Voula Grand - Psychologist & Writer
Over two decades of work as a professional psychologist, I became increasingly interested in the subject of personal identity. Who are you? What do you want to do? Why are you here, what is your purpose? These were questions I explored at length, and in depth, with the people I worked with. It was suggested to me that I wrote a book, a psychology book, on the topic of identity. As I considered this question I knew beyond doubt that I wanted to write such a book. But a novel, not a text book… a story, that many people could relate to, that would lead to questions and reflections. I knew that the questions I wanted to raise had no real answers… but that reflecting on these questions could provide insights and new learnings, a greater understanding of self, and the consequent sense of peace, liberation, energy and happiness that invariably result.
My desire to write stories was awakened in me when I was three years old, and my failure to speak led my anxious parents to seek medical advice. It is one of my earliest memories: Dr Caddock, peering over his glasses at me as my mother haltingly explained: “she has never spoken a single word, Doctor.” My mother was profoundly relieved when he simply pronounced me bored and in need of stimulation and I was granted special permission to join the library a year ahead of the normal age of four. That was when my love affair with books began. But it was to be several decades, and a long diversion into psychology, before my ambition to write books of my own would come to fruition.
As I embarked on this ambitious project, I became increasingly aware of the power of stories, of fiction, to have an impact on our sense of self, in oblique ways that can be far more effective than psychology texts. Stories raise questions, unbidden, to our conscious minds, leading us to places in ourselves that are long forgotten, buried beneath the decades of worldly life, and social conditioning. This is never more true than during the adult years of mid-life, the natural “taking stock” that happens, consciously or not, as we review our past and consider our future. What have we done? Not done? What is still to do? What must I make sure I do, before I die? Who went before me, and who comes after? How do I sit in this chain of ancestry – how does it affect me, and how do I affect it? What are my neurotic behaviour patterns, and how can I free myself… and not only myself, but also those who follow me, my children and my children’s children?
It has taken me many years of deep thought and study to conceive a trilogy of novels: Honor’s Reflections. My heartfelt wish is that my writing touches people at the deepest level of their humanity.
