I was about to enter my third decade of psychotherapy when my nutritionist gave me a cheap calculator for Hanukkah. I began crunching the numbers. Conservatively: 45 sessions a year at an average of $80 per session over 20 years. Adjusting for inflation and global warming, I came up with a figure that contained more zeroes than the house on Big Brother. Freud once said, “The best therapist is the one inside ourselves.” Spoken like a guy with a lousy HMO. But the man was not wrong. That’s why I decided to rid myself of all the couch jockeys and start seeing someone who would only listen, not judge, and always be happy to see me. My neighbor’s dog, Trotsky. So, for the last six months, once a week, faithful as the Latin I definition of “Fido,” I let myself in to Norman Spiegel’s junior-4, sit opposite Trotsky, and speak my conscious mind for fifty minutes. Trotsky’s technique, while unorthodox, has yielded unquestionable results. I feel the need to share excerpts from my postsession journals in the hope that others will benefit, and, as I have, be able to reintegrate themselves into society.
