 'chosen' for a special relationship with the sacred, as if his being-in-the-world were for the sole purpose of establishing a 'cosmic emotional relationship' with an omnipotent protector."  And how is this personality characteristic related to the creative person/healer's relationship with the "audience?"

2.  How would a psychiatrist distinguish between a creative person's need for mentoring and a weak person's need to have someone "hold his hand?"

GF

6/16/92

Letter to Sister -- 1992

Dear Stell,

Check this out.  Henry Ruth, a name to remember.

GF

Speaking of Watergate -- Sam Dash, CHS 178 -- another one of my polar opposites.

6/18/92

Aphorisms -- 1990

The following is a collection of aphorisms and observations that I wrote in January 1990. I wrote them a brief time before I embarked on psychotherapy with Stanley R. Palombo, M.D.  The aphorisms are written in frank imitation of those of Friedrich Nietzsche.   I left the document in a drawer in my desk at work at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. I had a paranoid suspicion that coworkers used to look through my personal possessions in my desk. A brief time after I wrote this document a coworker, Chris Montague, a paralegal who occupied the 9th floor office where I was assigned said to me: “Some people have a high opinion of themselves, don't they?” Chris Montague rarely said more than hello to me.
_____________________

Criminals—the destroyers of civilized order—are psychologically all of a piece. The individual who engages in a life of petty crime has, in a certain sense, more in common with the criminal element, comprising both the petty wrongdoer and the great felon, than with the law-abiding non-criminal. This is true despite the fact that, in a quantitative sense, the misdeeds of the petty criminal may never approach the “awful horribleness” of the acts of the truly great crime. The petty criminal, no less than the great criminal, however, will be of interest to, though perhaps not intrigue, the criminologist.

In a certain limited sense, from a psychological perspective, the creator of a metaphor has more in common with Shakespeare than with the non-creative.

***

The psychologist treats artistic creations--both the most meager and the most sublime--as the gastroenterologist treats fecal specimens: simply as evidence of a particular type of functioning.

***

Lesson in fraud

Compare:

1) Dissembling by thing evaluated:

Person says of a rhinestone, "That's nothing but a piece of glass pretending to be something it's not."

2) Dissembling by evaluator:

Person says of a diamond, "That's nothing but a piece of coal pretending to be something it's not." (How does the diamond defend against that appraisal?)

***

The creative person among the noncreative

May resemble a badly tarnished silver place setting among immaculately clean and shining stainless steel place settings.  Which would you rather eat from, but which is more valuable?  Stainless steel doesn't tarnish, but it never shines as brightly as polished silver.

May resemble a spokesperson for Three-Mile Island among a group of lobbyists for the coal industry.  Why do people react to reactors the way they do?  Maybe it's the plutonium, or maybe the nuclear fission.  People fear the reactor will explode as though it were a nuclear bomb.  But unlike the nuclear bomb, the nuclear fission reaction in the reactor is controlled.  The reactor is designed to fuel a city, not destroy it.

By the way, few people like nuclear reactors; but why are the coal lobbyists particularly persistent and harsh in their condemnation?

Sometimes pretentiousness is in the eye of the beholder: a problem in miscategorization.

A man sets up an easel in front of a nuclear reactor.  He takes out his palette and paints a depiction of the reactor on his canvas.  A passerby, envious of the man's work and eager to devalue the man's accomplishment, says: "What kind of idiot do you think I am?  Who are you trying to fool?  What do you know about a nuclear reactors?"  Did the man with the easel ever claim to be a nuclear physicist?  He is, in fact, an artist.

* * *

A 350-pound man is walking in the snow.  His footprints leave deep impressions in the snow.  A passerby sees the deep footprints and says, "I notice that you seem to walk very hard.  (With the unstated question, "Why? Who are you trying to impress?")  The morbidly-obese man replies, "It's part of my pathology."  The man will have serious problems among those who consider the depth of one's footprints in the snow to be a measure of virtue, and especially those who are also not obese.

* * *

Metaphor drawn from life:

Imagine what it might have been like for Joseph to share company with someone who never recalled his dreams.  What would it have been like for the non-dreamer to be in the company of Joseph?  Pity them both!

***

A man walks into a department store.  He is disheveled and apparently destitute, but has never stolen anything.  He wishes to make a lawful purchase like all the other shoppers.  He is characterized as a shoplifter.  All eyes are on him.  He is here to steal, they say; why else would someone like him be here?  Every motion the man makes is scrutinized.  Every action the man undertakes, consistent with his being an honest shopper, will be taken as proof-positive he is a thief.  The man leaves, wary of returning to that store or any store.  Is this fear of rejection, my friends?

* * *
Someone once said, "Perhaps the greatest pianist who ever lived was a caveman living in a cave in Europe 15,000 years ago.  But we will never know because there were no pianos."  Can a man with an unexpressed talent still be said to be average?  Will there not be other aspects of the man, even though they may go unnoticed, that in some way betray that talent?  And if certain unique qualities are noticed, won't people be tempted to view them as odd, superfluous, and perhaps pretentious?
 

A man has an animal phobia—a fear of alligators. The fear expressed itself on only one occasion. During a trip to the everglades, when the man was 5 years old. He suffered a panic attack when he saw an alligator surface from the swamp. The man has lived his entire life in Omaha where he has never encountered, and probably will never encounter, an alligator. He has never suffered a panic attack before. His life is normal. But can a man with an unexpressed phobia still be said to be normal? Will there not be other aspects of the man, though they may go unnoticed, that in some way betray his uniqueness? Perhaps what appears to be a problem is in some way insidiously related to the most sublime in him, such as a special sensitivity.

* * *

If you have a black and white television receiver, how will you ever know that the local television station is broadcasting in color? You'll have to rely on someone with a color receiver to tell you. If you happen to drive by the local television station, which you think broadcasts in black and white, the special apparatus for color transmission will seem odd, superfluous, and perhaps pretentious.

* * *

Lesson in narcissism. From what city or country should I claim provenance? Perhaps I am "composite and cosmopolitan.”

Vienna was once the capital of an empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire no longer exists, but the magnificent boulevards, buildings, and institutions of Vienna remain. Today Vienna is the capital of no more than a small European state. The grandeur of Vienna is curiously inconsistent with the size and status of the country of which it is capital.

In the late eighteenth century, the newly-independent United States set out to create a grand national capital in Washington. Compared with the great European states, the United States was not much more than a colonial outpost on the edge of a barren continent. The grandeur planned for Washington was curiously inconsistent with the size and status of the country of which it was capital.

