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| Protocols, Shrinks, & Therapists: Answering The Question Game |
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| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Tuesday, 06 May 2008 17:00 | |||
Springfield, VA, USA. In my ancient days at university, back when we did math in our heads or used a slide rule (gather round children it was a time when there were no hand held calculators and computers were large exotic creatures that spoke Fortran and COBOL), so long ago that the revered shrinks were two — Freud and Jung — and Carl Rogers was the hot pop-psych guru.
I was a psychology minor with a double minor in education, eventually earning a grand total of 30 semester units in psychology (that would be something like 4000 quarter units, I guess).
All of this was accomplished while completing a BA in English, a Masters in Rhetoric, and a Secondary Teaching Credential and doing my best to avoid the draft and participation in the Viet Nam War.
As a matter of course, I learned how the Rorschach works [1] and other devious mechanisms of psychological deviltry intended to dissect the human mind.
![I learned how the Rorschach works [1] and other devious mechanisms of psychological deviltry intended to dissect the human mind.](http://ts-si.org/images/stories/RorschachWoman.jpg "I learned how the Rorschach works [1] and other devious mechanisms of psychological deviltry intended to dissect the human mind.") The mind professors taught me the difference between what was considered normal and the people they would really like to get their hands on for research. [2]
When I met my Shrink (and he met me), I told him up front that I had been part way up the mountain (not mentioning what I had learned on my own), promising I would try to respond spontaneously to his questions and not run my thoughts through a pre-amp filter. Then I mentioned that he was sitting at the proper shrinking distance — close enough to the patient to seem friendly, far enough away to retain distance and authority — and off we went, traipsing through the twists and eddies of my psyche. [3]
Meanwhile, back in school, I had learned that all psyche’s were divided into ego, super ego, and id. Sometimes the Prof’s depiction was a trisected triangle, other times three circles like a Venn diagram: it was all the same.
Then there was Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs resembling a ladder leading to maturity [4] (or sometimes it was a pyramid — same deal). At the bottom were physical needs (breathing, eating, sleeping, sex) and, as each need was filled, you move up to the next one: safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and finally, at the very top, self-actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving, etc.).
I forgot all of that so I could become a virgin patient on whom my therapist, well trained in the art, could cast his magic. The only thing I remembered was that sometimes, a cigar is just cigar.
But I didn’t want no cigar.
(not knowing that within years I would adopt HBS terminology after the transgenders appropriated transsexuality to describe men who liked to wear dresses but didn’t want no stinking operations).
And we were off, me filling in background, him asking questions crafted to solicit the answers he was looking for.
It was like confession, but without the lecture on your sinfulness and the penance. Of course, the monsignor never charged me $150 a visit for absolution.
When my hour was up, I left The Room. There was a waiting line outside the confessional.
This went on through several years and more until I was well divorced, well transitioned, and well post-op.
The funny thing is, my therapist and I both knew the questions we would ask and the answers I should give. We both knew that we both knew.
If you are a Male to Female pre-op, you probably shouldn’t be reluctant or nervous talking about Sex Reassignment Surgery. Nor should you ramble on about how well you fit in with all the other boys when you were a child or how you could barely wait for football [5] to begin each fall because of how much you like the violent physical contact.
There is a range of variance among HBS men and women, but if your answers wander too far into stereotypical responses for the sex you say you want desperately to leave, you are pretty well guaranteed your therapist will want to see you for a long, long time before he gives you that letter confirming the diagnosis [6]. Finding the best appropriate answers are not difficult in the age of internet and 24-7 total access:
Somewhere in here a good therapist will ask you who you have told about your decision and when you plan to tell the rest of the people you need to tell. [10] Telling your spouse is always a good place to start. Then parents. Then any children that may be involved. Then friends, neighbors, grandparents …. All leading down to when are you planning to tell your boss and co-workers. [11]
If you can’t figure out what the answers should be, you possibly aren’t an HBS man or women, at least not one close to transition. Before you ever see a therapist, you should probably have figured out the questions yourself — hell, you should have already asked yourself the questions and answered them to the best of your knowledge (it’s the therapist’s job to help you fill in the gaps).
You can try to fake the answers, or adopt a list from some website that thinks it was helping you, but if the answers aren’t your own, a good therapist will see right through you. A bad therapist will just take your money until he has enough and sign a letter authorizing you to go cut yourself up.
It’s your money, and it’s your body, and your single chance to do things right.
Me?
I’d rather work on learning the answers on my own.
 Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is the Co-Founder & President of TS-Si, Inc. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.Lisa welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.                       Add this page to your favorite social bookmarking websites. To create link towards this article on your website, copy and paste the text below in your page. Preview :
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 17 May 2008 17:47 |
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