Ilene Schroeder oral history interview, 2014-09-05

FRANKLIN ABBOTT: So today is September 5th, I am Franklin Abbott. And I am seated with Ilene Schroeder at the Georgia State University Archive, and we are about to embark upon an oral history. So hi, Ilene.

ILENE SCHROEDER: Hey, Franklin.

ABBOTT: Where I usually like to start with people is to ask them about where they come from and ask about their family. So if you could tell me a little bit about your parents, and where they came from, and sort of how you came to be in the world, when and where you were born.

SCHROEDER: Okie dokie. My mother is -- was Dorothy Best. Her parents came from Russia, and their story was entertaining because my grandfather on that side came from Russia about eleven years before he brought her over. And they were 00:01:00pretty young, he was older than her. And he didn't come the normal way. He came across Asia, probably in through San Francisco or Seattle, and then made his way to New York, where he worked for many, many years, until he was able to bring her over. And then they became -- I mean, he worked a variety of jobs. He got hurt in a horse dray accident, where he got his back badly injured. He really couldn't work much after that, but they ended up owning and running a series of mom and pop grocery stores in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Brighton Beach part of the time, Coney Island part of the time. So that's where my mom came from. She was the elder of three kids. She was first, my Uncle Arnie was second, and my Uncle Milt was third. And he was eleven years younger than my (inaudible), so he was an accident, though he doesn't like it being said that 00:02:00way. On my father's side, his name is Alvin. His name is Alvin Jerome Schroeder, and one of his parents came either as a two year old, or was born here. It's a little hard. The family -- it's really a bit of a mystery about the family on that side, actually on both sides, to some extent. But they were also immigrants. They came from -- I think one of them was from Russia or, and one of them from Poland, maybe. I don't -- it's a little unclear to me, anyway. There may be people who know. Somebody in the family says Latvia, somebody else says Russia, somebody else said they thought maybe Poland. So it's a little unclear. And my father was one of two. They were -- he was the elder, and he had a sister named Broda. All of those have passed away at this point. My father's mother was a seamstress. She worked in the Garment District in Manhattan, and his father was a -- my -- the love of my life in a lot of 00:03:00ways, my grandfather on that side was a traveling salesman who, some people thought, made life very difficult for my grandmother, who I found to be a very difficult woman anyway. So it's kind of hard to tell who started what when. But he used to travel around upstate New York selling brushes. And my father went to war; he went to World War II. When he came back, he was interested -- he was a Seabee in the Navy, and he became an engineer. He didn't actually go to college, but he started working, and he ended up being a quite capable, a really smart guy around designing machines and drawing out the blueprints. And he was one of those kind of people, you look at a blueprint, it becomes three-dimensional. In his head, it was always three-dimensional. He eventually became the head of research and engineering for Goody Hair Products and retired 00:04:00as a vice president from that company. My mom was a homemaker and very frustrated with that. She really didn't like it overall. She stayed home with the kids, and she said she didn't start liking it until we got old enough to talk. And then we ended up arguing all the time, so she didn't like that much, either. (laughter) Anyway, so they got married in 1946, right after he got back from the war. They'd met when he was back on leave at some point and never looked back. They met each other, "We're going to get married," and -- my mother told a story about how they were sitting -- I guess they were probably canoodling, as they might have said, on the couch in her parents' apartment. And he said, "I guess this means that I have to give you a ring," and she thought he meant call her up the next day or something. And so she was confused, and of course, it was really that he was talking about, "Will you marry me?" 00:05:00And they -- he cleared that up, and so they got married in '46, as I said a minute ago. And I was born in December of '47, so they only waited a few months before they got pregnant, which I think was pretty common then, with everybody coming back from World War II. And especially -- well, not especially, that's not fair to say -- but in the Jewish community, certainly, the desire to kind of have children, I think, was really strong. But it was probably true for everybody, because that was such a terrible number of years for everybody involved. And my dad had served in the Pacific, partially because he was in the Navy and a Seabee, partially because they really intended to keep Jewish people away from Europe in the service, at least in the early stages of it. And he came across -- I came across a series of pictures he had taken while he was -- I think it was in the Philippines, but I'm not sure of -- it was a graveyard 00:06:00with a lot of buried soldiers and sailors, and he had written on the back of it, "I hope they don't forget what this was about." But -- so he was very affected by it a lot, but he would never talk about it. He never talked about the war. So we -- they had a house in Brooklyn. They bought a house with my father's parents. It's a duplex. It's still there, row houses in a neighborhood called Kensington. And I was born in '47, my sister was born, I think, in '51, though I lose track of that. I think it was '51, and my brother was born in '55, maybe. I lose track of that, too. So I'm the oldest. I went to public schools and was disinterested, didn't care. But then 00:07:00we eventually ended up down here. I was already in college when we got here. And -- is that enough background for you?

ABBOTT: Yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good. So talk a little bit about the transition for you of, you know, coming from Brooklyn down to Georgia. What was that like?

SCHROEDER: Well, it was a big culture shock. To back up just slightly, one of the things my parents did that was, I think, really important in terms of who I ended up being, how I transitioned or didn't transition very easily here, was, even though in some ways they were really kind of -- they were kind of conservative people, they truly and really believed that it didn't matter what your race was, what your religion was, you should have an equal chance in the world, and they drilled that into all of us from the very beginning. So they were staunch Democrats. They were devastated by Kennedy's assassination. The last -- until late, real late in her life, I think the last person my mother really 00:08:00wanted to see as president was Adlai Stevenson, you know. And so they were politically what I would think of as progressive, but in some ways kind of conservative. But they really believed in equal rights across the board for everybody. They didn't believe in intermarriage. They didn't believe that people should cross any of those boundaries in those kinds of more intimate ways. But in terms of your right to live well, everybody had equal rights. So that was sort of the -- who I -- something I really absorbed as a person, I think. And even though I was very socially withdrawn as a kid growing up -- I really had a whole cadre of kids we all played with outside, but I never felt really attached to anybody, and I never had friends at school. I was in college there, didn't really make any friends there the first year, and then I moved to Athens. I went straight to -- I came down and spent the summer with my parents where they moved, they moved to Columbus, Georgia. But -- and I didn't 00:09:00feel like I ever belonged there. That was just the strange -- it was like, I just -- I think I was in shock most of that time. I just sort of walked around going, "What?" (laughter) "What's this?" Even the Jewish community was hard to connect to. It was like, there was just no real connection. And my mother used to say the Jewish community there didn't welcome them, either, because they were Yankees first and Jews second. And so, even the Jewish community just saw them as kind of oddballs and outsiders. And that was really hard on my sister, which was very sad. But anyway, so when I came down, I spent the summer there, and then I went to Athens, where I made a really good friend. I met a woman who was a math major, and I was a physical education major, of all things. And I had chosen that because I didn't want to do any sci-- and 00:10:00languages or any math. And so I had ruled almost every possible other major in the universe. And I liked sports, and I liked physical activity, so it sort of made sense. Though I didn't really care to teach, so that was also kind of odd. But Athens was, of course, its own environment, because it's really a college town. And that meant, even though it was a really Southern college town, it was so Southern, and almost everybody was going into fraternities or sororities. I, being the kind of person I was, by the middle of that year, I had made one really good friend, and I really liked her. And sadly, she was a bit of a drunk, and -- but that kind of freed me up. I started drinking a little. I started having sex. I started doing things I really hadn't done much of before, and I think something started loosening up, and I got a little less inhibited, which was really nice. And so that first year, she -- I don't remember dates; I'm really bad about timetables and stuff. But I think most of 00:11:00that first year, she was my best friend, and we hung out together a lot, and I made some other friends. I went to some football games. This was in '60 -- my parents moved down here in '64, so I started school there -- they were down in December of '64, so this was the fall of '65. And it was the beginning, even in the South, of some left-wing, progressive thinking, anti-war kind of activity. So -- because Vietnam was going on and it was such a huge issue. I think by the end of that year, I had started meeting some other people, and some of them were what I think of as the art-philosophy crowd. That's how I thought of them then, and they used to party a lot, so we all partied a whole lot. We smoked pot, we, you know, experimented with hallucinogens. We did all kinds of stuff, and believed in free love, all that kind of stuff. And into that group, 00:12:00over the next year or so, came some people who lived in Athens, a particular fellow named David and another guy -- I can't remember his name right now. But they were, as they were described later on outside agitators, because they weren't students. One of them was a student, David was not. And they belonged to SDS, and slowly but surely, they built an SDS chapter, and I got kind of interested in that. In terms of the actual environment in Athens, with everything else that was going on, and all the normal people, I just -- normal people, I just never belonged. I just never felt like I did. But I found this little cadre, and that was really cool. And it really helped me start feeling and thinking differently about things, and I started feeling really connected to 00:13:00a larger group of people, rather than feeling like such an isolate, which was pretty much how I had always felt most of my life, kind of like an isolate. And we started doing things like protesting against the war. And Kissinger was coming to speak at the campus, and we protested against him. And all of this stuff was driven by the men. And inside this group were some women, and we started making -- I started making friends with some of these women. And -- or they became friends with me. I guess it was really mutual. And we started thinking, "Well, what about we girls?" And one of the odd things for me was that -- and I think for a lot of the women, was in those days, there was in loco parentis rules on residential campuses. So all we women lived in dorms, and we all had rules. And we had to be in on weeknights by eleven o'clock at night, and we had to be in on weekends by 12:30. And they did bed checks to make sure 00:14:00we were there, and the guys were outside driving around, throwing beer cans out their car windows as they drove back and forth in front of the girls' dorms. You know, they did all of those -- occasional panty raids, all that kind of really stupid stuff, you know. But young, and kind of fun in its own way. And it just didn't make sense to me and some of the other women that we had sort of two different sets of rules. And so I guess what I'm saying is overall, being there was really good for me, because it energized me and it started giving me a direction, and I became politically active, and we started fighting against some of the things that just didn't seem right.

