To blatantly steal from that famous Gecko, I love my job. I love the practice of helping others, the dedication, the responsibility and the pay. Ok, I do not love the pay, but the rest is true. I love that I have the ability to make a difference in the lives of others; people who I may never see again if not for my work. I suppose that is true for all of us in the field. A common question that I get from the general public and friends alike is something like “how do you work with crazy people all the time? I would go nuts if I had to do what you do.” When I was new to the field I never really knew how to properly respond to such a comment. I went through many renditions, many styles of response until I found one that worked best for me. I tried the joke reply- “who says that I was ever sane to begin with” or “judging from your comment and based on my observations, you clearly must have worked in the field at one time yourself.” That one though very dry is really part of my sense of humor. It took one guy a great deal of time before he asked me if I had called him crazy. I think it was a week or so. Yeah, I laughed at this one, even if few got my joke. I believe I got defensive at one point as well; chastising the person for having a lack of tact and for clearly being intolerant. Then I got to thinking that maybe they were just uncomfortable with what I did or at least what they thought I did and perhaps they were just using humor to mask their discomfort. Was I doing anything productive by getting defensive? Could anything be learned from my response? I can be a deep thinker at times I guess at other times I simply go eat dinner… I looked at the way our profession is treated in the media: one part neurotic, two parts head shrinker with a bit of voodoo, co dependency and insanity sprinkled on the top to make it look festive. A recent review of our field based on TV shrinks revealed such insights into what we do as, many therapists sleep with sexy clients but to maintain their ethics they no longer charge the client for sessions that end in sex and later marry them to the dismay of the husband who was paying for the couples counseling. Another had a street wise therapist that “tells it like it is” which apparently means they are a little bit Oprah and a whole lot Jerry Springer or for those in my age group, Morton Downey Jr. There are also the “hippie” type therapists who are so new age (Hollywood style not true new age) that there are practically kilos of pot floating in the session room. Others are cold and aloof, clip board in hand, bored out of their minds and nodding while saying “uh huh, yeah, go with that..” until the session ends. I should admit that although he surely would have been well known to the ethics board, Dr Robert Hartley (Bob Newhart) the king of no boundaries is one of my favorites. Another would be the stereotypical Dr Frasier Crane, who came into our homes via “Cheers” after he fell in love with a patient of his, had a mad affair with her only to be dumped at the altar, became lost and dejected and briefly employed as a janitor by the man who won back the woman that broke Frasier’s heart. No wonder people are confused… I tried other techniques as well but all with the same kind of result; I felt that I was uncomfortable at times and that my answers to use the current vernacular from my son’s generation, were “meh” at best. Meh indeed… One day when facing this comment/ question I responded as if on auto pilot. “Actually I think to a certain extent we are all insane. My clients for the most part are the same as everyone else. They are real people who are brave enough to be working on issues that others may choose to hide, mask, self medicate or otherwise ignore.” To my dismay and total disbelief the person appeared to be interested in my reply and began to ask more questions. She asked how therapy worked, how long sessions were and what was a “typical session like.” I replied the best I could in an honest and open manner and she maintained her interest; this lead to other discussions, real discussions about the profession. I no longer get offended by those kinds of comments, even when I “know” the person means them in a disrespectful way. They do not owe me respect or understanding or even civility. Some people will never get what we do, period. Others will get it and respect it, possibly even promote it. We look for those who have real issues and the insight to want to make real differences, to make change. Those that we can help we will.
Warren Corson III (Doc Warren) is a counselor and the clinical & executive director of a community counseling agency in central CT (www.docwarren.org).