Societies, of course, play down their problems, put their best foot forward and try to make a good impression on visitors, but Soviet society, with the special vanity of its Utopian ideology, takes this tendency to extremes. No more dramatic example of staging a show to impress foreigners took place during my stay in Russia than  than the face lifting given to Moscow just before President Nixon's visit in the summer of 1972. Entire blocks of old buildings were burned down and carted away. Hundreds of people were moved out. Streets were widened and repaved, buildings repainted, trees and lawns planted, fringed with fresh flowerbeds put in practically on the eve of his arrival. Even our building, far from the Kremlin, was spruced up a bit on the off chance that Nixon might show up. Under the Czars this was called “Potemkinizing,” after the prince who erected fake villages along the highway used by Catherine the Great to impress her with the wealth of his region. Nowadays, Russians call it pokazukha, for show.

--Hedrick Smith, The Russians

We cannot entirely ignore the legends, current throughout history, of civilizations once great and cultured, destroyed by some catastrophe of nature or war, and leaving not a wrack behind. . . .  The Pacific contains the ruins of at least one of these lost civilizations.  The gigantic statuary of Easter Island, the Polynesian tradition of powerful nations and heroic warriors once ennobling Samoa and Tahiti, the artistic nobility and poetic sensitivity of their present inhabitants, indicates a glory departed, a people not rising to civilization, but fallen from a high estate.

--Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

At least one city—Rome--is simultaneously he former capital of an empire, once a small village whose future greatness was foretold in myth, whose present city fathers engage in touristy displays to cater to foreign visitors, and which is a repository of artifacts from successive stages of development.

He Risked So Much in His Life

I just admire the daring.  I just admire the boldness of the whole project.  That he risked so much in his life.  That he achieved so much.  I mean, it takes my breath away.
--John Deathridge on Richard Wagner

Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is a cycle of four epic music dramas by the German composer Richard Wagner (1813–83). The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The four dramas, which the composer described as a trilogy with a Vorabend ("preliminary evening"), are often referred to as the Ring Cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply the Ring.

Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four operas that constitute the Ring cycle are, in the order of the imagined events they portray:

    Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold)
    Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)
    Siegfried
    Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Although individual operas are performed as works in their own right, Wagner intended them to be a coherent whole, performed in a series.

Dr. Zhivago -- Life Imitating Art

The following is the text of a letter I wrote to my sister, probably in the summer of 1992.  Incidentally, Vernon Jordan has connections to CBS News.

Dear Stell,

Do you remember last year during the Persian Gulf War that Bob Simon of CBS News was held hostage in Iraq after he was captured by the Iraqis as he and his colleagues were traveling along a highway in Iraq?

• Suddenly a deafening shot was fired very close to him. . . .  Three armed horsemen blocked his way. . . .  "Don't move, Comrade Doctor," said the cavalryman in the fur cap, who was the oldest of the three.  "If you obey orders, we guarantee that you will not be harmed.  If you don't--no offense meant--we'll shoot you." . . .
  
  But to look on inactively while the mortal struggle raged all around was impossible, it was beyond human strength.  It was not a question of loyalty to the side that held him captive or of defending his own life, but of submitting to the order of events, to the laws governing what went on around him.  To remain an outsider was against the rules.  You had to do what everyone was doing.  A battle was going on.  He and his comrades were being shot at.  Dr. Zhivago.  From the chapters preceding and following that titled "The Highway."

Bob Simon loves the Wagner operas, and has had a life-long fascination with the composer's life.  As Red Buttons used to say, "Strange things are happening!"

GF

Strauss Imponderables

Capriccio is the final opera by German composer Richard Strauss, subtitled "A Conversation Piece for Music". The opera received its premiere performance at the Nationaltheater München on October 28, 1942. Clemens Krauss and Strauss himself wrote the German libretto. However, the genesis of the libretto came from Stefan Zweig in the 1930s, and Joseph Gregor further developed the idea several years later. Strauss then took on the libretto, but finally recruited Krauss as his collaborator on the opera. Most of the final libretto is by Krauss.

The theme of the opera can be summarized as "Which is the greater art, poetry or music?" This question is dramatized in the story of a Countess torn between two suitors: Olivier, a poet, and Flamand, a composer.

In the final scene, as moonlight shines, the Countess learns that both Olivier and Flamand will meet her in the library to learn the ending of the opera. Still undecided, she sings of the inseparability of words and music, and consults her image in the mirror for a decision. The major-domo announces that "Dinner is served" and the opera ends.

Stefan Zweig (November 28, 1881 – February 23, 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.

Zweig was the son of Moriz Zweig (1845–1926), a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer, and Ida Brettauer (1854–1938), from a Jewish banking family. Joseph Brettauer did business for twenty years in Ancona, Italy, where his second daughter Ida was born and grew up, too. Zweig studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and in 1904 earned a doctoral degree with a thesis on "The Philosophy of Hippolyte Taine". Religion did not play a central role in his education. "My mother and father were Jewish only through accident of birth", Zweig said later in an interview. Yet he did not renounce his Jewish faith and wrote repeatedly on Jews and Jewish themes, as in his story "Buchmendel". Although his essays were published in the Neue Freie Presse, whose literary editor was the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl, Zweig was not attracted to Herzl's Jewish nationalism, nor did the publication review Herzl's Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). Zweig himself called Herzl's book an "obtuse text, [a] piece of nonsense", but this was perhaps due, as Amos Elon notes, to the level of comfortable assimilation enjoyed by Viennese Jews at the time.

Strauss continued to work on a comic opera, Die Schweigsame Frau, with his Jewish friend and librettist Zweig despite the Nazi ban on works by Jewish artists. When the opera was premiered in Dresden in 1935, Strauss insisted that Zweig's name appear on the theatrical billing, much to the ire of the Nazi regime. Hitler and Goebbels avoided attending the opera, and it was halted after three performances and subsequently banned by the Third Reich.

On 17 June 1935, Strauss wrote a letter to Stefan Zweig, in which he stated:

• Do you believe I am ever, in any of my actions, guided by the thought that I am 'German'? Do you suppose Mozart was consciously 'Aryan' when he composed? I recognize only two types of people: those who have talent and those who have none.

This letter to Zweig was intercepted by the Gestapo and sent to Hitler. Strauss was subsequently dismissed as Reichsmusikkammer president in 1935.

LL.M. in International Trade Law: American University Acceptance

May 16, 1983

Mr. Gary Freedman
1324 Locust Street
Apartment #415
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  19107

Dear Mr. Freedman:

I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Law School's LL.M. degree program in International Law for the Fall 1983 semester.  My colleagues and I are confidant that you will add greatly to the quality and diversity of graduate students in this program.

Registration will be held on Thursday, August 25, from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm in room 102 of the Myers Law School building on the American University campus.  Classes begin on Monday, August 29, 1983.  I look forward to your joining us this fall.  If I may be of assistance in the mean time, please do not hesitate to contact me at (202) 686-2606.

