Ian Flemings's drawing of James Bond (Daily Express) |
The therapeutic bond between a patient, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst or social worker takes on a life of its own. It’s almost like a person. You can have an absolutely horrible, cantankerous and recidivistic patient or a indifferent, narcissistic and rigid practitioner, but the resulting interaction can be one of those marriages that seem to be made in heaven. This cocktail can apply to people and drinks themselves; two repugnant substances can sometimes merge into something tasty. Mental health professionals exist in a world of their own and due to the transference many patients idealize those to whom they pay their hard earned dollars, conferring them with undeserved halos. The fact that you have spent years training to help people doesn’t mean you still can't be a self-involved jerk, who doesn’t know shit from shinola about human existence. Conversely, just because someone seeks help doesn’t mean that there's anything good about them. There’s a popular misconception that suffering somehow elevates people. Sometimes it does, but in many instances it only serves to make them more small-minded, needy and selfish. If you've ever met one of those happy campers who believes in God you’ll understand. The average neurotic who believes in nothing and spends their whole life waiting for the great come and get it day when they will suddenly be happy because they have gotten everything they want (it’s unlikely they will ever be satisfied no matter what hand they’re finally dealt), is simply an awful human being who will die as they lived, feeling loveless and unloved. But that third party, that doppelganger that emerges from years of sessions is another matter entirely. It’s the child of the treatment and it’s often a remarkable thing considering the limitations of its parents.
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