RECENTLY, I BECAME friends with a lovely woman who invited me over for coffee. She was going through a messy divorce, and I suggested she see a therapist.
“I do. Do you?” she asked. “Of course,” I said.
“Who’s your therapist?” she asked.
“Who’s yours?” I responded.
She answered and it turns out we see the same therapist. Which brings the number of people I know to five who see my therapist!
Next to “Can I tell you about my dream last night?” I believe one of the most annoying conversation starters is “My therapist says …”
I know this because I start a lot of conversations with “My therapist says….”
There’s always a pause after I say this, as if my friends don’t really want to hear what my therapist thinks because they’ve already spent hours giving me their own advice for free. In any case, my therapist says I’m always supposed to be honest, so I will honestly tell you I’ve been in therapy, on and off, for about 10 years.
My present therapist, who I adore, thinks I’m not really committed to therapy — we’re working on it — because I often bail on appointments last minute (still have to pay the $200!) or just won’t show up (still have to pay!).
My therapist says this proves I have commitment issues. He has a point. If I can’t even commit to twice-monthly therapy, how am I ever supposed to commit to a man?
I’m not sure if you caught the article by Daphne Merkin in the New York Times Magazine in August. Entitled “My Life in Therapy,” Merkin writes about spending 49 — yes, 49! — years in therapy.
“To this day,” she writes, “I’m not sure that I am in possession of substantially greater selfknowledge than someone who has never been inside a therapist’s office. What I do know, aside from the fact that the unconscious plays strange tricks and the past stalks the present in ways we can’t begin to imagine, is a certain language, a certain style of thinking that, in it’s capacity for reframing your life story, becomes — how should I put this — addictive.”
Her article is a fascinating look at finding therapists, different types of therapy and descriptions about therapists she’s seen. FYI, many of them died on her. Truly, they dropped dead! This is unfortunate, not only because it’s sad, when anyone dies, but it’s damn hard to find a good therapist and start all over again.
Like finding a hairdresser, once you find one you like, you don’t ever let go. And, God forbid, they go on vacation when you need them.
Finding a therapist is like finding a good pair of shoes. My history with therapists has been akin to my adult size-six feet fitting into a children’s size one. Painful.
My first therapist was an elderly lady, but I was shy and didn’t like opening up, so we spent most of our 60-minute sessions listening to the clock tick. That was her style. She wasn’t going to speak until I was, and I rarely did. (They were long, painful hours.)
Then I ran into her at a restaurant and freaked out. I never went back to see her.
Then there was the therapist who was not only at an unhealthy weight but collected everything to do with The Wizard of Oz.
She had a glass case of wands. I saw her twice before thinking, “What are her issues?”
I had to “fire” her, which was uncomfortable. I’ve never fired anyone, and her eyes welled up when I told her I just didn’t think we were “working out.” It was kind of like telling your hairdresser that you are planning to go somewhere else. What can I say? Breakups aren’t easy.
And similar to hairdresser advice, I listen to friends who suggest good therapists. But that doesn’t always work out either.
After a series of failures, my very best friend directed me to my present therapist. I liked him immediately. He didn’t collect anything odd. He wears a suit and tie. He said he’ll stick by me no matter what. He reprimands me when needed, challenges me, and we often fight. To me, that’s good therapy. But of course, there is one problem.
This new friend of mine asked me if our therapist told me this certain story he had told her. “Yes! He told me that story!” I said. She mentioned another story. “Yes! He told me that one, too!” I moaned.
I was pissed. There I was spending $200 for 45 minutes to hear the same advice my friend was hearing?
I yelled at my therapist for sharing the same advice and stories with his other patients when I saw him next.
I’m sure he was embarrassed, but then he said, “So you don’t feel special?” And I thought, “Heck, you’re right, I don’t feel special.”
And there I was, back on the clock.