Sincerely,

/s/

Robert K. Goldman
Director
Graduate International
  Studies Program

RKG:jb

LL.M. in Taxation -- Acceptance to Villanova Law School Program

Villanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania  19085

School of Law

December 9, 1982

Gary Freedman, Esquire
1324 Locust Street  Apt. 415
Philadelphia, PA  19107

Dear Mr. Freedman:

Congratulations on your acceptance to the Villanova Graduate Tax Program beginning with the Spring, 1983 semester.  If you wish to hold a seat, please complete the enclosed form and return it with your deposit fee.

I will notify you under separate cover about the pre-registration procedures.  Final registration will be held the first night of classes.  You should be prepared to pay tuition in full at that time.

I look forward to seeing you in January.

Sincerely,

Don W. Llewellyn
Director of the
Graduate Tax Program

DWL/hcs
Enclosure

Letter to James L. Kestell, Esq.

April 20, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC  20008

Mr. James L. Kestell
1101 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC

RE:  McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld

Dear Mr. Kestell:

Enclosed are copies of pleadings in Freedman v. Akin Gump, filed with DOHR:

(1)  Akin Gump's Response to Interrogatories and Document Request (I include only the Response to Particulars: all of Akin Gump's attachments are included as attachments to my Reply); and

(2)  My Reply to Akin Gump's Response.

I also include a copy of a letter submitted to DOHR detailing the events on the day of my termination, including the actions of my supervisor, Chris Robertson.

Note that Akin Gump's failure to adequately investigate my allegations of harassment against Chris Robertson, and management's failure to investigate the retaliatory nature of Chris Robertson's actions following my charge of harassment, may allow you to add a count of Negligent Retention in McNeil v. Akin Gump.

Also, Chris Robertson's retaliation following my charge of harassment (specifically the numerous intentionally false statements in her memo to Dennis Race dated October 25, 1991) may constitute the tort of Intentional Interference with Contract in my case.  (I understand that DC recognizes language in employment manuals as establishing an implied contract right.)

Finally, with respect to Akin Gump's Response, note the absurd statement on the first age: "Later, [on August 1, 1989] Claimant was employed as a full-time legal assistant ("paralegal") to manage massive amounts of documents for a major client (See Attachment C).  Shortly thereafter, [on March 9, 1989] the client filed for bankruptcy protection and eventually the legal work diminished."  At best, this error indicates Akin Gump's lack of knowledge of the material facts (which carries implications regarding the thoroughness of its investigation of my charge of harassment prior to my termination); at worst, it's an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

Re: Meeting with James Kestell, Esq. in April 1993:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/11/meeting-with-james-kestell-esq-1993.html

Letter to James L. Kestell, Esq.

April 20, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008

Mr. James L. Kestell
1101 15th Street, NW

RE: McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld

Dear Mr. Kestell:

Enclosed is Akin Gump's Response to the Complaint filed with DOHR in Freedman v. Akin Gump together with a copy of my Reply.

Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

Re: Meeting with James Kestell in April 1993:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/11/meeting-with-james-kestell-esq-1993.html

A Grievance with Non-Psychoanalysts

In a book by Harvard psychologist Richard J. McNally titled Remembering Trauma, the author disputes the value of analyzing the dreams of patients in psychotherapy.  He argues that in order to analyze a dream, the psychologist needs to know a lot about a patient, and if the psychologist already knows a lot about the patient, analyzing his dreams will only be redundant.  Apparently, if I read him correctly, Professor McNally does not believe that dreams provide novel insights about a patient.

That argument does not sit well with me, though I can't think of a way to dispute it logically.  But I did think of the following, which, I believe, serves as a useful analogy.

There are already many fine and exhaustive biographies of Abraham Lincoln.  Let us say that someone discovers a cache of hitherto unknown letters written by Lincoln while he was President.  Would it make sense to say to a historian who contemplates writing a book about the letters: "So much is already known about Lincoln.  Won't a book about President Lincoln's newly-discovered letters simply be redundant?"   In all probability, only a non-historian would ask such a question. 

Does professor McNally's dismissal of the value of dream analysis say anything about the ultimate value of dream analysis -- or does his observation simply stamp him as a non-psychoanalyst?

Though in defense of Professor McNally I will quote the preface of E. James Lieberman's biography of the analyst Otto Rank.  Dr. Lieberman is a retired Washington, DC psychoanalyst/psychiatrist.  Dr. Lieberman opens the preface to his book as follows: "As a reader who feels burdened by a surfeit of books, I must justify the production of yet another.  Otto Rank gave up writing for a time, saying, 'There is already too much truth in the world--an overproduction which apparently cannot be consumed.' I agree."  Dr. Lieberman goes on to justify his writing a biography of Rank titled: Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank!

Gift to my Sister -- And Family Psychopathology

My Uncle Izzy (Isidore) Freedman, one of my father's older brothers, died in the early 1970s.  I was a college student at the time.  Uncle Izzy was a bachelor who lived his entire adult life with an older sister, Ella Freedman Klein and her family.  He worked for RCA in Camden, New Jersey.  He had a factory job, but amassed a small fortune of about $60,000 in savings.   He left a will bequeathing his entire estate to Aunt Ella.  My father was infuriated; he believed that his brother, who wrote a will during his final illness (he had diabetes his entire adult life), was the victim of undue influence by his older sister.  He accused his older sister, my Aunt Ella, of greed: of wanting to take the entire estate, when, no doubt -- at least according to my father -- his older brother, Izzy, would have wanted all his siblings to share equally.

My sister's husband talked to a friend, a lawyer, about the family situation.  The lawyer recommended that my father and his siblings hire a lawyer to challenge Isidore Freedman's will.  According to the lawyer, my father could make a creditable case of undue influence, invalidating the will, and allowing Uncle Izzy's estate to pass equally to the surviving brothers and sisters.  (My father had six siblings).  The lawyer recommended a colleague, Martin Herring, Esq.  My father proceeded to corral his brothers and sisters into agreeing to hire Martin Herring to contest the will, at the urging of my brother-in-law.  And thus a will contest was had.  In the end, Ella Klein settled, agreeing to pay about $1,000 to each of her siblings and keeping the remainder of Uncle Izzy's estate.

Thus, in my brother-in-law's narrative an older sister used undue influence to induce her younger, infirm brother to hand over his estate to her.

Be that as it may.

In January 1980 my mother died.  I was the sole beneficiary of my mother's employer-sponsored life insurance policy in the amount of about $18,500.  I was in law school at the time, living alone on personal savings.  My sister knew I suffered from mental illness. In fact, in November 1977, after my suicide attempt, my brother-in-law talked to his friend, the lawyer, about suing my psychiatrist for malpractice, accusing him of substandard care leading to my suicide attempt.  The lawyer told my brother-in-law that alleging psychiatrist malpractice in a case of suicide or attempted suicide was exceedingly difficult to prove.  But the lawyer recommended that I see a psychiatrist, I.J. Oberman, D.O., a forensic psychiatrist who was a professional colleague of the lawyer friend; the friend happened to be a mental health master for the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas.  About the severity of my mental condition, the lawyer friend told my brother-in-law that suicide was "an inherently psychotic act."  I ended up embarking on treatment with Dr. Oberman.  I saw him from June 1978 till early 1979.  I entered law school in August 1979.  Thus, both my sister and brother-in-law were well aware of my psychiatric problems as of 1977.  Incidentally, when I stopped working in June 1979 -- prior to my law school enrollment -- I lost my employer-sponsored medical insurance.

