Mind Matters: Unkempt Hair, the Oscars, Makeup, and the Self

Okay,
let’s start out with “unkempt hair.” American Experience’s (a PBS documentary
series) recent theme was the presidency of William Clinton. The narrator
remarked, in passing, about Hillary Clinton’s “unkempt hair” in President
Clinton’s early career. The implication was that her hairstyle over the years
had morphed from unruly and wild to more dignified and tamed. In other words,
she was being judged as a woman by how her hair “behaved” or didn’t. The fact
that the brain beneath the hair was rather brilliant was offset by the focus on
her “wildness.” We really can get caught up in trivia under the guise of what
we deem important.

Importance,
too, is granted to the rich and famous: the Hollywood celebrities with Oscars
are in the headlines this week. While the culture again dictates what the
unreachable “norm” is in form and fashion, there is a counterpoint. The Renfrew
Center declared the day after the Oscars as “no makeup day.” A nationally known
treatment center for eating disorders with its main facility in Philadelphia,
the Renfrew Center, proclaimed Feb. 27 this year as a day to be “barefaced,” to
bring home to women of all ages, the sense of being satisfied with our natural
looks. Self-image is so often defined (and maligned) by the prevailing culture.

What a
joy to be able to affirm oneself sans makeup and with natural hair—unkempt
even! Why just one day? Why not every day? The bottom line, of course, is about
recognizing that true self-worth has nothing to do with appearance or how
someone else judges our looks (that goes for both men and women). Once we are
confident within, then how we dress or “do” makeup becomes our personal choice,
a personal statement of self, not a “should” or a “shame.”

(Of
note: The event of Feb. 27 was the kickoff to Renfrew’s “Barefaced and Beautiful,
Without and Within” campaign as part of National Eating Disorders Awareness
Week—Feb. 26 to March 3.)

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a
doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford,
Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com
or 610-388-2888. Past columns
are posted tohttp://www.drgajdos.com

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.

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