Friday, September 17, 2010

How to get your psychologist fired

I was desperately searching the internet for herpes cures and I accidentally clicked the wrong thing.  This odd letter template showed up.





Dear : [name of facility director]




I just wanted to take this opportunity to give proper notice to you of the excellent treatment that I have received in the care of one of your doctors; [Name of psych]

I have seen many different mental health professionals in the last 23 years; each with their own merits.  With past councilors there was always immediate pressure to examine the early childhood traumas I endured, as well as my four failed marriages.  You could understand how this would be uncomfortable to discuss with a stranger and just lead to a build-up of resistance. 

Because of [his/her] unique style of therapy, [Name of psych] is the only councilor that I have seen for more than three sessions. 

I attribute our amazing connection to [Name of psych]’s method that [he/she] calls “Reversal Therapy”.  Right from the opening minutes of our first session we started using this method.  When I started down the old boring path of telling [Name of psych] about my witnessing beating death of my Mother; [he/she] would not hear of it.  Instead of opening this old wound, we instead talked about [Name of psych]’s awkward first kiss and the trauma associated with this abnormal family liaison.

You see, [Name of psych] was brilliantly able to shift the focus from myself (where it selfishly resided) to someone else’s problems.  Allowing me to find parallels in my own life.

Instead of needlessly dwelling on my lifelong problems with trust and commitment, [Name of psych] redirected the conversation to a subject less personally threatening to me: [his/her] early development of puberty and the unwanted (but reluctantly accepted) sexual advances that followed. Although I have yet to find a parallel to this in my life, I will never look at farm animals the same way again.

When I selfishly tried to bring up my relatively petty unhappiness with my Father and his habit of beating me for leaving my closet or trying to communicate with someone outside the compound; [Name of psych] bravely revealed (over parts of 14 sessions) [his/her] difficulty with achieving sexual satisfaction and of [his/her] resulting gender confusion.  

When I think of all the other counselors who were too selfish to share their emotional struggles, I despair that many truly sick people are not getting the help they need.

Because of [Name of psych]’s work with me, I now only rarely think of reconnecting with the children I abandoned in my four failed marriages.  Instead I spend my time thinking of ways that [Name of psych] can finally get back at that skinny bitch intake nurse on the 6th floor. 

It should not be inferred that faults in myself have gone unexamined.  Apparently I am to blame for my past failures in treatment.  I now know that I was very undisciplined in my posture and manner with those other councilors.  

With [Name of psych]’s constant (and sometimes aggressively abusive) constructive criticism, I now am able to concentrate on holding a rigid posture during the entire session as well as completely avoiding eye contact.  The eye contact part is apparently key.  I never before knew that doctors were offended by their unworthy patients having the temerity to “bore into their souls” through the eyes.  I plan to send written apologies to my past doctors, using the special language symbols that [Name of psych] says “that doctors use amongst themselves to hide their contempt for you”.

I am really looking forward to phase two of the therapy where through hard physical labor, I can finally free myself from my obsessive need to find “happiness” - this I now know to be a “cruel prank sold to the masses by the corporations to enslave us”. 

Again, [Name of psych] has personally given up a small part of [himself/herself] by providing an opportunity for many chores and odd jobs at [his/her] private home. If only other mental health providers cared enough to provide such healing opportunities! I look forward to “getting better through servitude”.

I have to go know, I hear the bell ringing so I'll have to stop grouting this tub and go give [Name of psych] [his/her] spongebath.

Warmly,

[Your Name Here]

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