The Paradox

For this, you should pay.

But okay.

What's a paradox? A mental paradox is a situation in which a person can't help but do the right thing because having exaggerated the wrong thing makes the right thing seem, well, right.

There's an irresistible, hypnotic quality to a paradox, so of course, therapydocs watered in this treatment venue, who see the paradoxical quality to life anyway, will "paradox" you whenever they can. And consciously or not, you'll like it.

My mom and dad hate it when I do this to them, but it always makes them laugh.

It is also what makes good treatment painless.

When I learned about the paradox it wasn't presented this way. A paradox was a carefully thought out strategy with the power, not necessarily the magnitude (it's a brief family therapy technique), to create change. When I was in school I had the feeling that Jay Haley, the father of this kind of treatment, and his strategic team left the family, walked out, smoked, talked, and conspired. The family waiting for help was for sure, putty, powerless against such intellect.

But for me these kinds of things of situations arise serendipitously. I'm rarely on the look-out or even consciously working it. Here's an example.

A couple has an issue with trust. But it's an irrational issue. Both partners are true blue, loyal, fidel, love and respect one another, would never, ever cheat. But one of them trusts no one, really, except the family, and now that he's married (we'll make the distrustful partner, the jealous partner a he, but this is always gender/sexual orientation irrelevant. A he can easily be a she.

So call him Harry. Harry's always putting it out there that he's a married guy, a happily married guy. When he married Felice he was the happiest guy alive, found her the sexiest, most intelligent woman on the planet with a great sense of humor, his very best friend, too.

But Felice didn't make him the center of her universe. Not as much. She worked and had difficulty juggling the idiocy around her. Sometimes she felt that just getting through every day was a challenge, and when she got home she vegged out. She related to him like her mom related to her father. They had dinner, watched television. Crashed around 11:00 p.m.

Sexy though he thought she was, she wasn't all that into it by the time they'd turn off the teev.

So their libidos didn't match precisely (rarely do they ever, peops, except in the movies) and he worried about her love for him. Did she even really love him? He worried especially when he noticed that she missed chances to tell people, upon introduction, Oh, and by the way. I'm MARRIED. You should know that.

Isn't that how you're supposed to introduce yourself? I'm supposed to say, How do you do, nice to meet you. Yes, in case you were wondering, I AM married and happily, too, to a guy I call F.D. Got it, dude? Lose those dirty thoughts.

Clearly a Freudian doc or a psychodynamic doc or a Jungian doc or a Gestalt doc or any other kind of doc could have a field day and spend hours upon hours working with Harry and his issues, and maybe working with Felice on hers, too. If the couple would keep on paying.

A family doc might discuss family traumas, past affairs, even incest.

A STRATEGIC family doc does something like so:

We write new scripts, preferrably with with the couple's participation. LAUGHTER IS KEY, HERE. If they're not laughing, if they're not into it, it's harder. But it can still work very well. Here was the set-up to the new script for Harry and Felice.

TherapyDoc: So what will happen when Felice returns to work tomorrow?
Felice: He's going to call me and ask, Any cute new guys there this semester?
TherapyDoc: And you'll say. . .
Felice: I'll say, Just shut up. I'm sick of this.

(Harry laughs, seems embarrassed)

TherapyDoc: Could you be a little nicer, Felice, on the phone?
Felice (with attitude) : You mean, like I should say, Harry, I only have eyes for you, you're my guy? I do that all the time. It means nothing to him.

TherapyDoc (to Harry): Really?
Harry: Talk is cheap, man.
TherapyDoc: Indeed. So this is what you're going to do. We're going to change tomorrow's phone conversation. Good idea?

They're captive. We spend some time scripting it, mainly me scribbling, them telling me if it'll work or not. All of us are nearly on the floor, in tears it's so funny.

The Final Product

Harry: Any cute guys at work?
Felice (serious) : I just got here, give me time to look around.
Harry: I dare you.
Felice (a lot less serious) : I need the whole day, Harry, to case the place out, look around, really look at them. There are a lot of guys here, hundreds and thousands of men in pants. I won't know if there's anyone to have an affair with until I'm ready to leave, so be patient, and when I get home I'll tell you if I'm going to have an affair. Don't bug me til I get home.

Harry: Ha! Well don't even talk to me, then, because I'll be so angry by then that I'm going to need a lot of space from you. You better stay the (expletive "f") away.

Felice: No, no, no. When I get home I want you naked in a bathrobe, babe. I'm going to so want to (expletive "f") you, I'll have missed you so much all day. All DAY, Harry, without a kiss from you. How do you think that makes me feel? Don't you dare not be naked by the time I get home. Oh, maybe answer the door for me. . . in a towel.

When I made the last suggestion Felice said, Well, he'd want to do that every day!
Of course, this is a terrible price, right, to get a guy to trust you. Making love.

But I reassure her, Most couples don't make huge changes, every day changes. But if you two can make a once-in-awhile change? Some kind of wonderful.

I would imagine, in fact, that a feminist look at this treatment would be disapproving, but you should know that indeed, the woman in this case IS always in charge. She's always on top, if you will.

The paradox, of course, is that he's forced to think of her on the hunt the whole day, or at least to think of her saying that she'll be on the hunt all day, and he really can't see her in this light. It's laughable. He says, I dare you, but inside he's thinking, she's putting me on, she's not looking at guys. She has a difficult job. Her job is demanding, it's stressful. She's not out there looking to replace me. She's not even INTO sex all that much.

He's forced to see the reality, not his catastrophic fears.

Well, I liked it.

Copyright 2007, TherapyDoc