What did my sister and brother-in-law know as of January 1980, at the time of my mother's death?

1.  They knew I had a history of severe mental illness that included a psychotic episode.

2.  They knew I had no medical insurance that would allow me to obtain psychiatric treatment.

3.  They knew that my mother, while she was alive, was concerned about my ability to take care of myself -- the primary motive in her decision to make me the sole beneficiary of her life insurance.  (My mother had named me sole beneficiary in mid-1969, when I was 15 years old.  My sister and brother-in-law had gotten married in early May 1969; thus, my sister was an emancipated adult at the time my mother made me beneficiary of her life insurance.)

Despite this knowledge, my sister and brother-in-law seemed to have a sense of entitlement about the life insurance.  A brief time after my mother died, I telephoned an employee at my mother's place of employment, Lorraine Dobransky, to advise her of my address so that the insurance payment would be sent directly to me in Spokane, Washington, where I was living at the time.   Lorraine Dobransky seemed surprised by my call.  She said: "I just got a call from your sister.  She said she wanted the check sent to her as administrator of your mother's estate."  Note that insurance proceeds do not come within the purview of an estate administrator.  Insurance proceeds fall outside the jurisdiction of a deceased's estate.  I told Lorraine Dobransky: "Please send the insurance check to me, not my sister."

As the months passed, my brother-in-law said to me, "Did you get the check yet?"  What business was that of my brother-in-law?  Note that sense of entitlement is a symptom of a narcissistic personality disorder (as is interpersonal exploitation).  On another occasion, my brother-in-law said to me, "I was talking to Steve Frankel (a friend of my brother-in-law in the insurance business), and Steve said that you are entitled to interest on the insurance proceeds from the date of your mother's death."  I suspect -- I don't know -- but I suspect that my brother-in-law had asked Steve Frankel if there was some way to compel me to share the insurance proceeds equally with my sister.  Remember the case of Ella Klein and Izzy Freedman, above?

In the end, generous and selfless person that I am, I shared my mother's life insurance proceeds with my sister.  Incidentally, one of the symptoms of schizoid personality disorder is that the schizoid is,"at times, altruistically self-sacrificing."  Yes, I am a generous person.  It's part of my psychopathology!

I still have the receipt for the check I sent to my sister (which she proceeded to hand over, in full, to her husband -- who worked as a Camden County elementary school teacher despite the fact he had a business degree).

Thus, my brother-in-law had an older sister use undue influence to induce her younger, infirm brother to hand over his insurance proceeds to her.
__________________________


ONB OLD NATIONAL BANK  No. 3385336

PURCHASER'S RECEIPT      DATE: May 12, 1980

PAY TO THE ORDER OF EXXXXXE JXXXXXXN **$10,000

CASHIER'S CHECK     NOT NEGOTIABLE   [initialed: J.T.]

Reading Double Meanings: Ideas of Reference or Immaturity

I was terminated from my job as a paralegal at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld days after I lodged a harassment complaint against firm personnel.  I had told two of the firm's senior managers that I believed a sexual meaning could be read into the communications of my supervisor and coworkers, and that firm personnel were harassing me thereby.  The firm concluded, after consulting a psychiatrist about me, that my harassment charge indicated I suffered from a psychiatric disorder, "ideas of reference" that caused me to attribute a negative meaning to trivial events.   With that psychiatric opinion in hand, I qualified for disability benefits from the U.S. Social Security Administration, and I will probably collect about $500,000 in disability, Medicare and Medicaid benefits by the time I "retire" at age 65.

But am I necessarily mentally ill because I see a sexual meaning in the communications of others?  Perhaps I am simply immature and perfectly sane.

I recently came across the following observations in an article titled: Shrinking Texts: Against Hermeneutics Under Freudian Auspices.   "Every schoolboy knows how easy it is to foist sexual overtones onto almost every sentence one hears in normal conversation, asexual  though those sentences might actually be.  If we put our minds to it, we can transform countless words and notions into sexual innuendo.  When a young wit exercises his ingenuity in this way, and is brash enough (or disrespectful enough) to voice his indiscretions publicly, he usually succeeds only in embarrassing those around him and discrediting himself.  We who hear him know that his perverse projections are merely that -- projections.  They have no real bearing on the original speaker or on that speaker's language, character, or motivations.  We hear such indiscreet interjections and dismiss them, (if our standards of morality and of social decorum are not too severely offended) as the immaturity of youth.  When he is older, we hope, he will put away childish things."

Simply because, perhaps, I have the mind and maturity of a fifth grader, should I qualify for a half-million dollars in public monies?

Worshipping Jesus is Gay

The Birth of My Niece

The following is the text of a poem I wrote upon the birth of my niece, Suzanne, in January 1982.  I gave a copy of the poem together with two white lilies to my sister and brother-in-law.  The name Suzanne is derived from the Hebrew Shoshanna, which means lily.  The poem is a jumble of English, French, and German.

Most wond'rous birth--quel miracle!

Spring leaps forth with a flower in her hand

breaching winter's chilling shackle

defying nature's solemn reprimand.

Say, what flower blooms with such allure

'mid winter frost and wind-swept flourish?

C'est l'enfant d'un coeur si doux et pure

que nous l'appellons une fleur fraiche, alors!

Mais quelle est nee en janvier

au commencement de l'annee, au lieu de mai?

Il faut que ca soit un fleur-d-lis,

une fleur d l'ile enchantee.

Une fleur d'une ame suss'

--une suss' ame--

Mai oui, sans doute, elle est le fleur-de-lis, Suzanne!!

(Suzanne, name derived from Hebrew word for lily)

___________________

I was probably inspired to write the poem by a birthday greeting the composer Richard Wagner gave to his wife, Cosima.  He set to music a poem he had written which poses the question:  "What flower blooms at Christmas?"  Wagner's wife, Cosima, was born December 25th.

Thank You!

The following is  text of a Hallmark card sent to me in early 1983 by Neil Sagot, Esq., an attorney in Philadelphia for whom I worked as a law clerk during the period 1981-1982.  I had sent him a necktie as a gift for his birthday, which is in early January.

Thank You

Dear Gary:

Thank you for the birthday present.  It's a beautiful tie, and as you know the ties I usually wear are anything but beautiful, so I appreciate this one all the more.