ABBOTT: So --

SCHROEDER: If I'm going on too long, just let me know.

ABBOTT: No, you're doing fine. You're doing just fine. So you -- what happened in terms of how you finished your education? I know you went through sort of a hippie period before you came to Atlanta.

SCHROEDER: I did. And you know, I'm not even sure how I met those people and how the transition happened. I -- the last year I was in -- actually in school was when we took over the administration building. And then -- that was for women's rights, not for anti-war things, and started a process that eventually led to their doing away with all of those requirements for women being stuck in dorms and stuff like that. But when I graduated, I was really kind of at odds and ends, and I really didn't know what to do. And I stayed in Athens for a while and rented an apartment, and for a while I supported myself -- I tried supporting myself by working at a five and dime, you know, Woolworth's. I hated that, I lasted about two days. I tried being a waitress. Oh, golly gee, I hated that also. I think I lasted about four days doing that. I tried a dry 00:16:00cleaner. I didn't even make it back after they hired me. I just couldn't stand the idea. And so, sort of how I ended up, for a few months, anyway, supporting -- and I don't know how this came about, because I wasn't that kind of card player, but I ended up with a running poker game going on in the house, and somehow I would have enough money coming in from playing poker with people that I could pay my rent.

ABBOTT: (laughter)

SCHROEDER: You know? And I don't honestly know how this happened, but somehow I met up -- I made friends with some people who were more hippie. They wanted -- they had a commune, or they were wanting to be a commune, and they wanted to live in north Georgia. And so we ended up going up to -- actually, I think we came to Atlanta first, and then we ended up going to Clayton, Georgia. And it's all -- part of the reason it's hard to remember is because we were stoned. We were doing drugs a whole lot of the time, and I already had a propensity for sort of living in the moment, and forgetting timelines, and what happened in what order anyway. So that's really -- you know, my brain 00:17:00certainly didn't absorb anything, any kind of order that -- if it wasn't really important, you know, it just sort of evaporated. But what it resulted in was we ended up living in a little chalet house right on Lake Rabun in Clayton, Georgia, which is rather a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan, or was in those days. It isn't so much anymore. And there was a man up there who owned that house, and he was a gay -- older gay man who happened to like younger gay men. And so he was really enamored of the idea of all of these hippies staying in his house, and some of them were gay guys. And so I think he got a lot of his personal sexual needs met, but he was always just really enamored of the whole whatever it was we were doing. You know, we contributed to it. I had a boyfriend at that point, my first real, serious boyfriend. His name was Juan. He was sort of the 00:18:00head of this little group. He was quite charismatic. His father was some diplomatic guy from some South American country. I honestly don't remember which one, but he himself was -- had dual citizenship. Because -- I don't know how he had it, but he did. And so he was very cute. And I spent about a year with him, and then he fell in love with somebody else, at a wedding in Piedmont Park and left me that very day, broke my heart. The way I describe it is, I was sitting in Piedmont Park in a circle watching these people get married, and he was doing the marriage. And everything was very colorful, as hippie events so often were. And I saw him look at this woman, and everything turned into grayscale color for me. All the colors leached away, and I got really sad and really depressed. He never came back to me. But while I was with him, we went to 00:19:00Woodstock, had a great time, I think. And --

ABBOTT: So you were at Woodstock?

SCHROEDER: I was at Woodstock. And that was a kind of strange time, because we had been living in Clayton, and we were -- it was very obvious what we were doing there, and it was very obvious people didn't approve. So we actually ended up with the house being pelted with rocks, and notes being left, and getting RIP messages, "Leave now or RIP," and stuff like that. We talked to the -- well, I didn't talk to them, but somebody in the group, and I think that homeowner talked to the GBI, and they said, "You've got to take these people seriously. If they're threatening to kill you, they will." And so we left to go to Woodstock, but we actually never ended up going back, because while we were up in Woodstock, they -- there was actually some gunshots fired at the house and stuff like that, and the people who had stayed behind actually ended up leaving, and they were semi-escorted out by people with weapons and their guns as they were leaving. So we ended up back in Athens for a while when 00:20:00we came back from Woodstock. And that -- you know, so we ended up in Athens. And then I still wasn't doing anything. I mean, I was cleaning windows every now and then, and I think Juan was selling pot, and that's sort of how we were living. And I remember, while we were in New York after Woodstock, I took him to meet my grandparents, my mother's parents. And my grandfather talked with us for a while, and then he said to me, "I think he has an idea of what he's doing, but I don't think you have any idea what you're doing." And it really hurt my feelings, but a number of years later, I look back on that, and he was absolutely correct. I had no idea what I was doing, really. I hadn't found a direction yet. And Juan, I think, was doing exactly what he was set out to do. He was probably a little bit self-involved, and he was just doing exactly what he wanted. He was -- whether or not that was a good path for him to be on, I have no idea, but I don't really know what happened to him in the end. But I 00:21:00was a little lost, and I think the person who truly saved me from that was my friend David [Derret?]. I had met David in all of this hippie stuff. We had been in New York at Woodstock together, and while I was a little lost in Athens, he was in Atlanta. And he had met up with a woman named Mary, and the two of them -- or Mary, I think, had actually found some seed money to start a crisis center in the hippie area of Atlanta. And so they had started this crisis center. It was called the Community Crisis Center, and it had -- it ultimately ended up having a medical component, a kitchen, a food kitch-- it started with a food kitchen; that eventually went away -- and a 24-hour counseling service. And he called me about -- it was in December or January of 1970, I guess. Yeah, it was 00:22:00probably 1970, some -- I don't remember the exact date. But he called me and said, "Ilene, I need you to come here and help me." And I said, "What are you doing?" And he said -- he told me he was doing this thing and he just needed some help. So I went to -- came to Atlanta, and there was some housing in that building, so I had a room that I could live in. And that sort of set the direction for the rest of my life.

ABBOTT: Had you had your son Chad by that time?

SCHROEDER: No, he was born in September of '71.

ABBOTT: Okay. So you came to Atlanta to be a part of the Crisis Center community, and to work there, and --

SCHROEDER: Yeah.

ABBOTT: -- the next big thing that happened was Chad?

SCHROEDER: Yes, the very -- and he, actually, even more than David, in some ways probably saved my life and gave me a lot of direction, obviously, I mean. He -- 00:23:00what happened to me, because of having Chad was, I looked at him and I thought -- I looked at this itty bitty little thing, and I thought, "Oh, my God. I've got somebody else I'm really having to take care of." And I really wanted him. It wasn't like I had had a -- got pregnant and thought, "Oh, gee, I think I'll just have a baby." I really wanted him. Once I realized I was pregnant, I just wanted a baby. And then he was born, and I looked at him, and I just -- just thought, oh, my -- what a wonderful responsibility. I mean, I don't think I thought those words, but that's really how it felt. Like, oh, my God, and I felt like I really had to start getting my life into a more successful or forward-thinking direction and take better care of myself, you know, because I had to take care of him, you know? And I just -- I'm so glad I had him. I am just so glad I had him, for so many reasons, including the fact that I think he's a great addition to the world, and that's a wonderful thing to do, is feel like you're contributing somebody who also is such a good heart, that he's a good addition. You know, that's such a nice thing. I feel 00:24:00very lucky that way.

ABBOTT: So what was it like sort of still being in hippie mode, but working in the Crisis Center around a lot of unusual people, and being a single mother? How was that for you?

