The Visit to the Psychologist

So I went to see this psychologist, who was also a Uniting Church Minister.

The fellow listened to my account of the situation rather nervously before finally asking me “why do you think you are here?” I thought about it for a second and replied; “I think both you and my president believe there are no answers to my questions and so you wish to ‘equip’ me to deal with a world full of unanswered questions.”

He was working with a particular theory of counselling. This theory assumes that the client’s angst is caused by the tension between an irrational presupposition (eg: everyone I know must like me) and reality (eg: some people don’t). In other words, he assumed that my angst was caused by my struggle with irrational expectations. In this case the irrational expectation was that I hoped to know truth, and he assumed this was not possible!

Aside from the amazing assumption that one can never know the truth (and that wanting to be able to know truth is irrational), this fellow failed to see that his own argument contradicted itself. In effect he, and others, were suggesting that it is irrational to expect the ultimate goal of reason to exist and be accessible. Sort of like saying “there are no absolutes … except this one.”

Incidently, he concluded that there were no psychological 'issues' in my case and that my problem was a theological one. I was glad somebody could see that! But, since the bulk of the cost of the sessions were to come out of my own pocket I refused to pursue them further. I wrote a letter to my president to say that psychology was not going to answer my questions.

Next: The Reasons for My Dilemma