It was very thoughtful of you.

Keep in touch and let me know how well you're doing.

Thanks again.

Neil

Temple Law School -- Admission as Second Year Transfer Student

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION

SCHOOL OF LAW
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS

August 7, 1980

Mr. Gary Freedman
East 15-1/2 Augusta Ave.
Spokane, WA  99207

Dear Mr. Freedman:

I am delighted to inform you that you have been accepted to the School of Law for the Fall 1980 as a second year student.  In accordance with your application, you have been assigned a place in the Day Division.

We are pleased at the prospect of your joining the Temple Law School community.  While demanding, the study of law is one of the most richly rewarding of intellectual and social experiences.  Our hope is that you will continue to be stimulated by the challenges it offers.

Information is enclosed regarding your acceptance and the procedures for reserving your place for the Fall of 1980.  IS IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT YOU READ CAREFULLY AND COMPLY WITH ALL PROVISIONS TO ENSURE YOUR PLACE WITH US.  If you have further questions concerning the terms of your acceptance, please contact my office (215) 787-7865.

It is essential that you arrange for an appointment with Marcene W. Goldmann, Assistant Dean for Students.  Please call her secretary at (215) 787-8957 so that your program and registration for the 1980 academic year may be reviewed.

On behalf of the Dean and the Faculty of Law, I congratulate you upon your acceptance to Temple University School of Law.

With best regards,

Carlton S. Clark
Assistant Director of Admissions

CSC:ab
Enclosures

cc:  Marcene W. Goldmann
      Assistant Dean for Students

Hogan & Hartson: Overtime Hours -- Week of December 29, 1986

I was employed as an agency-supplied paralegal at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson from mid-September 1985 to late February 1988.  In December 1986 I was assigned to assist attorneys working on Milwaukee Public Schools litigation to prepare an exhibit list.  It was a lengthy process and I ended up working about 83 hours during the week beginning Monday December 28, 1986.  I earned about $1,000 that week.  The temp agency's policy was to pay time and one-half after 40 hours and double time after 60 hours.  I foolishly bragged to coworkers in the Computer Applications Department that I had earned $1,000 dollars, which I believe probably aroused envy in the department.  Bob Ferguson, who is mentioned in the memo below, was a Hogan computer consultant.  I did not have any interaction with Bob Ferguson--he did not know me.  Though I believe Bob Ferguson and Craig W. Dye had some interaction.

A note about my memos to my supervisor Sheryl Ferguson.  I wrote numerous memos to her.  Some of the memos were somewhat bizarre, and seemed to be attempts to show off my intellect--such as the memo below.  Sheryl Ferguson never told me to stop writing memos so I assumed it was OK with her to write them.  By the time Sheryl Ferguson left the firm in early 1987, she had on file in her office a stack of my memos.  I had a paranoid suspicion that when Craig Dye assumed the administration of the Computer Applications Department, after Miriam Chilton's departure in January 1989, Craig Dye transmitted copies of all or some of the memos to Akin Gump management, which would have constituted a breach of Hogan's confidentiality on Craig Dye's part.

TO:   Sheryl Ferguson

FROM:  Gary Freedman

RE:  Time Sheet

DATE:  January 12, 1987
___________________________________________

A word about my hours for Monday, January 5.  If you check the register in the lobby, you will note that I signed out at 9:00 PM, while the "time-finished" entry on the vendor time sheet states 7:00 PM.  After reviewing my work on Monday, I was dissatisfied with the quality of work that I spent approximately 2 hours on and decided to stay late to redo it and further decided that it would be improper to charge for those two hours, especially in view of the fact that I anticipated working double-time hours during the week.  This note will serve to explain what I was doing in the building during the hours of 7:00 to 9:00 PM.

With regard to Bob Ferguson's password, I'd like to add something that I failed to state on Friday.  At the very moment that I saw Espe's fingers key in the password, which I knew to be confidential, I said, "I just saw what you keyed in."  Her response was, "Well, never use it; it contains a lot of functions that no one else has access to--that's why no one is supposed to use it."  Her response explains my knowing nod of the head when you said essentially the same thing to me on Friday.

I feel the fact that I informed Espe, a supervisory employee, of what I learned--immediately upon having learned it--discharged my duty to the department; I did all that I could reasonably be expected to do.  It then fell upon Espe to take immediate and appropriate action (i.e., informing Dennis [Payne]).  Clearly, at no time was there any active concealment on my part or any effort to make use of what I had learned.  Further the fact that I informed Espe, a supervisory employee, of the security breach, should be considered an effective communication as to all supervisory or confidential employees in both CAD and ISD.  That is, there was no duty on my part to track down each and every potentially interested party and provide notice of the security breach.

To close, permit me to restate, in a more respectful and reasoned way, something I alluded to on Friday.  One should not confuse the essentially discrete, though potentially overlapping, issues of ability on the one hand and intent on the other.  For example, the fact that a scientist may possess the intellectual prowess, or ability, to decipher nature's secrets and make important discoveries in the field of, say, genetic engineering, does not presuppose that he has the intent to use that ability to create a Frankenstein-like monster.  Likewise, the fact that I may be unusually observant (see attachments) does not carry with it the necessary presumption that I have the intent to misuse the knowledge gained through my perceptiveness.  For perceptiveness is an ability rooted intellect while an intent to use or misuse that ability is determined by character.  The fact that I told Espe immediately of what I saw when I saw it attests to my character and lack of intent to misuse what I learned.

"First the Nobel? Now, the Oscars?"

We know that Freud had a Nobel Prize complex.  In his writings, Freud referred, on several different occasions, to his disappointment after learning that he had been passed over for the Prize:

"'Definitively passed over for Nobel Prize,' the seventy-four-year-old founder of psychoanalysis grumbled in his Chronik, his private diary, in November 1930. It wasn't the first time his life's work had been passed over for recognition by the international scientific and medical communities—or the first time he'd complained about it. As early as 1917, when he was nominated by a previous winner, Freud had been fervently hoping for a Nobel in physiology. But it wasn't to be. 'No Nobel Prize 1917,' he wrote on April 25 of that year. He was still sufficiently preoccupied with the Nobel the following year to make note of it once again as the Europe he knew disintegrated around him. The Chronik entry for October 30, 1918: 'Revolution Vienna and Budapest.' For November 3: 'Armistice with Italy. War over!' For November 4: 'Nobel Prize set aside.'"

In 2011 the movie A Dangerous Method was released.  Set on the eve of World War I, A Dangerous Method is based on the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, Sigmund Freud, founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis, and Sabina Spielrein, initially a patient of Jung and later a physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts.

There had been some Oscar buzz surrounding the film, which stars Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortenson, Keira Knighthtly, and Vincent Casell. The screenplay was adapted by Academy Award-winning writer Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play The Talking Cure, which was based on the 1993 non-fiction book by John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method: the story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein.