SCHROEDER: Well, you know, you would think that it would have been tough in some ways. But actually, it was really easy. And not to say it wasn't hard sometimes, I mean, that's not true. That wouldn't be the case. But the Crisis Center sort of functioned as a commune, and so it went through many transitions with many different people. But it lasted about seven or eight years. And he was born in '71, and it had been up and running about a year and a half at that point, probably. And by that point, I was one of the -- I had climbed up through it to be one of the people who was helping run it. And by the 00:25:00time it ended, I was one of the three people in charge of it, and I was completely in charge of counseling. And what happened to me there was I discovered that there's such a thing called "counseling." I mean, I actually knew that, because my mother and dad -- my mother had sent me into therapy when I was twelve, and I hated it. I just hated it. I wouldn't talk to that man. They really made a mistake by putting me in with a guy. That scared the holy crap out of me at twelve or thirteen, however old I was. And I just wouldn't talk to him, so I quit. And -- but I discovered from the other side that it could be really fun, that I really loved it. And I seemed to have had just a sort of natural talent for listening to people and making sense out of what they were saying, and somehow knowing how to say something back that will be helpful. So I found something that I really fell in love with doing, even though it was a complete -- completely uneducated in so many ways. I was 00:26:00learning as I did it, which was, I suppose in some ways, rather dangerous. But mostly it was just kind of fun. And so -- but we functioned as a collective, or a commune. And for years, we all lived together. Now we didn't live in the building. We moved from one building to another and then another, and we lived in different buildings, houses. And years later, we actually had a, you know, some kind of federal police, you know, file somewhere, you know, of course, given that I had led a sit-in in Athens. I'm sure I did, I never bothered looking to see if I had one or what it said. So it's more fun just to think, yeah, I must have one there somewhere. What fun! But I think we did really good work, and everybody helped me raise Chad, you know. So we worked thirty-hour weeks. We had a month off a year, paid, which is not the case for me anymore. 00:27:00And it was kind of like a joy, growing up in a house full of people for him. There was another kid who didn't turn out quite so well, which is very sad. But I think he felt kind of loved by a lot of people, and if I was busy talking on the phone to somebody and he needed something, somebody else would get it for him. And it was the sort of little tribe, which I think functioned really well on those levels.

ABBOTT: So from there, did you get into the master's program at Georgia State? Is that --

SCHROEDER: No, I was working -- I went from there to Karuna, and -- I think that's right. When did I start -- now, I have to think about this. I started at Karuna at '74. When did you come into town, you said?

ABBOTT: Seventy-seven.

SCHROEDER: In '77 I was finishing up my master's program, right around then, 00:28:00I think. I think I finished it in '78, maybe. So I think I started that in '76, so yeah, no. I worked at the Crisis Center, and I was working there in 1974, and that was before the Crisis Center closed. Because it -- like I said, it lasted about seven or eight years, and it started in '69, I think. I got a phone call from -- I think it was Jeri Kagel, but I could be wrong. They might remember who called me. It was a group of women, and one of them was calling me from the group, who were starting a feminist counseling collective here in Atlanta. And that was part of a movement that was happening along with the feminist upsurge of the early '70s and late '60s, and early '70s across the country. And they were looking for people, and somehow they had found my name, and they were interested in me. And I honestly don't know why or how 00:29:00they found me, or what that was about, but they did. And I got this call, and I was so flattered, so I went and talked to them, and I was just sort of like, "Really?" I mean, "Okay?" And so -- and it was a very exciting process, and I joined it. And so I was a couple years into that when I thought, you know, I really love this. I love doing therapy, and one day they are going to make rules in this state about how you can do this, and about being certified and having licenses, so I'd better go get some credentials, because all I had was my bachelor's in physical education. I didn't have any certification saying I could do it. So that's when I went to get my master's, and I came here to Georgia State to what was -- I guess they still have it; it's a community counseling program in the education department. And at that point, it was open enrollment, which was really lucky, because I had had no interest in any of the academic stuff I had ever done. So I had graduated from college with a C 00:30:00average, not exactly conducive to graduate programs anywhere. But -- so I got in, and got -- was going through that, and I was actually bored, because it seemed very basic to me even then. Even though I was not educated, I'm really not -- I mean, I'm not meaning to sound egotistical or anything like that, but it was just kind of boring and it wasn't very deep. It was really nuts and bolts stuff, and by then I had been doing therapy long enough that I had a deeper sense of it beyond the "Yes, you listen carefully and you feed things back" kind of nuts and bolts technique and stuff. And so that's when I started thinking, maybe I need to get a PhD. By the time I got to there, I had already -- you know, the Crisis Center closed. I guess it must have closed around '76, '75 or '76, and I was only at Karuna. So I think that answers 00:31:00that question, yeah.

ABBOTT: So being one of the sort of founders of Karuna, one of the first feminist counseling centers in the country, what was that like? Talk a little bit about your process and what it was like being sort of on the ground floor there.

SCHROEDER: Well, what I can remember of it, again, is that we spent a -- that it was -- it was really very exciting. It was very exciting, and we were -- there was this group of women who I felt quite flattered to be with. They were really smart, they were excited, they knew a lot. Some of them were certainly much more educated in feminist theory and writing than I was, or am. I've never been much of a reader of any of that kind of stuff. I just sort of have followed my heart 00:32:00always and what I thought was right about all of that. But it was just -- we would get together, and we would talk, and we would talk, and we would talk, and we would talk. And of course, in the end, that's part of why I ended up leaving after seven or eight years, because we talked, and we talked, and we talked, and sometimes we couldn't get things done. But we were building something. In the beginning, it was exciting, because we were building something from the ground floor. And we had ideas about how we wanted to be, and we argued about those ideas, and we fought about it. And you know, there were people who tried -- you know, were there at the very beginning who actually didn't become part of it, really, and left, because maybe there were philosophical differences, or maybe it took too much time and energy. But the cadre of people who actually started it became really good friends for a long time. And it was just exciting, and it was fun. And we got to argue about all kinds of things and 00:33:00build an idea about how we wanted to be able to work with people and what we wanted to look like, in terms of who we would serve and what philosophy we'd be using in approaching working with them, and how to do -- how do you integrate doing treatment, which to some extent involves really stepping back and letting the other person find their path, and just helping them light it up for themselves in a way, at the same time that you have philosophies about empowerment and about how women should be treated. We are treating women, mostly, and you know, and not -- how do you integrate the political/philosophical stance of feminism with therapy without trying to direct people who may not have so much interest in that, but who come to you for treatment anyway? Even though it's a feminist counseling center, they may not have that. So how do you balance all that stuff? And we talked about that all the time. We had lots of meetings, and lots of supervision, and -- you know, it 00:34:00was just very exciting, and it felt like we were really doing something important, because there wasn't anything like that here.

ABBOTT: So you were at Karuna when you began your PhD program at Georgia State?

SCHROEDER: Right. I went and started my PhD program in 1980. I think I graduated for my master's in '78. I didn't get in, I tried to get into the PhD program. I applied in my last year of the master's program, and I got turned down and told to try again. And I got turned down because -- it seemed like there were two reasons. One was, I was from Atlanta, and they weren't so sure that I wanted to really go to their program, or it's just convenient. And they were very -- that program right then was very -- it was the cutting edge, in a 00:35:00lot of ways, for certain kinds of humanistic and maybe second- or third-generation from Freud therapies. And I think in a lot of ways, they really thought so highly of themselves, they wanted to make sure the people coming really wanted to learn what they had to offer. And that's not a criticism. I think they really needed people coming who really wanted to learn what they had to offer. And so they weren't -- even though I knew a lot of the professors by that point, even though it was a different department -- a whole different area, education versus arts and sciences and everything -- and some of them guaranteed me I'd get in that first time, the truth was I was kind of sure that -- I knew there was a pretty good chance I actually wouldn't, so I wasn't surprised. I was glad they gave me a second chance, and when I applied the second time, they did let me in. And I'm really glad that happened. So I started in 1980, and in 1981, I left Karuna. And I left Karuna because I couldn't do both. I just 00:36:00couldn't. It was -- both of them were too demanding. The PhD program, I was raising Chad. At that point, he was about ten or nine, and I was still raising him alone, though I still had lots of friends helping out. When I say "alone," I mean the only parent. I really wasn't ever alone raising him. And Karuna -- as wonderful an experience as it was, also one of the most important things we did was we decided we were going to work on consensus, and it had to be 100% consensus. So that meant every decision we ever made involved everybody having to agree on anything. And as wonderful an idea as that is, it's really exhausting. And so that meant that one week we would all agree, 00:37:00after much discussion, we would do A. And the next week, at a meeting, somebody would come back and say, "I want to bring up A again, because I'm not so comfortable with it." So we could discuss the most mundane things for eternity, and I just didn't have the energy for it anymore. And it was really sad to me to leave, because I really loved working there. And -- but it really was time anyway. And I had learned so much about being a therapist there. I learned more there than almost anywhere else, including being in the program here. As much as I learned about background -- you know, about technique, and about philosophy, and about how to think about things in the PhD program here, what I'd really learned that happened in all of my hands-on learning prior to that. I got enriched by what I did in school, but Karuna was really the place with good supervision and good friends. I really learned how to be the therapist 00:38:00that I eventually became and I guess am still becoming.

