FIFTEEN SIGNS YOU HAVEN'T FOUND THE PERFECT THERAPIST -

by Ariel Spencer

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1. Your therapist is part of a group practice called "Shrinks R' Us."

 

2. She offers to give you a discount if you'll spend half of each

session listening to her problems.

 

3. You're in the middle of relating a really traumatic memory,

and he's making those shadow animals on the wall with his hands.

 

4. He is in the habit of slapping you five and yelling, "Bitchin',

Dude!" every time you express anything insightful.

 

5. She is convinced that the dentist down the hall is bugging her

office.

 

6. He loves to wear that goofy thing with the big nose, black

glasses, and moustache during your sessions.

 

7. She wants you to wear that goofy thing with the big nose, black

glasses, and moustache during your sessions.

 

8. She insists on arm wrestling the larger members of your therapy

group.

 

9. When you ask him where he got his degree, he leans over and

whispers, "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

 

10. She loves to hide behind her door and leap out screaming,

"Surprise!" at the start of each of your appointments.

 

11. He offers to take you to MacDonalds for a Happy Meal if you do

all the homework exercises he's assigned to you.

 

12. She comes to group therapy dressed as a Klingon.

 

13. When he carries your file, he says things like, "If you

don't get better soon, I'm going to end up with a hernia."

 

14. He refers to the photo on his desk of his wife and children as

"my old lady and those rotten brats."

 

15. Midway through your first appointment, she lies down.

 

Ariel Spencer is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in magazines, literary journals, poetry and fiction anthologies, and newsletters. Her humor writing has received first place in Eclectic Rainbows annual writing contests (creative non-fiction) and two second place awards in Byline's annual Short Humor Contest.

© Ariel Spencer 2002

Reprinted by kind permission of the author. First published in Survivor Wit