Reality counts - but don't tell the therapist

Trying to explain the importance of reality to a therapist, is like trying to explain the importance of time to a dead person. In neither case does the subject have the ability to comprehend the explanation; and as well, in neither case does what is being explained have any importance in the subject's "universe". This analogy breaks down, however, when one realizes that in the case where the subject is dead, time in fact is of no importance; whereas reality should of course be of interest to a therapist. The mystery is, why do therapists not understand the importance of reality?

I know of no answer to that eternal question. One might ask a psychologist to tell us why, but they tend to be out of touch with reality themselves. One thing I can do here, however, is give an example of a sustained attempt to jar a therapist into reality, thus enabling prospective patients to prepare for the level of difficulty which they will encounter (current patients are probably already familiar with the problem, but they can receive some "validation" here). As I often do on this blog, I will use a (supposedly) imaginary conversation between a patient (in this case, "Sandra") and her therapist to illustrate my point:

Therapist: "Hi Sandra, what's new?"

Sandra: "My arm is in a sling. Perhaps you didn't notice?"

Therapist: "I noticed, but how do you think that might affect the therapy?"

Sandra: "Duh. In our last session we were discussing how I have to hitch-hike to get here since my car broke down. And since it is my right arm that's broken, it makes the situation all the more difficult."

Therapist: "Well, you made it here, didn't you? Now let us begin with where we left off last time..how are things going at work?"

Sandra: "Well, as you may recall I work in an assembly plant, and this small physical problem here makes it nearly impossible to do my job. So now the boss is putting pressure on me to learn how to do the task with my left hand..."

Therapist: "I see. Do you feel that his complaints are unwarranted? In the past, we have talked about your sensitivity to criticism.."

Sandra: "Hey egghead, his complaints are due to the fact that I physically cannot do my job. It has nothing to do with how 'sensitive' I am."

Therapist: "Now hold on right there..did you notice the anger in your voice?"

Sandra: "Yes, and it's because I'm getting angry - mainly, because your pointy-headedness has still not 'validated' the reality of my situation."

Therapist: "Okay Sandra, I recognize that you are in fact having physical difficulty doing your job. All you can do is try your best; if you believe that you cannot get enough time off for your arm to heal, we will just have to see how things go. Well, time's up!"

[note here that the therapist is merely pretending to comprehend the reality of the situation, in order to assuage the patient.]

Sandra: "Okay..I'm off to the beauty salon."

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Sandra hitch-hikes to the beauty salon, and begins to converse with her hairdresser:

Hairdresser: "I see your arm is still broken. Thus you are no doubt still having physical difficulty doing your job. Well..all you can do is try your best. If your boss will not give you enough time off for it to heal, you'll just have to see how things go!"

Sandra: "Do you realize that I got here only three minutes ago, and already you have sympathized with my situation and given me some appropriate advice? It took me fifty minutes of wrangling with my therapist, to get to this point."

Hairdresser: "How much are you paying that therapist? It's probably a damn sight more than you're paying me!"

Sandra: "So true. Well, if I lose the job, at least I know who to dump first!"