ABBOTT: What was the graduate program at Georgia State like at that time? What were some of the highlights and challenges for you?

SCHROEDER: Well, one of the big challenges is, I really don't like studying. I don't like -- and I'm not academically inclined. You know, you meet these people who are -- they love absorbing all kinds of obscure pieces of information, and they can hold onto it for forever, and it stays in their mind as "So-and-so said this on such-and-such a date," that kind of academic stuff. Not me. I mean, if I can't remember what year I went to work somewhere, do you think I'm going to remember what year somebody in a book supposedly did something? I'm just not -- I'm not good at that. And I don't have a whole lot of interest in it. So the biggest challenge for me was trying to do things in the academic way they wanted it to be done, write the papers in that kind of 00:39:00academic format-y sort of thing, but they want to stay within their -- I mean, there are structures that you have to kind of do things in. When you write a dissertation, it has to follow a certain structure, and to me, that always seemed kind of like, "Really? Okay." So one of the struggles for me was being willing to play along with what I see as something of a structured kind of fake environment, you know, for learning, and do the things they need to do to be -- get my grade to pass. One of the great things about being there was there were professors there who really knew how to do therapy, and knew -- and had interesting ways of thinking about the therapy they were doing. And I loved hearing people talk about, this is how -- this is what's happening. Now, of course, that was what was happening and their idea of seeing how it was happening. But the words they would use to describe what they were seeing, you 00:40:00know, it was great. It was just -- I mean, I loved hearing -- because I -- that's part of being a therapist, anyway, is you listen to people and you hear about how they see the world. And I'd obviously discovered I love hearing how other people see their world, right, and how to interpret what they make of it. All of therapists -- in my mind, all of us do that all the time. That's what we do; we're always making some kind of meaning or sense out of things. But it's our own particular way of viewing and seeing things, and -- so that's what I was learning, was all these really bright, really capable people, who had wonderful hearts generally, who were trying to tell me what they saw and how they imagined what happened worked. And there were some really wonderful things in that, and that was great. The other wonderful thing was I made another bunch of really great friends, who were the other students, and some of those are still friends to this day. And I guess with -- and it was fun getting a PhD, and passing license, and saying -- being able to say I'm now a doctor. And you 00:41:00know, sometimes I say to a medical doctor, "Hi, I'm Dr. Schroeder." And when they ask me my specialty, see them -- see their little face go, "Oh, she's one of those, not really a doctor." But to me, it's like, it's still fun, it's entertaining. So I -- you know, I take a little pride in that. And I think I made my parents really happy, which made me happy. Yeah, they were so worried about me, I think, and disappointed in some ways, because of the way I had led my earlier life, and having Chad out of wedlock and all of that, though they were very happy with Chad. And they were so glad I had him, when it came right down to it, because they adored him, and he was a real joy to their life. But, yeah, I think -- you know, I took pleasure in making them happy that way, seeing them feel relieved and not worried about me anymore. You know, having some pride -- be able to say, "My daughter the doctor." (laughter) You know?

ABBOTT: Yes, yes. So after -- you know, you were in private practice after you 00:42:00left Karuna and throughout your graduate experience.

SCHROEDER: Yeah, though I had to work under somebody's supervision, because I wasn't licensed yet. So I did find people willing to supervise me.

ABBOTT: So, you know, if we look at your informal beginning with the Crisis Center, you've been counseling people, doing psychotherapy for how long?

SCHROEDER: I like to think that I started -- what I say on my résumé is I started in -- I think this is what I say in it -- that I started in 1969. December of '69 is what I like to say. I think that's what it says on there. I'll have to look and see. So that would be '79, '89, '99, 109, so forty-four years? Is that how long?

ABBOTT: Forty-four years, huh?

SCHROEDER: Yeah.

ABBOTT: So how have you changed as a person? How have you seen therapy change? You know, what are some of the things that you've gleaned, you know, in forty-four years of sitting with people about how people work and how people get better?

SCHROEDER: You know, I think it's a mystery, somehow. I mean, I still think it's a bit of a mystery. I have ideas, I have thoughts, but it's the same as the ideas and thoughts the professors had. And I mean, in terms of, we all kind of try to make sense out of what we think we're seeing. I honestly believe that -- and I think this is a theme through a lot of the kinds of treatment philosophies that I tend to be drawn to -- that people change and heal because of the relationship that they have with not only therapists, but other people in their lives. And they can get worse or they can get better in all of those relationships. Hopefully, the relationship with the therapist is one that helps 00:44:00them actually make their life more successful. And to me, getting better means just being more successful in their life. I mean, I don't know any other way to put it, that there are things that -- you know, everybody, I think, does their very best to make their life good. And I think people start doing that when they're itty bitty and they're walking for the first time. And how their relationships in all those settings that they grow up through evolve, they cope with it, and they try to find their way through, and in some situations, the things they come up with are successful from five to seven, or from thirteen to twenty-two, or whatever, but aren't necessarily successful in different moments. So I think people develop all these strategies, and they're mostly unconscious strategies for how to manage their life in the world, and they have feelings about themselves and where their place in the world is, and they have beliefs about where they are in the world, and who they are, and what can happen 00:45:00for them, and what can't happen. That's -- in my mind, a lot of it's just made up, based on the experiences they've had so far, and it becomes kind of set in stone, you know. And I'm sure that's true for me. I mean, that's true for all of us, that what I think people come to therapy trying to do is, they come in with the hope that somehow they can find a way to be happier and feel like -- better about what their life's like, and that maybe they can have new hopes. And they may not even think any of that, but I think my job is to help them see the kind of foundation stones they really function on without thinking about it and help them change them, and I think that's really hard. I think it's really, really hard to notice, oh, I really believe this. I believe I have to do everything, and I have to carry every stone and move it over to there, and I have to -- I'll never have this; I can't ever have this. And I 00:46:00can have that if I just work really, really hard. You know, and the way to get there is to work really, really hard. I mean, I think people really believe these ideas without noticing it, because it's just there. It's been there for so long. And I think part of my job is to sit with them, kind of help them figure out those things, and help them think, maybe I don't have to do it this way. Maybe I really can try this. The hard part is actually doing something a little different, because you see people realizing things all the time and then not being able to do it any differently, anyway. (laughter)

ABBOTT: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

SCHROEDER: So I don't know if that answers your question. I tend to ramble on sometimes.

ABBOTT: Well, no, that's -- you're answering, you're answering well. I think that, obviously, you use the relationship that you develop with the people that come to you, and your understanding of how human beings work and how we get 00:47:00stuck, to help people at least perceive possibility, and then to support them --

SCHROEDER: Right.

ABBOTT: -- in moving towards that, if that's their choice and if that's their capacity. How -- how have you -- you've been in the field for a long time now. How have you seen the field change? You know --

SCHROEDER: Oh, yeah, you did ask that part, didn't you?

ABBOTT: Yeah.

