Psychotherapy is the art of finding the angel of hope in
the midst of terror, despair, and madness.
Cloé Madanes, co-founder
Family Therapy Institute
1. CLINICAL PRACTICE
Looking back months later, Richard Young, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, would always remember this day as the beginning of his unraveling. Unraveling isn’t really a psychological term, but that’s what it felt like, as if he’d pulled a thread in his personal fabric and left a gaping hole.
He was hard at work in his office reading tweets when his part-time receptionist, Juanita Garcia, knocked and stuck her head around the door.
“Chao, Richard, I’m leaving for the day. Don’t forget your four o’clock cancelled. You can go home early. Lucky Sharon. Yo!” she protested, pointing sternly at his cell phone. “You should be working on your backlog of reports, not obsessing over—”
“I wasn’t addicted to Twitter until the damn election. The country’s going to hell. Twitter’s the most immediate source of information. Hey, did you know today a record was set in Switzerland for the appearance of the greatest number of Charlie Chaplin look-alikes: six hundred and sixty-two of them?”
“Huh? ¡Yo tengo una tía que toca la guitarra! Will one of those Little Tramps help you fill out any of your Individual Therapy Session claim forms?”
“What? I was just observing you can still get light relief by finding odd things people have tweeted. I’ll spend my free hour on those wretched insurance forms, I promise.