Well, the Oscar nominations were announced today.  And A Dangerous Method was passed over.  I can just hear Freud saying, "First, the Nobel -- and now the Oscars?"

Ambiguity Tolerance

Ambiguity tolerance is the ability to perceive ambiguity in information and behavior in a neutral and open way.

Ambiguity tolerance is an important issue in personality development and education. In psychology and in management, levels of tolerance of ambiguity are correlated with creativity, risk aversion, psychological resilience, lifestyle, orientation towards diversity (cross-cultural communication, intercultural competence), and leadership style.

Wilkinson's Modes of Leadership is largely based on ambiguity tolerance. Mode one leaders have the least tolerance to ambiguity with mode four leaders enjoying and preferring to work in ambiguous situations. In part this is due to what Wilkinson calls 'emotional resilience'.

The converse, ambiguity intolerance, which was introduced in The Authoritarian Personality in 1950, was defined in 1975 as a “tendency to perceive or interpret information marked by vague, incomplete, fragmented, multiple, probable, unstructured, uncertain, inconsistent, contrary, contradictory, or unclear meanings as actual or potential sources of psychological discomfort or threat.”

Be that as it may.

I am currently in weekly psychotherapy with a psychiatry resident.  I believe that an issue of ambiguity tolerance has arisen in my work with the psychiatrist.

I had a session with the psychiatrist on January 23, 2012.  In two different contexts the psychiatrist raised the issue of my contradictory feelings about objects and seemed to me, at least, to assume I had feelings associated with my inconsistent evaluations.  I do not know whether I am tolerant or intolerant of ambiguity.  I like to believe that I am ambiguity tolerant.  I wonder whether my therapist assumes I am ambiguity intolerant and, further, that ambiguity arouses strong negative feelings in me.  Or, perhaps, my therapist is himself ambiguity intolerant, and my narratives -- rife as they are with ambiguity, contradiction, and part-truths -- arouse negative feelings in him.  (According to Barron, creative people state only part-truths.)

I was talking about a psychiatrist I used to see, Stanley R. Palombo, M.D.  I described Dr. Palombo as a super-smart guy.  I described him as "scary smart."  I said I admired his intellect.  But I also had negative things to say about Dr. Palombo.  I said that from time to time Dr. Palombo would try to persuade me to actualize my academic and professional credentials and embark on the practice of law.  I said I viewed Dr. Palombo's comments as simplistic and a sign that he was feeling frustrated by my lack of progress in therapy.

My psychiatrist pointed out my contradictory feelings about Dr. Palombo.  But why?  I have contradictory feelings about many (if not most) things.  My inconsistencies, part truths and ambivalent feelings don't trouble me.

In another context during the session I talked about the McClendon Center, where I see a therapist who prescribes psychotropic medications.  I said I had feelings of futility and meaninglessness about my interaction with the various doctors I had seen at the McClendon Center.  I said I felt like a "professional patient" who was being processed or warehoused: someone who was passed on from doctor to doctor.  I said I felt that my relations with the doctors at the McClendon Center were dehumanizing. 

At the consult on January 23 my psychiatrist pointed out that I had previously said that I was happy with the medication that had been prescribed for me at McClendon: paxil.  My psychiatrist noted that I had said that Paxil moderated my insomnia and that I felt more relaxed on the drug.   Thus, the psychiatrist pointed out a seeming inconsistency regarding my feelings about McClendon.  My unstated emotional reaction at that moment was "so what?"  Yes, I value the services that McClendon provides.  Those services are indispensable for me.  I also believe that there are problems with the McClendon Center's handling of me.  The initial assessment was, in my view, inadequate.  I believe that no doctor has taken a step back from his bureaucratic handling of me and asked himself: "What does it mean that this patient has been seeing psychiatrists on and off for 35 years, and never seems to get anywhere in life?"  It's as if I were a patient on an assembly line of patients.  In each case the McClendon psychiatrist will simply glance at the chart, reference the previous doctor's treatment, and continue with the same treatment without ever looking beyond the chart and making a de novo assessment of the patient's therapeutic needs.

Yes, my feelings about McClendon are ambiguous and ambivalent.  But it's not my feelings of  ambivalence or ambiguity that bother me.   What bothers me are the objective limitations of the Clinic: not my ambivalent feelings about the clinic. 

Maybe there's something intrionsically Jewish about my affective world.  I am reminded of the following scene from Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall.

Such are my feelings about life in general: I have mixed and contradictory feelings about most things.

In any event, I took an ambiguity tolerance test on the internet and I scored 81, whatever that means.

Franklin Institute Coworker -- Correspondence

During the period June 1975 to June 1979 I was employed at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories in Philadelphia.  The following is a letter a coworker and friend wrote me in Spokane, Washington, where I had entered law school in August 1979.  And, by the way, I did not live in the dorms in law school.  I had my own apartment. 

10/12/79

Dear Gary,

Hello! Thanks so much for the birthday card. It really was a pleasant surprise. I guess I have to take back everything I said about being a good letter writer. I guess I am out of practice! I have been meaning to write for quite some time, but you know that I usually do some of my best letter writing at work and I have been sooooooo busy here that I haven't had time to _______________ (fill in whatever you think is appropriate here).  PHS is just one mess after another; a minute does not go by without some kind of emergency. It is really interfering this month with getting BENER together. As you see I've enclosed the issue of BENER for you—notice the Errata sheet in the back. How nice to make a major mistake of that magnitude on your first issue.  I don't think I ever made a mistake of that magnitude on Gastro, not in 4.5 years: Well, at least the sponsors were very nice about it. I was the only one to lose sleep over it (and believe me, I did!).

Gary, we miss you around here (even your silence). You wouldn't recognize this place. There are so many new faces. There are all sorts of little foreigners running around. They are working on the MESH indexing for ICRDB. We've also started work on the Army editing contract. Dena S[her] had written that proposal, but Marsha Hall is directing (?) it. Believe it or not, we also got both aging proposals. Gwen [Lysaught] will be working on one (headed by Helis Miido); hopefully, she'll finish Nancy's stuff before she starts on the Aging work.

I think that's enough about work. You couldn't possibly be interested in any more. How are classes? Is it everything you anticipated or is it easier? How's Washington? I heard on the Today show yesterday that it was 73 F there. Not too bad—we had snow yesterday morning. I seem to remember that we had a long winter last year, with no spring, only 1 day of summer, and now—no fall! What's happening here? How's living in the dorms? Please answer all these questions in your letter; also answer all questions that I didn't ask but should have.

I hope you noticed the quality of this stationery. This is imported Italian stationery (my aunt brought it back to me) and I broke it open in honor of this occasion.