SCHROEDER: Well, I think that it -- that's kind of a hard question to answer, because there's so many more therapists now than there were, in some ways. Of course, there are more people, too, but I do know some younger therapists. And I don't know -- I'm assuming it's semi-true in the non-psychology areas of the same -- of this profession. Because, you know, you don't have to be a 00:48:00psychologist to be a therapist. You know that, you're a social worker, you know. But I don't really know much about how inside each of the different disciplines some of the rules run. But we've gotten more concerned with litiginous [sic] things. Everybody's having to be more careful about paperwork. The amount -- I think the medical profession says the same thing. The amount of having to do the "cover your ass" stuff is so huge at this point, because it's such a -- everybody perceives everything as dangerous. Things -- bad things can happen, and people may come after you in some way, that there's -- when I first was doing all this, we kept minimal paperwork, to protect our clients' privacy. That was what we were told. We were actually taught, don't say a lot in your notes. Don't say much of anything. You want to protect their privacy. Now, people feel like they have to say everything in their notes, 00:49:00because lawyers may come asking, or the insurance companies may want documentation proving people need their -- you know, should get their reimbursement. And so there's pressure -- the privacy issue, though hugely important, and of course, you know, there's all the privacy rights that people have. A lot of the privacy rights are now paper things, and I don't think people have as much privacy. I don't think the client really has as much security and privacy, though they may not know that their privacy is not as well protected as you would think all the laws are making it. I think the laws are making them actually less protected, in some ways. And I think the insurance industry is a huge part of that. You know, so many people turn to their insurance to pay for their therapy, which of course, it's a resource and they should be able to use it. It's great that insurance will pay for it. Everything's double-edged here. But at the same time, the amount of extraneous 00:50:00work it makes for both the client and the therapist takes some of the fun out of it for everybody, and maybe puts a little more risk in terms of people knowing information they shouldn't know. I mean, other people knowing information they -- you know, it would be better if they didn't know about a particular individual patient. But to me, the biggest change really is about laws and insurance. And then, it may be in part because of that, psychology, and I think some of other disciplines, have worked really hard to prove that what they do actually has efficacy and actually can help people. And so there's all this movement towards using certain kinds of treatment techniques with certain kinds of disorders, and it's almost like it's getting a little too medical, in a way. You know, you have a sore throat, you take an antibiotic. If you have depression, you want to do CBT. But maybe not. Maybe CBT is really not the right 00:51:00thing to do with this depressed person. And is it okay to do something different? And so there's a kind of push towards making things a little formulaic, that takes the -- risks losing the relational part of it. And I worry a little bit that a lot of the younger therapists -- well, I don't worry about it a lot. Let me change that a little. I see people coming straight out of school with that whole idea of I'll do CBT, and I'll do EMDR, and I'll do this, and I'll do that, all, you know, these techniques. These are techniques, and I'll do these techniques, and people will get better. And what they -- but I also see a lot of people coming out and saying, "This just -- this can't be it. It doesn't work. It's not really the only thing that works." And I see a lot of young people looking for and responding really well to supervisors and consultants who talk to them more the way I talk. And it enriches their life. I worry about the therapists getting burned out if it becomes too 00:52:00formulaic, and losing their humanity in the process, and therefore the client also losing a little of theirs, I think. Or at least I consider that as a possibility. Worrying a lot, that's really not my style, but I consider that as a possibility. But to me, most of the young therapists I meet, who ask me about clients or want to get a consult, they love talking about it on the level that I've been talking to you about it.

ABBOTT: Right.

SCHROEDER: So that gets -- that's why I don't worry a lot. But it's a concern for me.

ABBOTT: Well, you've also been in practice, really, through a period where there's been fairly radical social change. I mean, we started talking about kind of your beginning feminist awareness of being locked up in the dorm, and how it was unfair that the girls were locked up --

SCHROEDER: Right.

ABBOTT: -- and the boys weren't. You were young and active during the 00:53:00beginnings of -- you know, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, during the anti-war movement --

SCHROEDER: Right.

ABBOTT: -- at the very beginning of the women's movement, at the beginning of gay liberation, and society has changed a great deal. And you've sort of been in a position, you know, to kind of watch the river go by.

SCHROEDER: Right.

ABBOTT: What have you seen? What has been outstanding for you, and how do you -- do you see the world now, and in terms of how things have changed?

SCHROEDER: I was thinking about something like this the other day, because I both see wonderful progress in a progressive kind of way, in some ways, and I see this horrifying, scary to me conservative thing in this country, anyway, that scares me. This thing over here scares me. And I think it's in my face a 00:54:00lot, because I go to a lot of baseball games, and they're kind of, in my mind, unthinking patriotist, patriotic expressions of a "what a wonderful country we live in" thing, and all the conservativeness of that. And I'm not saying this isn't a wonderful country to live in; it is. I love this country. I'm so glad I live here, in so many ways. You know, but there's -- I guess it's because of being Jewish, and knowing a little bit about how fascism can rise so easily when a country's scared and threatened. I see two things going on at the same time, and it kind of scares me. And I know how hard it is to do the progressive end. But it seems so easy for the other end to come up. It's kind of a little like, you know, oh, it's not fair. But, you know, Karuna, which I love dearly, and I see as a very progressive, powerful force that really helped a lot of people in Atlanta, it took three or four years, I guess -- maybe that 00:55:00many, I don't know exactly, maybe longer -- before the idea of, maybe we should have a black person working here as a therapist, actually gathered some steam. You know, it was all white to begin with. And it took a while for that to happen, even in a group of people who were aware of power issues and class issues, and it still took time. And it took overcoming a certain amount of resistance that may or may not have been racist. I wouldn't want to say it was, because I don't know for sure. But, you know, you have to change your thinking a little bit, just like in therapy. And sometimes that takes a long time. And so when I look at how things have changed, just generally, I mean, this is almost more of a discussion about our country than it is about therapy, 00:56:00right. I find this a really scary time. I'm hopeful, but it's scary to me. And it's gotten scarier and scarier since '70 -- since 2001, obviously. But it was sort of there before. The thing that gives me hope is that it's so amazing that even with this rise of huge conservative stuff with lots of money behind it, on this other side, gay people getting married all over the country, and even though was it Louisiana just, you know, had the federal judge say, "No, no, no, the state's law is okay"? Even though that happened, that's just going to be another thing that the Supreme Court is going to get to decide about, because it's all going to end up up there, and it's really hard to imagine how the Supreme Court's not going to say, "Yeah, well, it should be okay for gay people to get married." I mean, even as conservative as that court is, there's a little part of me that thinks, you know, this one they're going to go along with. And I hope I'm right, because it just seems likely to me. So I see all these wonderful things where people are being 00:57:00encouraged to be themselves and to be able to live full lives in the environment, no matter what their orientation or their -- and even in race. I mean, the truth is, we've got a lot of racial problems still in this country, tons of racial problems. I mean, look at what has happened in Ferguson, and that happens everywhere, quietly, almost all the time. And yet, there are a lot of -- the integration of black folk into some of the power structures in this country. The fact we have a black president, and we may end up with a woman, eventually, as president, too. You know, I don't know if Hillary is really going to run, I don't know if she can win. But the fact that, you know, she's been in the running for these years -- I mean, it's been a long time since there was a woman, and she didn't go very far, who was even in contention. I mean, she made the mistake of crying or something, right? And -- back then. And anyway, so it's like, I think you can cry in public now and not get banned for it, you 00:58:00know. So I see huge social changes in the young people that I know in this country are -- they start from such a progressive place, as compared to having to find a progressive place to go to, that I'm really hopeful that that's the -- it's confusing, because that's where I lay most of my energy and hope. This is really a good thing, it's happening. Things are changing, it's getting better. And the stuff that scares me and terrifies me over here, I try to think of as a glitch. It's still a trauma reaction from 2001, you know, from September 11. And it's -- you know, I try to hope we'll get over that. I hope we will. But I watch movies a lot, too. And I have this little theory, which is a silly theory, but you know all those King Kong and Godzilla -- not King Kong, that was a long time before. But you know, Godzilla and all those 00:59:00Japanese movies that came out after World War II? To me, I used to watch those and think, these are all -- you know, all these things are destroying Tokyo, and they're killing all of these Japanese people, and there's always this one American scientist who's helping to figure out how to solve the problem. This is all about the atomic bombs, in my mind, right? I always thought, these are always -- these are all about the atomic bombs. Well, now, suddenly all those monsters -- you know, there are movies where all of these monsters are attacking the U.S., and they've happened since -- a lot of the movies have come out since September 11. So I see us as doing the same thing. You know, we didn't have an atomic bomb drop, thank God, thank goodness, you know. But it's like, you know, this country is traumatized. I mean, it's just traumatized. It's still in trauma, and the reactions are ones you can kind of predict if you know anything about how people respond to trauma. Our country is just a big person, sort of like corporations are people, right? I mean, it's got a collective 01:00:00consciousness, right? And I think we're traumatized, and the conservative stuff I really hope is just a wave that's a reaction to that, and some therapists will help to heal somehow, in some bigger sense. But overall, I'm really pleased with the way in which lives have changed for most people. And I do hope things are getting better for your average black person. It seems like it is. But there's still an awful lot of stuff that really hurts people of color -- not just, say, black, but people of color, people who are different. You know, there's a lot of risk to them, there's a lot of hurt. And I'm hoping things are getting better. They are better in a lot of ways, but there's still so far to go. Humans are just weird. When it comes right down to it, you know, we don't adapt well -- or we adapt too well, whichever way you want to look at it.

ABBOTT: Well, you mentioned the -- how quickly, you know, a country can flip into fascism. And your parents were certainly adults and cognizant, you know, 01:01:00during the time where Hitler rose to power in Germany --

SCHROEDER: Right.

