ALL SOULS essay
Twenty-first century is considered the century of stress and transformation of family by family therapists and psychologists. According to Grotberg (2003), different diverse family forms (for example, one-parent family) that exist in our society nowadays helped change the environment of the traditional family. Responsibility for intergenerational relationships, care for the elderly, the chronically ill and disabled become a serious social problem in every society. These and many other economic, political and social demands have a significant pressure on the family, checking it for strength and ability to recuperate after going through much sorrow and psychological stress. Thus, we are going to talk about Michael Patrick Macdonald’s resiliency in the context of the environmental conditions in which he was born and lived using his book All Souls: A Family Story from Southie published in 1999 as an example.
In the beginning of this paper it is necessary to mention that psychological resilience is an integral feature of personality, which provides its resistance to frustrating and stressful effects of difficult situations. We can not exclude difficult situations neither from the processes of socialization and education, nor from our life in general. Adding scientific data to the above mentioned definition, according to Grotberg (2003), we should mention that foreign psychology, defining the resilience, stated that it is the process, the ability, the result and even the state of successful adaptation despite challenging circumstances, threat, and stress. Stability reflects the ability to maintain a relatively stable equilibrium, a normal level of functioning even in adverse situation. So, reading the book All Souls by Michael MacDonald we see that the question of resilience is widely discussed in it.
All Souls is not an ordinary book, but it is MacDonald’s plainly written and emotionally powerful memoir, where the author tells readers his own story of growing up in shady place – in Southie, Boston’s Irish Catholic enclave, where he examined different hard life situations being face to “the myriad ways in which the media and law enforcement agencies exploit marginalized working-class communities”( MacDonald, 2007). MacDonald wrote that he was not a single child in the family, but was one of nine children born by his mother Helen MacDonald (children had different fathers). Talking about MacDonald in accordance with conditions of his maturity McNaught stated that “Michael Patrick MacDonald was born in Boston in 1966 and grew up in South Boston’s Old Colony housing project. He helped launch many of Boston’s anti violence initiatives, including gun-buyback programs and the South Boston Vigil Group which served to give voice to the survivors of violence and the drug trade in that neighborhood. He continues to work nationally with survivor families and young people in the anti-violence movement” (McNaught, 1999).
In considering the context in which Michael was born and raised, and dwelling on such specific characteristics as poverty, different kinds of drug and alcohol abuse, often cases of corruption, domestic and community violence in complex with racism and organized crime it passes all understanding that Michael became a normal person. It is impossible to say that MacDonald was happy to have such life and into the acknowledgement of this fact he said that “I remember hating having to cross over the Broadway Bridge again, having to leave the peninsula neighborhood and go back to my apartment in downtown Boston.” (MacDonald, 2007). The young boy was influenced not by positive examples, but by negative behavioral patterns, because many people of his community were criminals and his own brothers and sister used drugs, but his heart was also full of specific love to people around him and he even respected the community where he became an adult. MacDonald wrote that “We thought we were in the best place in the world in this neighborhood, in the all-Irish housing projects where everyone claimed to be Irish even if his name was Spinnoli. We were proud to be from here, as proud as we were to be Irish. We didn’t want to own the problems that took the lives of my brothers and of so many others like them: poverty, crime, drugs — those were black things that happened in the ghettos of Roxbury. Southie was Boston’s proud Irish neighborhood.” (MacDonald, 2007). Also we can find pain in MacDonald’s words when he described his family in the book, because many of his siblings are died now (three of them died violently, one died of pneumonia and his sister was diagnosed with permanent brain damage after falling off a roof being under drugs action).
Thinking about psychological processes which have a place in adolescent’s mind we should mention that it is scientifically proved that timely and qualitative diagnosis of mental processes, appropriate corrective action can prevent undesirable trends in personality development, the emergence of various forms of deviant behavior, difficulties in school and in other child’s activity. Absence of psychological resilience is one of the most striking manifestations of mental distress and exactly these words shows us that Michael was a good diagnostician for self, because he found the way how to stay normal in negative psychological environment, so he has shown the high level of psychological resilience.
It is also necessary to say that the development of Michael’s personality corresponds to the existed thoughts about right developed personality, because current level of development of society requires an education of mentally healthy person with high sense of responsibility, with an increasing self-esteem, and high self-awareness. Describing MacDonald’s activity we can say that now he participates in multiracial social projects in Boston and is trying to help people, who can not overcome intense social, emotional and economical stress in their community.
Using a specific example of community that deals with problems that Michael MacDonald have had in his own family it is necessary to dwell on FANS community. The abbreviation FANS means Families Advocating Neighborhood Strength, and this community is located in South Boston. FANS is a kind of open community and presents a coalition of the same-minded people (residents, parents and service providers) who are interested in their society prosperity and informed families, individuals and the community in the whole how to achieve healthy development and solve their problems. Nowadays like several decades ago all parents are worried about their children, because they want to see them healthy and free of abuse. So, FANS helps people not only support each other, but be patient to own relatives and friends, helping them to be strong in today’s fast changing world.
Thus, taking everything into consideration it is possible to conclude that we fully discussed Michael MacDonald’s personality and took appropriate examples from his book All Souls for the acknowledgement of our words. Also, we have explained Macdonald’s resiliency in the context of the environmental conditions in which he was born and lived.
