Oz, isn't it?

I recently took an assignment at Ft. Riley, Kansas.  It wasn't planned; the decision to go was impulsive.  I'm loathe to leave home, and I was just getting ready to put up a deer fence and build planter boxes for the vegetable garden I hope to start this coming spring.  But the opportunity arose, and I couldn't stop myself.

There's something fundamentally rewarding about working with members of the military and their families, no matter what I might think of their presumed political persuasions (which we can't talk about) and no matter what they might think of counseling (which we do).

More than once, I've heard the comment, "I don't believe in that therapy stuff."  I want to say therapy is a bit like gun ownership:  Some believe their well-being would be compromised without it; others have never considered it even marginally useful, much less a basic need or right.  Of course, the difference between the two eclipses the similarity.  Therapy is intended to heal; owning a gun implies an intent, if only at some unspecified future point in time, to wound, kill, or threaten to do so.

But to be fair, how many times has a gun protected, albeit through threat of harm?  One survey estimates 1,029,615 times per year, another 989,883 per year.  And how does that compare with the numbers who are harmed or killed by guns?  That depends on who you talk to.

And how many times has therapy unintentionally wounded or resulted in death?  We really don't know, but by one estimate 10% of people undergoing therapy get worse.  The only thing I could find about therapy causing suicide was a claim by siblings that "anti-sissy" therapy provided through UCLA by George Rekers, an anti-gay therapist, caused their brother's suicide 33 years later.  Hmmm. 

I frequently question the efficacy of psychotherapy, in part because it's been years since I've wanted to see a therapist myself.  There is something exhilarating about riding the rapids alone, and something reassuring about doing it skillfully, with no assistance, and without someone looking over your shoulder, second guessing every maneuver and cutting through your eddy of denial to point out that you're heading straight into hard-edged discrepancy.  And I'm skeptical of how much help I've been to some who have come to see me for therapy.  However, what I appreciate and trust about my current work is its focus, its attention to cognitions and solutions, and its objective of empowering those who seek help to help themselves, to move past the whitewater of victimization, self-deception and blame, and to take deliberate strides toward aligning outcomes with intentions.  I suppose I believe there's a time and a place for having someone look over your shoulder.  In my current work with military personnel and their spouses, I find many who are in that time and place.

And then there are others, of course, who believe in guns.  And well they should.

Buffalo Soldier, In the Heart of America