ABBOTT: -- and were impacted by that.

SCHROEDER: Right.

ABBOTT: You know, you were born after the Second World War. How do you feel like the impact of the Nazis and the concentration camps, you know, came through your parents to you, and how does that still enter into your way of seeing things?

SCHROEDER: You know, my parents, they -- I don't know how to answer that question. They said to me directly -- my mother did, my father wasn't much of a talker -- my mother said, "You can't ever trust anybody who's not Jewish." She said that over and over and over again. And I argued with her from very early teenage years about that. I said, "How can you say that? What about all of those people that put on a Jewish star in -- " where was it, 01:02:00Denmark? " -- and said, 'Take me; I'm Jewish too'? I mean, what about the people who hid them at the risk to their own lives? How can you say you never trust anybody who isn't Jewish?" And she'd say, "Yeah, but they were so few and far between." I said, "Yeah, but they risked their lives. How can you" -- I mean, this, it's too black and white, right? So she and I would argue about that a lot. And we'd argue about Israel later on. You know, I'd say, "Israel is making an awful lot of problems for itself by going in there and destroying a whole house that thirty people live in because one of the kids decided that they want to throw stones at an Israeli citizen." You know, I mean, the -- so we had differences of opinion about how Israel was handling the Palestinian problem. You know, it's not a Palestinian problem, it's the Israeli-Palestinian problem, right? And so, but she was obviously somebody who was really traumatized, as was my dad. And she tried to teach me that it's 01:03:00never really safe. And I think the part of that that I did absorb is that I know that there's always the possibility that something bad can happen, and that even here in this wonderful place, this country that is more accepting in some ways than so many other countries of almost anybody, I might have to leave someday. I've always known I might have to leave. It makes me sad to think that. And I don't think it really would happen, but I'm aware the possibility exists. And I even had a person who at one point I thought of as a friend of mine, who said to me, "Well, you're always a Jew first." And I thought, I don't feel like I walk around thinking I'm a Jew first. But she's saying that to me, so she thinks I'm a Jew first. And so she's an example -- even though she's certainly not a fascist, she's one of those 01:04:00people who might be a danger to me, in some sense, at some point. People who think the way she thinks could be a danger to me. And so I think what that did for me, actually, was it helped me have sympathy for the situation people of color have in this country, because, you know, they can't -- well, I can hide being Jewish. (laughter) Sort of, you know? It seems -- tends to leak out of me, rather -- but you know, it doesn't show when you look at me. Some Jewish people, it shows. You look at them, you think, oh, I know that person is Jewish. Well, at least I do. My Jewdar is pretty strong, I guess. But not everybody knows that about me. And -- but when you're black, or you're brown, or you're Asian, or you're Native American, it sort of shows. You can't hide that. And so I think that helped me have -- not that I think people should hide any of that, but I think it made me feel aligned with all the minority people, because I am a minority person, even though it's not visible. And I think that 01:05:00probably, actually, is part of why I became the kind of person I am, in terms of progressive thinking and thinking people -- you know, that, along with my parents' belief that everybody should have an equal chance in the world probably shaped a lot of that. But I do -- and I think a lot of the people who are more mainstream white people in this country don't sit around thinking, I might have to leave here at some point, you know? And I don't sit around thinking it; I'm just aware of it. It's a background thing, you know, that I might have to go somewhere. In fact, one of Jay and I -- I have a really good friend who moved to Maine about three years ago. And he and I were talking one day when I was up there, either the last time or the time before, about, how far is it to the Canadian border from here? And he -- because he was thinking at some point, being a gay man, he's actually thought about, gee, maybe I'll -- you know, what if something really goes wrong? He's actually considered that, 01:06:00and he feels much safer in Maine, because he's so much closer to a way to get away if he needed to. And I thought, well, maybe my first step in leaving would be to go visit Jay in Maine and make sure I had my passport with me (laughter). Because it's not very far at all to the Canadian border. But, you know, I say it and I laugh about it, but it's really a very sad idea. So I think that's part of it, but I think it just makes me sensitive to things like, what was it, a baseball game on Memorial Day weekend, and Governor Deal, who is not my favorite person in the universe, I will say -- I don't know him; he might be a fine human being, but as a governor and as a political creature, I'm not fond of him. He was leading something or other, and he actually asked everybody to stand up and asked everybody to follow him as he led them in giving -- in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. And I thought, oh, my God, am I in third grade, or 01:07:00what? I mean, the Pledge of Allegiance, really? And the stadium was full of people, and I would guess 98% of them did it. They just do it, because people just do -- they don't want to look different from the person standing next to them. They're scared of being singled out. Maybe they believe in it. But that kind of thing scares the heck out of me.

ABBOTT: Well, understandably so.

SCHROEDER: And so that's part of how my parents' experience, though, shaped my awareness of that kind of stuff.

ABBOTT: Right, right. I suppose the other factor, you know, is that -- this is -- the math here is obvious, is that you've gotten older.

SCHROEDER: Uh-huh.

ABBOTT: You know, that you're now experiencing life in your 60s. You have Medicare.

SCHROEDER: Yay!

ABBOTT: Yay!

SCHROEDER: I love Medicare!

ABBOTT: And I'm just wondering, you know, if you can share a little bit about what it's like to be older, how things have changed for you, and how you're anticipating the future.

SCHROEDER: You don't just mean the fact that I'll need a new knee replacement in a few months?

ABBOTT: Well, that and --

SCHROEDER: I mean, obviously there are the obvious physical changes. You know, I can't hike as far or as strongly. I can't lift a fifty-pound bag; I can only lift a thirty-five-pound bag, and that's hard. I mean, there's all the physical stuff. My mind -- I don't know whether it's lost its sharpness or not. You know, I think in some ways I'm still pretty sharp. But you know, I've always had, like I said earlier, something of a trouble tracking time and memory, in terms of placing it in time, and I forget things a lot. So I'm not sure I'm forgetting more or less, because I really have of-- always just lived more in the moment than remembered what just happened, or looking -- I've 01:09:00looked forward to some things happening, but I'm really an "in the moment" kind of person. So it's hard for me to tell cognitively how much has changed. Maybe I'm forgetting more, you know. I do open the refrigerator more and think, what was I looking for? Or I pick up my phone and I go, wait a minute, what was I just going to go look up? (laughter) You know, that kind of thing. But I do find myself thinking about things like, okay, my car is eight years old, and hopefully it will last another couple of years, because I like cars to last ten years or so. But the car after that, what will I buy, and it might be my last car. Likely it will be my last car. I mean, I'm sixty-six, I'll be sixty-seven. You know, a couple of years from now I'll be sixty-nine, seventy-nine; if I get another car that lasts ten years, why would I buy another 01:10:00car after that? I mean, it sounds dangerous. I might, but it -- the next car may be my last car. So I'm thinking in terms of the shortness of what's left, and how -- you know, when I put a new roof on my house about ten years ago, I picked a metal roof to put on, because they live forty years, theoretically. And that was my last roof. So I found myself thinking in terms of last or next-to-last things a lot, and having only so many vacations ahead of me, and what do I really want to do on those vacations? Not what am I usually doing, but what do I really want to do? I finally have so many years of vacations, and if I can only hike -- you know, I love hiking on vacation -- if I can only hike for so many more years, where do I really want to go to do the hiking? So time and how I spend it is becoming more and more precious. I want to work until I -- 01:11:00either I realize I am not really enjoying this anymore, maybe I'm not even any good at it anymore, and/or somebody else says to me, "Ilene, I think you're beginning to lose your edge in this. Maybe you should think about it." Hopefully, I'll catch it before somebody has to say it to me. But, you know, I could imagine working forever, because I love what I do. And it's less; I only work three days a week now instead of -- for years I only worked four, but I worked four very long days. And when I still had a young kid in the house, I took off Monday. So after the weekend with him, I had a weekday to myself. And then I switched it to Fridays off, because a lot of professional meetings happen on Fridays, and now I had -- didn't have to see clients, and I could go to conferences, and I could, you know, do that kind of stuff, and hang out with my friends, because they weren't working, either. Now that's not -- that's something that's changed. Everybody seems to work sixty hours a week and five days a week or more, even in therapy -- even as therapists. So back to another 01:12:00question, that's a change; they're working harder than I remember most of us working when we were their age. And I do worry about that impairing their ability to really do good work on some level. But anyway, so I'm down to three days a week, and I can easily imagine being down to two at some point, or even just a day. I mean, I can see it tapering, and that's fine by me, absolutely fine. I like -- I've been -- I'm surprised at how much I enjoy having a four day off week, and how it fills up so quickly with things that are like -- too many of them are doctor's appointments, but you know, it fills up so quickly. And I know, eventually, my -- I'm not going to be able to do much, and I'll probably -- I'll need more help doing things and being taken care of, and -- but I try not to think about that too much yet, because that's, I hope, a while away yet, that part.

