The Rant Zone by Dennis Miller

Author:Dennis Miller [Miller, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061751868
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2001-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Shrinks

PSYCHIATRIC COUCH POTATOES

An article in USA Today this week reported an increase in the number of pet owners taking their dogs to see psychiatrists. Whatever happened to yelling at your dog to get off the couch? You know, if I could lick my own balls, I sure as hell wouldn't need a shrink. Ah, whom am I kidding? I can lick my own balls. That's why I go to a shrink. I can't stop. Because I'm a human being, with a bafflingly complex mind . . . and a very stiff neck.

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but even the best psychiatrist is like a blindfolded auto mechanic poking around under your hood with a giant foam WE'RE #1 finger. Though definitely a Western phenomenon, psychiatry harkens back to traditional, tribal forms of healing, in which the right combination of words and potions would ease your tortured spirit. I can just picture an African Bushman, lying on a dirt floor, anxiously telling his medicine man this nightmare he keeps having about showing up at work fully clothed.

Even though it was invented in Europe, only here in the United States could psychiatry become the multimillion-dollar business it is today. We're the only people in the world who are stupid enough to actually want to know what's going on inside our minds. Americans couldn't be any more self-absorbed if they were made of equal parts water and paper towel.

Another reason psychiatry has flourished in the United States is that in the '70s, Woody Allen helped popularize the idea that going to a shrink is normal and healthy. Just look what it's done for him and his family. You know, he and his daughter-slash-wife have never been happier.

Since the days of Freud, psychiatry has been strictly limited to the realm of the middle and upper classes. Psychoanalysis is expensive, which isn't too surprising when you consider it was invented by a major cokehead. The difference between psychiatry and psychology is just one of those little nagging things I can never remember. Like stalactite or stalagmite. Alligator or crocodile. Nipple clamp or nipple restraint. Sweet pleasure or sweet, sweet pleasure . . .

Rather than dwelling on childhood traumas and repressed sexuality, modern psychiatry deals more with correcting chemical imbalances in the brain. Kind of like what some people did back in college, except then it wasn't called psychiatry, it was called "bong hits." Therapists face the daunting task of taking chaotic, violent, and unstable people and molding them into well-rounded, secure, and productive members . . . of a chaotic, violent, and unstable society.

I'm not saying we should return to the days of lobotomies and electroshock, but I do feel the pendulum has swung way too far the other way. Today, everything is a disorder or a disease that deserves our understanding. Nobody is held responsible for any of their actions, and that's gotta go. I think a good first step would be to change "not guilty by reason of insanity" to "guilty by reason of insanity.

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