Any Guru Will Do by Phil Brown

Author:Phil Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press

Group Grope

He chewed the stem of his pipe and fixed me with a deep, meaningful look. ‘So you’re angry?’

‘No, Lionel, I’m not angry,’ I said.

‘It’s called denial.’

‘Is it?’

‘You’re angry that I suggest you’re angry?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well, I’m sensing anger.’

‘Well, I probably will get angry, I suppose, if you keep talking about how angry I am. That will make you happy, will it?’

‘Ah,’ he said sucking at the unlit pipe. ‘And is this a new anger or an old anger?’

As a therapy, Transaction Analysis seemed self-fulfilling because by the time I finished a session with Lionel I’d be so pissed off that I’d have to book in for another session to deal with the anger. Pretty good business development technique, if you ask me.

I’d been going to Lionel for a few weeks. He was the latest dalliance in my quest for wellbeing at a time in my life when I was, well, still searching for answers — always a danger, because you’ll come across people who think they have them. Terri, an acquaintance I had met at yoga, suggested that the answer to my unease was psychotherapy and that I consult Lionel.

I hadn’t been very successful at yoga. For a start, the classes were held in a room just above the main street in Southport — I found the traffic noise disconcerting, and couldn’t concentrate. Also, I wasn’t supple enough to do half the positions, and spent most of my lessons grunting and groaning as I attempted to extend bits that didn’t want to be extended.

‘You’re so into your own head,’ said Terri after one class. ‘You need to reprogram your brain, do something to quieten down all that mental and emotional chatter.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘So do you have some Valium on you?’

‘You don’t need Valium. You should just go and see this guy I’ve been to, Lionel. He’s brilliant — very intuitive, very grounded.’

I don’t think I’ve ever really worked out what ‘grounded’ means.

Lionel’s therapy technique, as I soon found out, seemed to include a mish-mash of psychobabble but its foundation was Transactional Analysis, which was in vogue at the time, in the self-indulgent 1980s. ‘TA’, as those in the know called it, had been promulgated by Eric Berne, the author of Games People Play and What Do You Say After You Say Hello? Thomas Harris was another TA guru and the author of I’m OK — You’re OK. I had skimmed the latter in the reading frenzy that I was going through at that time. I was reading anything and everything to do with health, wellbeing and spirituality, and was becoming increasingly confused in the process. TA was all about reconciling and ‘stroking’ the various components of the psyche, which sounded pretty simple compared to some of the other claptrap I’d come across. The fact that we’re all okay seemed an attractive proposition as long as you didn’t think about it too much. Ponder it for too long and you might find yourself asking — was Pol Pot okay? Or

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