Let's see--I discussed work and school, I guess I'm up to “friends” now. This is usually the juicy stuff. I know how you like gossip. I'll start with Betty. She can usually provide hours of entertainment, but fortunately I have not seen too much of her since she has been living with Jerry during the week. She started to go out with this other guy, John, who worked with Ed Rendell as his public relations rep, but last week Jerry was moved into a new apartment. Guess where? The station rented him one in the very same building as John and on the very same floor! That should make for an interesting story sometime.

Even though Sharon and Michelle have left work, we have been managing to stay in touch. Michelle is doing freelance work (editing BENER, CA, and doing indexes for Cancer Research and Rockefeller at $6.50 and $7.00/hr) and is actually making out better doing it at home. She seems really healthy and looks pregnant and not fat! Last week we had a scare though. She had these tremendous pains so I took her to the doctor. Everything is fine now—it turned out to be gastrointestinal. Her and Charlie bought a charming row house in Upper Darby right near 69^th St. It looks exactly like the ones on Midvale Ave. in East Falls with a cathedral window in front.

Sharon and Kenny also bought a house. They bought a biggie! I only saw a picture, but it still looks real nice. I wonder who is going to cut all that grass? Their birds had babies and Michelle and Charlie are going to take two. It will be a new cult—to be “in” one must have a pair of Australian Zebra finches; Sharon loves her new job, and imagine this, they even asked her if she wanted a raise yet!

Ken and I are seeing each other again and neither of us are dating any one else now. He seriously wants to get married and I (seriously) have no idea what I want to do. Such a commitment . . . and it's for the rest of your life! Ken has given me a year to decide so don't hold your breath.

The only other new thing is my hair cut. I got it permed and it is as curly as it will ever be. In fact, someone I met for the first time asked me how long it took for my perm to grow out! (They thought that I had got it done a long time ago and now it was growing out. What really happened though is that I got it done last week and it is just straightening out). I was not meant for curly hair. I'm glad you're not here to see it. I have forbidden pictures of it, even though I got a camera from Ken for my birthday. He bought me a Minolta 35 mm with automatic something or other. All I have to do is focus it for distance. A little red light goes on if there is not enough light. It has a built in flash. I'm having a good time playing with it. I guess I should have some of the pictures I've taken developed so I can see how I'm doing!

Well, I guess I should get back to work now. I don't think I did too badly with this letter for being out of practice! Take care of yourself and stay in touch. Can I hope to see you in December?

Love,

Sheryl

P.S. I've enclosed some pictures taken at Sharon's wedding – do you still recognize us?

Condolence Letter -- Franklin Institute Coworker

During the period June 1975 to June 1979 I was employed at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories in Philadelphia.  The following is a condolence letter a coworker, Gwen Lysaught, sent me following the death of my mother in early January 1980.  I lived in Spokane, Washington at the time, attending my first year of law school.  Gwen Lysaught passed away in the year 2006 at age 83.

January 15

Dear Gary,

I want to tell you how sorry I am about your loss.  Your mother made the Institute seem less forbidding to me ten years ago, and now there are so few people left who are as pleasant and sympathetic as she.

My favorite cousin (and substitute brother) died just a week ago, so I hope you'll understand why I didn't attend Sophie's services today.  My thoughts were with you.

Sincerely,

Gwen

Social Security Claim -- Evidence that I Viewed It as a Litigation Strategy

I faxed the following message to my sister in early 1993--after I received a copy of Akin Gump's Response to Interrogatories in late December 1992 in Freedman v. Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld -- and before I filed for Social Security benefits on April 20, 1993.  The document evidences the fact that I viewed a future Social Security Claim as a part of a litigation strategy.   The document is perhaps psychologically revealing.  I was more concerned with the rupture of my relationship with Akin Gump (the "lost object") than with oral needs gratification (suckling at the "mother's all-giving breast" in the form of the Social Security Administration, which doles out money).
_________________________

FAX NO. 609 235 5569 MEREDITH FINANCIAL SERVICES

transmittal for Mrs. Estelle Jacobson c/o Mr. Edward Jacobson

Dear Stell,

You asked me what I'd do if I lost my case before the Dept. of Human Rights.

I don't know the law in this field, but off the top of my head I was thinking of the following (although what it would accomplish I don't know—except that it might prove to be a headache for Akin Gump, and horror of horrors, might even prove to be embarrassing.)

1. lose case with Dept. of Human Rights; this would constitute an adjudication that the basis of my termination was sound; an essential element of the decision to terminate was my employer's finding that I was unemployable (paranoid and violent).

2. I apply for Social Security disability benefits on basis that I am severely disturbed and unemployable, relying on the adjudication by a municipal agency.

3. Social Security denies benefits, in which case I will be entitled to an appeal before the Social Security Administration.

4. The appeal will raise the issue of the grounds for my termination and will constitute a collateral attack on the decision to terminate and the decision of the Dept. of Human Rights.

5. The firm will then have the Social Security Administration breathing down its neck.

Gotta run now, gotta take a leak.

GF

Me and Cartoon Physics

Message to the Powers That Be

The director gave me the role of the "disturbed mental patient" -- like Billy Chenowith in the HBO series, Six Feet Under -- and I plan to continue to play that role till the end of the series. Not till the end of the season, mind you, but the end of the series. Then it's off to the world of syndication and residuals. That's where the real money is.

Hogan & Hartson: Overtime Compensation

TO:   Sheryl Ferguson

FROM:  Gary Freedman

DATE:  October 14, 1986

RE:  Overtime
_________________________________

I spent much of the week ending [Sunday] October 12, 1986 working on MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools litigation].  On certain days the total hours exceeded 8.  It is my understanding that, although no overtime was authorized on the project, it is permissible to work more than 8 hours per day (or on the weekend) on MPS as long as no more than 40 hours are charged to the project during the one-week period and the total hours do not exceed 50.  (Also, no petty cash vouchers are being submitted for MPS work).

Is this correct?

[Handwritten note by Sheryl Ferguson:]  Not really, Gary.  If you would like to come see me we can discuss.  SLF

GW Psychiatric Treatment: Initial Assessment -- Treatment History

In September 1992 I was assessed at the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry by Napoleon Cuenco, M.D., a third-year resident.  
________________________

September 2, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apt. 136
Washington, DC  20008

Dr. Napoleon Cuenco
George Washington University
   Medical Center
Department of Psychiatry
Washington, DC

Dear Dr. Cuenco:

For your information, the following lists all mental health professionals I have ever consulted.

