Mental

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I should have become a therapist. That’s a good job. You just listen to people drone on about their problems for an hour while you picture another $150 falling out of the sky.

I had a therapist once who would sneak a glance at his watch near the end of the session and then he’d say, “Why don’t we pick it up right there next week.” I’d think, you know, doc, you are the only one in this room who can just “pick it up” right there next week. I can’t just “pick it up” like I’m pausing a video to answer the phone.

Actually, doc, our lives will differ quite a bit in the next seven days. Doc, you’ll be tooling your Jaguar over to the tennis club for lunch with your model wife while I eat lunch at my desk- a couple of Mars bars left over from Halloween. You will be reading some “white paper” on schizophrenia you wrote for the APA convention while I re-read love letters I wrote to my girlfriend Cindy that were returned unopened. Doc, you can “pick it up right there”- I have to live all week with the neuroses, psychoses and halitosis I walked in here with.

People in LA recommend their therapist the way people in Ohio recommend their mechanic. My friend said, “Here let me give you the name of my therapist. She’s very good. She’ll even take phone calls at her house over the weekend if you need a little tune-up.”

Don’t go to your friend’s therapist. Because one of the problems they’ve been sharing with their therapist is YOU.

You tell the doctor, “Well, doc, sometimes I can be manic-depressive.”

The doctor says, “I know. Like when you get angry and punch holes in walls. Then you are happy again. Also, you want love but you are afraid of intimacy. You are angry with your father for never being home. You immerse yourself in your work to avoid dealing with your problems.

“Or, so I’ve heard.”