IT had to be the story of the week. The inquiry into Asworth Hospital was told that a resident psychologist, who is an expert in anger management, completely lost the heid one day and chased two of his colleagues down the hospital corridor before assaulting them.
(Hey! Who is that grizzly bear chasing two doctors down the corridor, shouting and swearing? Why, that's the anger manager! Just imagine what he's like when he's not managing his anger!)
This is a delicious story because so much of the psychological world today is wondrously po-faced, and takes itself very, very seriously. (So, too, does the world of religion: here's another cheery story of the week. It comes from Nebraska, USA. Police in Lincoln County were called in after two Bible salesmen were found duelling with baseball bats in a bitter turf war. Asked to comment on the fight, the Bishop of Nebraska threatened to ''nut'' any journalist who came near him. It looks as if the good bishop is a candidate for anger management counselling - if he can find an anger expert who isn't busy nutting his colleagues in encounter groups.)
We live in a batty wee world, and the lunatics have already taken over the asylum. The world is awash with experts in counselling. There must be at least three counsellors to every human being. After every incident, major or minor, counselling appears to be available. We are apparently a nation in therapy.
In a plane crash? Post-trauma stress counselling is on offer. Forgot to post the winning football coupon? The Stress Liaison Officer is at your door. Suffering from piles? The Haemorrhoids Hang Loose Support Group is for you. A friend recently went to a vet's community open day: naturally, pet-death bereavement counselling was on the menu. How did we all manage before?
The number of seriously dysfunctional people trying to mend other people's lives is enormous. I have known a lot of weird people in my time, and a suspiciously high proportion of them seem to be social workers, counsellors or clergy.
I well remember a long conversation on Iona with R D Laing, the great psychiatrist. Eminent and brilliant though he was, the dear man was aff his heid. Takes one to know one, I suppose. As we walked along the island coastline, he expounded his extraordinary theory that people should run around at night instead of going to bed. He backed this up by running around the Iona machair at full moon, baying; then he lay outside the abbey, moaning. Apart from that, he was quite normal. I decided not to share my mid-life crisis with him, and counted my blessings instead.
It's all very strange. Western Europe has been in the process of distancing itself from organised religion over many decades. The reasons for this are complex. One reason is the impact of science on the religious world view. Yet what has taken religion's place is not rationality, but therapy. Welcome to Psychobabylonia!
Any representative of religion gets a serious grilling these days, a backs-to-the wall, sweat-running-down-the-face kebabbing, but for some reason the new therapeutic gurus are treated with breathless awe. No TV or radio programme, it seems, is complete without a word of wisdom from a counsellor with some imposing title or other. We are being bombarded with mind-rotting psychological mince, most of which makes Late Call seem like the intellectual high-point of European civilisation.
We are exhorted to Search for the Hero Within, or seek New Power through Colonic Irrigation. You're useless if you can't Get in Touch with your Cosmic Memory. You can even work off your double chin with a workout at the ''chin gym''.
Don't get me wrong. Wise counselling at the right time can do a lot of good. Like other things, it can help us human beings get through some rough patches. ''I am for everything that helps anyone through the night,'' said the late Frank Sinatra, ''whether it is prayer, a sleeping pill, or a bottle of whisky.'' There are some tremendously good counsellors around, and they have saved quite a few lives.
But this counselling thing has become big business. A lot of bucks change hands. (Know why a psychiatrist is called a shrink? Because that's what he does to your wallet. You don't believe in shock therapy? Wait till you see the size of your bill.)
The whole world of therapy is exploding, and there are a lot of crazy people out there offering advice. There is apparently nothing to stop anyone setting up as a counsellor, putting some impressive initials after their name, messing up your life, then charging you a fortune.
The language of Psychobabylon is pervasive. Let it all hang out. Tell it like it is. Where are you coming from? Let me share this with you. Will you stop acting out and start relating? What's
the psychological pay-off? Stop being anally-retentive and take responsibility! (How many counsellors does it take to change a light bulb? Three, but the light bulb has to want to change.)
In the unaccountable realm of Psychobabylonia, no batty cliche is left unspoken, no colon left unplumbed, no wallet left undamaged. The emperor's clothes, though, are a bit threadbare, even though they're very expensively priced. Only Rikki Fulton could do this justice.
We're all affected by the language. In fact, I was going to tell you where I'm coming from, but I'm actually just going - very quickly. I was intending to do a bit of deep sharing with you, but two starey-eyed Bible salesmen with baseball bats are running towards me, pursued by chequebook-waving sweating journalists, followed by a furious bishop,
who's looking over his shoulder at a berserk anger management consultant. These life-menders look seriously dangerous.
You'll find me quivering in the chin gym, pretending to do face press-ups. With a bit of luck I'll quickly get in touch with my Inner Hero. The psychological pay-off? Survival. Have a meaningful day.
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