ABBOTT: You are a devoted fan of baseball. Can you talk about how baseball came into your life --

SCHROEDER: (laughs) That's so silly.

ABBOTT: -- and how you have developed this passion for it?

SCHROEDER: I know, it's really crazy, because it's -- you know, it's a group of young men running around out there, making millions of dollars doing something stupid. It's totally against everything I politically stand for in almost every way, except they are unionized. Of course, it's not really a union; it's a very powerful guild, is what it is. I have trouble calling anything a union that isn't about people who make minimum wage, or you know, work in -- you know, in factories or stuff like that. I'm very kind of parochial in my union thinking. But my son's in a union, you know. I think what they all do -- the union's been really good for them. But I was -- my dad was a baseball fan. He was a Yankees fan, the evil empire ruled by a 01:14:00multi-millionaire who was a terrible man for a long time. But he was a Yankee fan. He was actually born in the Bronx, and I don't know if that's why he became a Yankee fan or not, because he grew up in Brooklyn. And that -- so he should have been a Dodger fan. So I used to watch some baseball with him, but we never went to ballgames at all. And I was never really interested in it. And when I started my PhD program, there were two people there. One was Joel Rachelson, who sadly has passed away, and the other was Bonnie [Brill?]. Was it Bonnie or Robin? I forget which one is which. Anyway, they were friends of my sister's. They came from Columbus, Georgia, and my sister had known them. They weren't really close friends, but my sister knew them. So I got to know them, and Joel and I became good friends, and Joel was a baseball fan. And he said to me one day -- you know, I think it was in 1982 -- he said, "You've never been to a baseball game?" I said, "No, I've never been to a baseball game." And he said, "I'm taking you to a baseball game." I said, "Oh, 01:15:00okay, I'll go to a baseball game." And the Braves played in Fulton County Stadium then, not in Turner Field. And so we went, and the way that place was structured, you could buy a general admission ticket that was really cheap, but that meant you sat in these seats that were not such great seats. And he knew a way to go in and walk around -- because there were ramps you walked up, he took -- you get to this one place in the ramp, and there was an opening, and he knew how to sneak in through the opening. So we actually snuck into a very high-dollar section and went downstairs. And because in those days, only three or four thousand people would go to a game, because they really were terrible in those days -- the Braves, I mean -- you could really sit anywhere you wanted, once you got into the non-general ticket admission seating. So we would sit right behind home plate. And we did that just once. I said it as if we were doing it a lot, we did it once. And we went, and we sat there, and there were so few people there, really just a few thousand people. And there were all of these cute men out there, and they were running around, and they were -- they could 01:16:00talk to you, because there was nothing going on, and there wasn't any -- so few people. And it was fun. I enjoyed it, but I didn't get hooked on it at that point. I think it was -- maybe that was 1981, actually. And then in '82, I was friends with some other people, more people who were students -- I mean, they were -- a lot of people started going to games regularly. They had a friend who had season tickets, and so they started taking me to games. And then they -- and I actually bought into that package. So I bought a part of a season ticket, and that meant I went to ten games a season or something. But I was sitting right behind home plate, and I just got really enamored of it. And why did I get enamored of it? You know, it's a really hard sport -- I mean, I've come to understand the game a lot. And it's a really -- there are many people who believe that it's actually the toughest sport to be successful at, in part because you're hitting this little round ball with a round object, and the 01:17:00ball's moving really fast, and neurologically, you don't have any time to really react to what's happening. And you have, like, this part of a second to react to the ball coming from the pitcher to the -- to the hitter. And so it's really a tough game. You're considered successful if you hit the ball successfully three out of ten times that you're at bat. You know, it's like -- and in that -- you know, so you come to bat ten times, but each at bat, you might have any number of balls thrown at you before you're either out or on base, and -- pitches thrown at you. And so, to succeed at getting on base with a hit three out of ten times, I mean, that's pretty tough. I mean, that says it's tough. And that's a really good batting average, .300. Nobody -- most people don't even hit that. They hit, like, .280, you know. So I -- the fact that it's really tough to do, and it's hard to appreciate how tough it is if 01:18:00you don't really sort of get into it, is really neat. But they're also cute, and they're fun to watch, and they're young, and you know, there are sort of pheromones flying around. And it's a social event. You know, you sit there with your friends, you talk to your friends, you spend a lot of time talking about this and that and the other thing, and -- so that's how I got kind of enamored of it, and so I have been a season ticket holder since 1982. I've been pissed at them for their conservative politics. It's a really conservative, politically, organization. I mean, not just the Braves, but baseball in general. Football is probably -- I mean, all the sports are probably just as conservative. I mean, you know, these aren't people who generally, you know, go to Ivy League schools, or you know, go to the schools where you'd see more progressive families and kids going. They don't generally follow it. They don't come from that kind of background, generally. They're more of a success story of the working class, in some ways, or the middle class now, maybe 01:19:00more than the working class. But it's fun. It's like a vacation. I think of it as one of my vacations, 800 bucks for a season ticket in the upper deck. It's one vacation a year, and it only takes six months to play out (laughs). I don't know if that answered your question.

ABBOTT: It does, it does. In looking back --

SCHROEDER: Is that still going to be taping? I mean, he's running out of time soon, isn't he?

ABBOTT: Let's see, it's twelve -- we started at a quarter after ten, and we had an hour and a half.

SCHROEDER: So we've got about eight minutes. Yeah, I thought Morna said she was coming back at 11:30 to -- or he was. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I just was concerned --

ABBOTT: I think that we're still -- and we'll be on, on the --

SCHROEDER: Okay, we'll still be on the tape.

ABBOTT: Right. So --

SCHROEDER: It's okay to have asides like that.

ABBOTT: Yes, this is. They can add them or edit them, you know.

SCHROEDER: Okay, good.

ABBOTT: You know, one of the things that, you know, is true of any life is that there's grief in it. And, you know, I know you've lost, you know, both of your parents, and I know that you've lost friends. Can you talk a little bit about that, about how you've -- how loss has been a part of your experience, and how you've moved through that?

SCHROEDER: You know, I don't -- I guess I don't think about it a whole lot. I wasn't really close to my parents, so losing them, though sad in some ways, it wasn't -- you know, you meet some people who are so close to their parents, they even -- before they die, they even say, "I don't know how I would live without them"? Well, that wasn't me. I always felt at an emotional distance from my parents. And when my mom died, I couldn't sleep that night, and I, you know, sort of paced around and obsessed for a while, and felt bad about how that 01:21:00-- how young she died. She died in her -- how old was she? I think she had turned -- did she turn sixty-five? She was in her late 60s or early 70s; I can't remember exactly. And -- but she seemed young. And she had had a miserable life in some ways and a great life in other ways. And so I was sad, because we hadn't been close, I think, and we weren't going to be able to ever. And not that I really had a whole lot of hope for that anyway, but it -- I think, in some ways, I think a little bit about her more as a -- since she's died than I did before. So she's more on my mind. My dad, I never felt really 01:22:00close to him, either. He was a more benign figure for me than she was, but she was the leading lady in the story between them. And he came up here and lived -- my sister and I convinced him to move up here and live up here for the last two years of his life. And I was the replacement for my mom in his mind, so -- in fact, he often called me Dot, which would drive me crazy. And I would get mad at him like I'd never get mad at anybody else. I mean, I would just lose my temper with him more than I ever did with anybody else. And so those last couple of years, we actually had a connection. It wasn't pleasant, it was really stressful. I think it made into me an unpleasant people -- person for most of my friends to be around for those couple of years, which I regret, you know, quite a bit. But I wasn't so much fun to be around, and I wasn't easy to be around, I don't think. Because it wasn't easy for me, because he wanted me 01:23:00to -- he talked to me every day, and I called him almost every day, because he needed me to do that, and I felt like I had to. And it was exhausting and draining. So when he died, in some ways -- and he died very quickly and peacefully, which was really a blessing, and -- I mean, I don't believe in blessings, so -- but that's the only word I can think of to use, was it could have taken so long, and it could have been so terrible. But it felt quick and easy in some ways, which was good. And I was sad about him passing, at least a little bit. But it wasn't anything that was hard for me to get over, because I never really felt all that close. And I -- who else have I lost? You know, it's like, I've lost a few friends. But I've been really lucky. I haven't really lost a lot of people. I've lost more dogs than I've lost 01:24:00people. You know, and I'm always really sad when they die, and -- but then I get over that over a little bit of time, and I always get another dog. I think what the -- the thing I -- you know, it's interesting, because you talked about loss and sadness, and -- I mean, you asked that question, but it wasn't about the people that I was thinking when -- the first thing that came to mind. The first thing that came to mind was, I have had this belief since I was a little child that therapy or no therapy, being a therapist, not being a therapist, I've never been able to shake. And it has become true in -- of course, I have a few years, you never know -- but my belief has always been that I would never have a partner in life. And to me, that's the saddest thing in my life. And that's what came to mind. That's the loss for me in this life, the biggest loss, not ever being able to have that. And I think part of it is because of whatever happened that -- the things that happened that -- maybe the 01:25:00lack of closeness with my parents that made that, you know, become true for me as a belief. And then my belief has been immovable. And I think I'm just not capable of being able to love somebody that way. I used to think it was because people didn't think I was attractive, or weren't, you know -- and I think that's too -- that's an erroneous idea. It wasn't because there was anything wrong with me, or I'm not cute enough, or wasn't sexy enough, or anything like that. I think it's because I wasn't capable of doing it, and I think I'm still not. And you know, the older I get, the more it feels like it's likely this will be the case the rest of my life, too. And it has been so far. The lucky thing about my life is that I have dear, wonderful friends, and I love them dearly, and they love me dearly. And so I don't feel alone, you know. And --

