Interview-Dr. Don, Professional Shrink & Humorist
Dr. Don is a professional shrink and humorist. He wore a large hat and dark glasses
during this interview.
Dr. Don, How common are husband and wife shrink teams
really, and do they last longer than I can measure with the sweep second hand of my watch?
Surprisingly common, actually. Many of them meet
in graduate school;thinking about sex together all the time forms a lasting bond. On the other
hand, it may be that psychologists pair off because nobody else can tolerate them. Helping
professionals generally need a lot of help themselves, you know, so being married to a shrink
might help hold down treatment costs.
Dr. Don, using standard shrink-business terminology, just
how “messed up” are the characters in Love! That 4-Letter Word?
Well, in my professional opinion, pretty messed up.
The term paraphilia, which includes all of the sexual disorders, comes to mind. There is some
confusion about orientation among the characters, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Actually, we know now that there’s really nothing wrong with a little sexual confusion. It
doesn’t matter which way people go as long as they’re in love – or think they might be.
How about that Dr. Ian?
I’d have to say he’s the classic puer eternus, an
adolescent at heart, he can’t grow up. We used to call this “Peter Pan syndrome” but the peanut
butter people sued us for trademark infringement. (I’ve always been a Skippy man myself.)
Of course, it could be just another case of the “wife vs. secretary” problem. Wives have been
blaming secretaries ever since Jean Harlow took dictation from Clark Gable.
Hey if you saw his secretary, I don’t see how you could blame him.
I’ll ignore that. Dr. Katherine has some justification
for her irritation, too. Dr. Ian may have married her because she is the adult he can never be.
She’s always there to set limits he can struggle against, and he continually falls in love with
young things, so he never has to leave adolescence. That could get tiresome after a while…
Nevertheless, I do think these two people really love
each other – they just drive each other crazy. But what marriage ever suffered on that account?
Huh. So go figure.
So Dr. Katherine, what is going on with her?
Wait, that’s my question to you, doc. So what up with Dr. Katherine?
Oh, right. Sorry about that.
Yes, I think she got rid of Dr. Ian because he was just that annoying to her.
By the way, does he wet the bed?
No, I didn’t notice that.
Well, I have to ask these questions.
I usually prefer to ask them in the first five minutes of the first session. You
know, “So, Dr. Ian, do you use Master Card or Visa, and do you wet the bed?”
(I have a rubber sheet I like to put on the couch.) But it might be something else entirely.
Maybe there was something she wasn’t comfortable with. Did she have an objection to the
blow-up doll in the bedroom?
Did he insist that she always inflate it?
Maybe. . . we should switch to some other character. How about that Venus?
Venus, the aptly named Venus.
Quite honestly, I see no problem whatsoever with Venus.
Gotta agree with you there, Doc.
She’s not trying to create trouble for other characters.
People seem to engage in wishful thinking around her, they seem to be drawn to her. She in fact
tries to push them away, accept for that guy in the bar with the long hair. I think the biggest
problems Venus has is that her boyfriend is invisible and the interviewer wants her phone number.
It is sometimes tragic to be born beautiful, you know.
Lovely women can get treated oddly, and other women get nervous around them. It can be very
uncomfortable to be beautiful, which is why I’m so glad that I’m not. It can be a source of
pleasure, but quite often it leads to unwanted attention. That’s why you see so many people
getting cosmetic surgery to make themselves uglier.
What would you do if you were attracted to Venus?
I always lead with the intellectual approach. Personally, I would have my cranium enlarged, like those invaders from Mars. Then maybe I’d get the multilingual and talks-great-in-a-crowd chip implants. Of course, some think Viagra will help with relationships, but I find those people tend to be a little stiff in social situations.
Jeffrey doesn’t seem particularly relaxed. And he’s fixated on Venus, isn’t he?
That’s not all. I’ve heard him bark like a dog. Jeffrey might be literally barking mad.
Jeffrey seems seriously hung up on Venus. So whaddup widdat?
Jeffrey is obsessed. Love is essentially an obsessive disorder after all. In fact, most normal people become obsessive-compulsive when they’re in love. Once I had two patients who fell in love with each other and kept repeatedly washing their hands. I couldn’t keep the bathroom in paper towels. Then I had a patient who claimed to have fallen in love with my receptionist. The funny thing was, I didn’t have a receptionist… He did make some strange overtures toward my lava lamp, though.
Just a minor follow-up question on that topic. Do you have Venus’ phone number?
I’m going to ignore that.
And then there’s Samantha.
Ahh, Samantha. We have to look at Sam as being honest and open about the bisexuality that is in all of us. Come to think of it, I’m really of two minds about this. Freud said we are all bisexual. Actually we don’t buy that, but we say it a lot. If a patient is homophobic, we tell them we are all bisexual, for instance. Always challenge the client, but not so much that they don’t come back.
What about that name?
Having a gender-neutral name can be a built-in problem. No data on that, but it’s fun to think about. Like British people named Evelyn or Laurie. Vivian is another. Those Brits.
And the last pair of characters.
Yes, Carol and Cleaver. I really feel bad for Cleaver. It’s like he’s married Hillary Clinton. Carol’s kind of a ball-buster. Wasn’t she in a performance of the Nutcracker? You can’t help but like each of them, but you may not want to be married to her if you are Cleaver. He might just have to go through a transformation.
But is the answer to change?
Or maybe to get into his own spotlight, his own space to develop. The acting career is not exactly screaming off the pad. Cleaver’s bottom-line problem is that he married a female who is waaay healthier than he is. He needs a nice, neurotic woman so he can feel better about himself. Remember, marriage only works when both people are healthier than each other – or they know someone who is, or something like that.
Cleaver the actor’s relationship with his hot-looking wife Carol is in serious trouble. Can actors be trusted?
No, of course not. Never. Don’t loan them money or allow your spouse to sleep with them. Also, watch your cell phone and your car at all times.
So you see a lot of actors.
I once had a Greek tragedian as a patient. His face was very hard to read.
(Whispering) Can I get Carol’s phone number if I slip you a fifty?
You have to be very careful about these things. Never give out a patient’s personal information, and that includes a patients’ measurements, by the way.
How come nobody talks about measurements anymore? We used to do that all the time. If I asked that out on the street now, nobody would know what I meant.
Ah yes. The American male was once obsessed with the hourglass figure. Shrinks are very attracted to that, too, by the way.
Why is that?
Well, when time is up we can just flip them over and get started all over again. The hourglass, that is. You know, we have a slogan in this field: Shrinks can do it for an hour.
Dr. Don, thank you for your insights. We look forward to the
publication next year of your book: 101 Things to Do in Therapy: Getting Through a Session When
You Forget Your Earplugs.
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