1.  Dr. Chubb, MD, Pennsylvania State University, Student Health Center, University Park, PA.  One consultation in fall of 1973. [problems with roommate.] [physician deceased]

2.  Dr. Louis Alikakos, MD [deceased]
Weekly psychotherapy January 1977-March 1978, Spring and summer 1979 [prescribed Ativan]

3.  Dr. Gregory Tramuta, two consultations at Germantown Hospital, Philadelphia, PA following suicide attempt in November 1977. [performed suicide risk assessment]

4.  Dr. I.J. Oberman, DO, Northwest Institute of Psychiatry, consultations during period June 1978-early 1979. [deceased] [prescribed Ativan]

5.  Spokane Community Mental Health Center, Dr. Elizabeth Ekin, MD (periodic consultations) and John Brennan (weekly consultations) February 1980-July 1980. [prescribed Ativan]

6.  Dr. Timothy Dickens, MD, Temple University Student Health Center (periodic consultations - Fall 1980 to Spring 1982). [prescribed Ativan]

7.  Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA.  Evaluation for psychoanalysis (Spring 1981).  Cannot recall name of evaluating psychoanalyst.  Determined not to be fit for psychoanalysis as performed at training Institute.

8.  Ms. Kathleen Kelly (September 1989), Sheppard Pratt Institute, Washington, DC.  Two consultations [sought referrals]

9.  Ms. Judy Peres (November 1990), Sheppard Pratt Institute, Washington, DC.  One consultation. [sought referrals to hypnotherapists]

10.  Dr. Stanley Palombo, MD, 5225 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC.  Weekly consultations late January 1990-early December 1990.

11.  Dr. Steven Stein, Ph.D., (One consultation, March 15, 1991).  Referred me to Dr. Norman Wilson, MD. [believed I might be psychotic and referred me to Dr. Wilson for possible medical treatment.]

12.  Dr. Norman Wilson, MD (One consultation, March 1991).

13.  Dr. Lewis Winkler, MD  (Three consultations, April 1991).

14.  Dr. Laurence C. Sack, MD, 3801 Connecticut Avenue, (3 consultations, May 1991). [deceased]

15.  Dr. William Brown, Ph.D., (weekly consultations, May-October 1991). [psychologist precluded from prescribing medication] [job termination October 29, 1991]

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bi-Polar Disorder

Peoples Drug Pharmacy Bag

PATIENT:  Freedman, Gary

DATE: 2-9-93

ADDRESS: 3801 Conn Ave.

PHONE: 362 7064

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bi-Polar Disorder

Receipt from Peoples Drug:

Peoples Drug #1353 Phone 966-7210 3327 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC 20008

Freedman, Gary
3801 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC

Rx 779000 Dr GWU Hosp 02/17/93 JA
Lithotabs 300 mg Tablet Row 16 TA
Price $3.89 $0.00 Pay $3.89

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bipolar Disorder

Receipt from Peoples Drug:

Peoples Drug #1353 Phone 966-7210 3327 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC 20008

Freedman, Gary
3801 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC

Rx 779530 Dr GWU Hosp 02/25/93 JA
Lithotabs 300 mg Tablet Row 6 TA
Price $3.89 $0.00 Pay $3.89

Akin Gump: Psychoanalytic Theory Applied to Defensive Pleadings

In late October 1991 I lodged a harassment complaint against my supervisor and other personnel at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld where I worked as a paralegal.  I specifically complained about innuendo current in the firm relating to my sexual orientation.  A few days later, the employer terminated my employment on the grounds -- as later alleged to the D.C. Department of Human Rights (DHR)) -- that the firm had found, following a consult with a practicing psychiatrist, that my harassment complaint was the product of a paranoid "disorder," namely, "ideas of reference."  In early February 1992, DHR filed an unlawful termination complaint against Akin Gump on my behalf.  In May 1992, Akin Gump filed a Response in which the firm alleged that I suffered from a paranoid mental illness -- that might be associated with a risk of violence -- and that I was, therefore, unemployable as a tort risk to the firm.  Akin Gump's Response also emphatically denied that the subject of my sexual orientation was ever raised by anyone involved "directly or indirectly" with the firm: "Until the filing of this Charge, the subject of Claimant's sexual orientation was never brought up by Claimant or anyone involved directly or indirectly with Claimant's employment."  The firm also denied that I had ever complained at any time that I was a victim of job harassment because of perceived sexual orientation: "Claimant's sexual orientation was not a factor or even known by those involved in any stage of the decision process." 

DHR found that I complained about sexual harassment on October 23/24, 1991 to two of the firm's attorney managers.  DHR (and later, the D.C. Office of Corporation Counsel) implicitly found that Akin Gump lied about its knowledge of the sexual harassment I experienced during my tenure, and lied when it denied that I had complained to the firm's senior managers that I was a victim of sexual harassment.

Thus, Akin Gump denied that I was aggressed on by firm personnel based on perceived sexual orientation, terming my allegation of harassment "paranoid."  At the same time the firm alleged that it had rational grounds to believe I was a potential aggressor (specifically, that I was potentially violent), thereby implicitly denying its own paranoia.

I am not a psychoanalyst, though I am somewhat familiar with orthodox psychoanalytical thinking.  I am unable to analyze the psychological meaning of Akin Gump's Response, though I am able to point to writings that might help a psychoanalyst offer some insight into Akin Gump's convolutions about my experiences, behavior, and mental state -- as well as management's and coworkers' emotional reaction to me.

In Freudian thought there is a relationship among the mental states of paranoia, homosexuality, love and hate.  In orthodox analysis it is believed that the paranoid individual comes to hate his perceived persecutor so deeply because unconsciously he loves him so much.  Gay at 281. Paranoia was, for Freud, the mental ailment parading with unsurpassed vividness the psychological defenses of reversal and, even more, projection.  Gay at 281.

"Projection is the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable--too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous--by attributing them to another.  It is a prominent mechanism, for example, in anti-Semites, who find it necessary to transfer feelings of their own that they consider low or dirty onto the Jew, and then 'detect' those feelings in him.  This is one of the most primitive among the defenses, and is easily observable in normal behavior, though far less prominent there than among neurotics and psychotics."  Gay, P. Freud: A Life For Our Time, footnote at 281 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988).

"The 'core conflict in the paranoia of a man' is, as Freud put it . . . a 'homosexual wish-fantasy of loving a man.'  The paranoiac turns the declaration 'I love him' into its opposite, 'I hate him'; that is the reversal.  He then goes on to say, 'I hate him because he persecutes me'; that is the projection." Gay at 281.

"To call someone paranoid was, in the technical vocabulary Freud had developed, to call him a homosexual,  at least a latent one." Gay at 275.  Paranoia, according to Freud, is a mental disorder that is rife with "remnants of unconscious homoerotic feelings."  Gay at 275.

To what psychoanalytical interpretations are Akin Gump's pleadings susceptible with specific regards to reversal, projection, homosexuality, anti-Semitism, love (my desire for affiliation with coworkers, coworkers' desire for affiliation with me, as well as Akin Gump's feelings that I was desirable associate material), and hate (my fear of persecution by coworkers, Akin Gump's allegation that I was  potentially violent, and coworkers' fears that I might become violent)?