Back in the Game

I've been shrink-free since 2007, when I unceremoniously dumped my long-time shrink Dr. Laikin. I saw Laikin during college and then we broke up when I went to law school. When I returned to NYC after law school, one of my first orders of business was securing a regular early morning appointment time with him so that I could cry hysterically at 8:45 am and the roll up to work at 10 with a mascara-stained face and have to wait in my office for two hours until the puffiness subsided. After about two years of seeing Laikin, I didn't feel like I was making any "progress" in becoming a normal, well-adjusted person, so he naturally suggested that we up our sessions to twice a week. Since I considered him my guru and enjoyed dropping his name in conversations, I agreed to this, but soon realized that twice a week was about doubly ineffective as once a week, so one day I just randomly dumped him. I've been flying without a net since then, except for my fish oil.

I'd been threatening to get a new shrink for a while now, a threat which both Megan and Risa have been attempting to hold me to, and last week I actually bit the bullet and did it. Phyllis, my new shrink, is a psychoanalyst, which I actually completely disagree with because I think Freud's theories are fairly ridiculous and there is no scientific evidence that psychoanalysis actually works or helps anybody. In fact, NY is the only place in the U.S. where you can even find Freudian practitioners because it's a pretty well known fact that the only type of therapy that has been shown to even do anything is cognitive behavioral therapy. You may be wondering why I'm bothering going to a shrink who practices a ridiculous form of therapy, and the reason is because cognitive behavioral therapy is legitimate, so it's very expensive and I don't have insurance which means I have to settle for ineffective therapy. I plan to bring this up at my session tomorrow but I'm scared I might get kicked out of therapy because sometimes Freudians can get very angry and defensive when you tell them that their methods are absurd and ineffective.