Good Therapists Can Be Found In Surprising Places
My mother loved dogs, and when she would take “the challenge of this decade” to the veterinarian for a check-up or shots, upon her return she would be positively ebullient.
“Trig got a shot, and I had a chance to visit my therapist.”
She was not referring to a local mental health practitioner but to her dog’s veterinarian. It seemed that a visit to old Dr Palmer provided Mother with an attitudinal boost of some sort, something beyond what the companionship of her four-footeds brought to her soul.
Old Dr Palmer, as he was universally known, was in practice with his son, from whom he was quite different. The father was a Scot – no, not a Scottish descendant, but a Scot – and he abhorred scientific language and any show of pretense. I remember once taking a dog to be seen, and Old Dr Palmer examined him carefully and then said in his deep brogue, “ Aye lad, he’s stook.”
“What?” I said.
“He’s shtook.”
“Shtook, what’s shtook” I asked.
Stook..con--sti--pated,” responded Dr Palmer, making me feel like the village idiot – something I was then when it came to the dialects of the Scots.
But to get back to my story. In my late teens I was quite amused by my mother’s view of her veterinarian as therapist.
Decades passed, and then one fine day, a friend gave me a gift certificate for a hair cut and related activities at a local beauty salon. Full of trepidation, I darkened the door of this place and was placed into the hands of another Karen, a young woman from North Dakota.
If you’ve looked at the picture of me on the home page of my company’s web-site, you’ll see in a nanosecond that I have no hair to cut. I might as well take on the career of “Friar Tuck” in any production of “Robin Hood.”
Undaunted, Karen gave me a shampoo and cut my hair, all with a straight face, and finished up with a facial. I looked into a mirror and notice that many of the gray hairs had disappeared and that I appeared energized, and I felt terrific.
On the drive home, I thought of my mother and her therapist old Dr Palmer and realized that I had found my equivalent. Karen cut my hair for a number of years and then moved with her husband to the West, and I returned to the inexpensive old-time barber shop across the street from my office with its aged copies of Popular Science and such. It was OK, but not OK, if you know what I mean.
Last year, "Karen of My Scalp" moved back to the Twin Cities, and even though there’s less hair to cut and it’s still expensive, the benefits far outweigh the costs.
And if the day comes when there is no hair on my head, I’ll still make my appointments with Karen for a dome facial and polish, because the therapy she provides will still be worth it.
Mother was right, as usual – there’s nothing like a good therapist, especially when they’re not in those “helping professions.”
“Trig got a shot, and I had a chance to visit my therapist.”
She was not referring to a local mental health practitioner but to her dog’s veterinarian. It seemed that a visit to old Dr Palmer provided Mother with an attitudinal boost of some sort, something beyond what the companionship of her four-footeds brought to her soul.
Old Dr Palmer, as he was universally known, was in practice with his son, from whom he was quite different. The father was a Scot – no, not a Scottish descendant, but a Scot – and he abhorred scientific language and any show of pretense. I remember once taking a dog to be seen, and Old Dr Palmer examined him carefully and then said in his deep brogue, “ Aye lad, he’s stook.”
“What?” I said.
“He’s shtook.”
“Shtook, what’s shtook” I asked.
Stook..con--sti--pated,” responded Dr Palmer, making me feel like the village idiot – something I was then when it came to the dialects of the Scots.
But to get back to my story. In my late teens I was quite amused by my mother’s view of her veterinarian as therapist.
Decades passed, and then one fine day, a friend gave me a gift certificate for a hair cut and related activities at a local beauty salon. Full of trepidation, I darkened the door of this place and was placed into the hands of another Karen, a young woman from North Dakota.
If you’ve looked at the picture of me on the home page of my company’s web-site, you’ll see in a nanosecond that I have no hair to cut. I might as well take on the career of “Friar Tuck” in any production of “Robin Hood.”
Undaunted, Karen gave me a shampoo and cut my hair, all with a straight face, and finished up with a facial. I looked into a mirror and notice that many of the gray hairs had disappeared and that I appeared energized, and I felt terrific.
On the drive home, I thought of my mother and her therapist old Dr Palmer and realized that I had found my equivalent. Karen cut my hair for a number of years and then moved with her husband to the West, and I returned to the inexpensive old-time barber shop across the street from my office with its aged copies of Popular Science and such. It was OK, but not OK, if you know what I mean.
Last year, "Karen of My Scalp" moved back to the Twin Cities, and even though there’s less hair to cut and it’s still expensive, the benefits far outweigh the costs.
And if the day comes when there is no hair on my head, I’ll still make my appointments with Karen for a dome facial and polish, because the therapy she provides will still be worth it.
Mother was right, as usual – there’s nothing like a good therapist, especially when they’re not in those “helping professions.”
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