Someone behind her was shouting obscenities at the top of his voice, really filthy language, and when she turned around to see what kind of nutcase would disturb the peace like that she got a big surprise: It was her psychiatrist.Everyone knows that psychiatrists are famous for being a bit loopy. In fact, one of the prerequisites for being a psychotherapist is to undergo analysis oneself. Not exactly physician heal thyself, but close. There's no standard that the analysis has to be successful, just that it occur.
Imagine you've gone to a shrink for years, have only seen the man sitting quietly, occasionally nodding at your comments. He is always in perfect control. Next thing you know he's a raving maniac. What do you do? Being rational, you first try to understand the person. You say, well, he's under a lot of stress listening to other people's problems all day, so he has to release it somehow. But really!
Then the guilt kicks in, and you wonder how much your own sessions have contributed to his uneasy mental state. Fifty minutes a week… how bad could it be? And how many patients does he have? Maybe dozens. You couldn't possibly be the decisive factor in his stadium meltdown. Maybe the doctor has other sources of stress in his life, a mad wife living in the attic or small children. Probably the job.
You think of your own job, of the colleague who acts friendly in the hall but has laid landmines in the corridors by her corner office. You've always suspected she has some dirt on the boss. And the boss… comes back from Bodrum with that healthy tan look, but her eyes are narrow and suspicious. What's her problem?
Who among us doesn't have to deal with stress? You'd think maybe Mustafa Koç has it pretty good… rich, chairman of the giant family-controlled conglomerate, VIP treatment everywhere from the barber to the airport… what could bother him? Well, I don't know anything about his personal life, but I saw him under stress at Thursday's press conference for the opening of the Istanbul Biennial. Koç Holding is the main sponsor.
There he sat, on stage with the curators, tan, fit, a few days' growth of beard I hadn't seen before, wearing an open collar shirt like he'd just popped in from some island holiday. Happy to be supporting the arts. Unfortunately, the press briefing took place in mildly chaotic conditions: Too many reporters and too few chairs, a squawky sound system, half the people talking because they didn't want to listen to the Turkish they couldn't understand and the curators droning on about the themes of the art show.
That's when it happened. Mid-drone about imperialism and peace and art and globalization and mankind… Mustafa Bey put his left hand to his head and began to rub his own forehead, and kept rubbing. My first thought was for his health because I remembered he had suffered a heart attack a few years ago, but very quickly I understood he was only reacting to stress, the stress of being trapped. He rubbed his head as if he could rub himself out of the place he didn't deserve to be. His boredom passed and later he actually laughed, which is a great stress reliever. Imagine the headlines if he'd flipped out and started shouting obscenities.
Also this week a schmuck of a congressman heckled President Obama as he was making a speech on healthcare, shouting out “You lie!” The man later apologized for his “lack of civility,” an apology which the president accepted. I'd forgotten about that part where the offended party has to accept the apology. Of course if Obama refused to accept it, then he'd abandon the top of the moral hill and climb down in the muck with his aggressor, making them equals.
My question is, does the psychiatrist have to apologize to his patient for unintentionally offending her in a public stadium? Could be stressful.