ABBOTT: Well, and you have Chad.

SCHROEDER: And I have Chad, though you know, he's busy in his life. You know, he and I don't talk as much as many parents and kids do. And that's okay, I think, on both our sides. I think I'd like a little more than he is, but he's busy. He's hugely busy. I hate to intrude. I am going to ask him to help me out when I get my knee replaced, however (laughs). But I do have him, and he loves me, and I know he does. And I love him dearly, and I know he knows I love him. And it was great seeing him this past -- this other week when we all had breakfast together, that was really great. So -- and I have my sister, who I'm very close to, and that's really great.

ABBOTT: And a brother that you're not so close to.

SCHROEDER: Yeah, we're not so close to -- yeah.

ABBOTT: But he's there.

SCHROEDER: I mean, he's such a -- he's there, and he's generous, and he's sweet. He's just a little awkward, and we're just not -- he's not close to anybody, you know. He's got it worse than I do and worse than Judy 01:27:00does. The whole family has a problem around this. You know, we're all single (laughter). So I think I came by this problem very honestly.

ABBOTT: Yes, yes.

SCHROEDER: I just think it's sad that I wasn't able to fix it. And maybe I didn't want to enough. I don't know, even though it is a sadness, and to me, a loss, because having been able to have a partner would have -- would, and if it does happen, would bring something -- a whole different dynamic into my life that could be quite lovely.

CREW: Sound.

SCHROEDER: But I haven't lost as many people as you have. You've lost a lot of people. And I feel really lucky that way, too. I've got all of these fairly healthy friends running around, you know.

ABBOTT: So what's on your bucket list?

SCHROEDER: Well, there's a trip I really want to do, and we -- Judy and I, my sister and I, started talking about it a year ago when things sort of blew up in 01:28:00the Middle East. And even though my allergist has accused me of being a coward because I haven't ever been to Israel, and because I say, "Well, it's a war zone, I'm not sure why I'd go there" -- and so that's why he thinks I'm a coward -- the truth is, it's never been high on my list, but there are certain things I want to do in the Middle East. I do want to see -- go to Israel and see the history, you know, go into Jerusalem, seeing Masada, seeing the temple walls, you know, seeing the gorgeous golden dome on, you know, the -- whatever they -- whatever that is they call it; I'm blanking. But I want to see the history there. I want to go to -- I want to dive in the Red Sea. I love scuba diving. That's more of a passion than baseball, even, I just can't enact it as often. But I want to dive in the Red Sea. I want to go see the Pyramids. And I could dive in the Red Sea out of Egypt, that would be okay with 01:29:00me. It doesn't have to be Israel, it could be either one. I want to go up the Nile. I want to go to Turkey. So my sister and I had talked about this trip, where we go to Israel, and then we go to Turkey. You know, I want to go see the Bosphorus. I mean, I just want to be able to say I saw the Bosphorus. You know, wow! It's like, I remember when I was in London, and I was wandering around in the British Museum, and I know all of this stuff that got stolen from Egypt and all of those places that's in there, but I wasn't thinking a whole lot about it. And I -- you know, I was walking around, and I said, "Oh, look! There's the Elgin Marbles. Oh, the Elgin Marbles." And I ended up in some little dust -- what felt to me like a dusty little corner of something. And I looked down at the -- I looked at this thing that was in front of me, and I was looking and thinking, what is that? And I looked at it and thought -- and I realized it was the Rosetta Stone, and I burst into tears, because it was the Rosetta Stone. Oh, my God! I mean, I still do, when I think this is the Rosetta Stone. It's so 01:30:00weird how it affects me to think that this is the Rosetta Stone. You know, it makes me cry, because it opened up so much ability to understand things. Finding that, you know. And so just -- and what people said and thought, because you could read what they had written. And it was like, oh, my God, what an amazing thing! And so I want to go see some of those places those sort of things came from, you know. And so that's on my bucket list. And we really were going to try and go in this past year. And then, you know, Syria happened, and the Middle East happened, and it was like, oh, well, I think we're not going (laughter). And you know, it's not like I'm scared, but it seems kind of like a silly thing to do right now. Maybe things will calm down. And so -- and Egypt's a little dangerous for Jewish people, still. It's really interesting. You have to kind of go in a particular way with particular kinds of protections, because 01:31:00American Jews are at risk in Egypt and have been for about ten years or so now. So you have go -- you have to make -- take precautions. But anyway, so that's on my bucket list. I mean, I need to go back to Colorado. That has to happen, and it will next summer, I hope. I'd like to go to Rome and see some of the ruins there in Greece, and see some of the ruins there. It's a lot about old stuff. But I also want to go to -- I want to go to Africa and see elephants walking around in their native habitat (laughter), you know? And I'd like to go -- this has been on my list for a long time, and I tried to make it happen a couple of years ago, but it didn't. And I think I may have to do it without my sister, because she's not so interested, but I want to go see Machu Picchu, and I've seen Chichen Itza in the Mayan end of -- I mean in Mexico and stuff 01:32:00like that, but I want to go to Peru, and I want to climb the Inca Trail, and you know, I want to do all that kind of stuff. And I may have to do that with other people, find other people who want to do it. And I want to go out to the Far East. I invented a trip, also, that I came up with, which we just don't have the money for -- I don't have the money for right now and may never, but I'd like to go out to Indonesia and go scuba diving out there, and then go over to Thailand and Burma, and into China, and then into Japan, and then come back. Because that would be a trip of a lifetime. I mean, that would take a very long time, and I probably would not go out to the Far East again -- as they call it, the Far East, or somebody calls it. You know, that would be a big trip. I just don't know how I'll afford it, but.

ABBOTT: More psychotherapy.

SCHROEDER: More psychotherapy. So those are kind of -- you know, those are the travel-y kinds of things on the bucket list. I don't know what I have here, so much. I want to spend -- I mean, in a non-cross it off your list kind of way, I just want to spend really good quality time with my friends and with the people I love, doing the things that we all like doing together. I want to spend as much time doing that as I can. I want to spend my time enjoying it, and that's at work as well as with -- just in time off. I just want to really enjoy being with the people I really enjoy being with. And that -- and luckily, I like all my clients, so I enjoy doing my work.

ABBOTT: Anything else that you feel like we haven't covered, that would be important to talk about?

SCHROEDER: Well, we didn't talk much about Karuna. You know, I thought we would talk more about Karuna, but I guess we were talking more about me, huh?

ABBOTT: Yeah, yeah. And I think in your subsequent conversations with your colleagues at Karuna, you'll, that story will --

SCHROEDER: Hopefully it will come out, yeah.

ABBOTT: -- come out.

SCHROEDER: Because it was certainly a great place to be. And anyway -- and they were good people. Still are.

ABBOTT: And you were on the ground floor.

SCHROEDER: I was. I was. I'm going to be curious, because one of the things I want to ask them is -- because they -- there was a little group of them, the ones that called me, that actually started talking before me -- and it's beeping at me now, or it's blinking, rather -- the -- I want to know what led to them getting together the first time and starting to talk. That's one thing I want to know.

ABBOTT: Okay, that's a good question.

SCHROEDER: Because I probably knew it, but I don't know what the answer to that is anymore.

ABBOTT: All right. Shall we stop?