Since there is always lots of anxiety and depression about I wasn’t surprised when a local GP asked me to see a middle-grade executive who was described as having “trouble with life”. There was little else to go on until Mr Middle Grade Exec arrived for his first appointment.
Just after we exchanged introductory pleasantries, this smart-looking chap was out of the psychological starting gate, complaining that his marriage was dull, that he was fed up with his job in sales, and that he had hang-ups about his parents even though they were always good to him.
He then grumbled on about feeling empty inside and not his “true self”, although he wasn’t sure what this should be. For him, his existence had little meaning and he kept wondering what the purpose behind it all was, assuming any such purpose actually existed.
He decided he was not only disillusioned and unfulfilled but that it was all down to past traumas, as summarised in the neatly word-processed history he wanted me to read, all 32 pages of it, from his first prepubertal encounter with a precocious female cousin to wondering what the funny noises coming from mummy and daddy’s bedroom were all about.
Before coming to see me, he’d done the rounds of the local shrinks (which the GP didn’t bother to mention in his brief letter, probably because I would have declined the referral). He’d already been analysed, hypnotised, desensitised, drug-tried and God-knows what-ised – all paid for by his firm’s health insurance. He’d also been to several group therapy sessions but found there were a few “odd” people there, including one or two of the therapists. And to top it all he said he felt flu coming on, leaving me praying that his persistent coughing and spraying of my consulting room with viruses wouldn’t lay me low for the next fortnight.
Before he arrived I wasn’t feeling so well myself. My bad back was giving me hell and my bank manager was about to. My wife telephoned to say that the nice man who came to unblock the downstairs loo broke it because it was all rusted up below and that the insurance wouldn’t pay up because it was cracked to begin with. This happened on the day my secretary was off ill, when I couldn’t find my diary and had a migraine on the way.
I let loose and told Mr Middle-Grade Exec in no uncertain terms he should be pleased he was not depressed or otherwise mentally ill and that he was lucky to have a good job and what seemed a good family, and presumably a nice car provided by his employers.
From the look on his face this is not what he wanted to hear, especially when I suggested he might be better off consulting a philosopher than yours truly, adding that I didn’t have cures for boredom and discontent, and that the world would be in a far worse state if everybody insisted on doing their own thing instead of appreciating the healthy bodies and minds they were blessed with.
At this point he picked up his 32 pages of developmental history and headed for the door, saying he didn’t want another appointment. I’ve not seen him since, although I recently read in the local press of his promotion to a well-paid directorship and presumably a more expensive car from the firm he was fed up with. It seems I may have helped him along where his career and corporate image were concerned.
In looking back at my time as a psychologist in the NHS I recall other patients whose problems were not so much down to illness as to their way of life. Perhaps they were hoping they had some interesting or fascinating “quirks” they could tell their friends about. Maybe they’d even come to believe that “therapy” of one kind or another would liven up a reasonable but not very exciting existence.
It’s funny how many people are disappointed if you tell them they’re healthy psychologically when compared with how relieved they would feel if a physician or surgeon told them there was nothing physically amiss after they had feared the worse.
At one point I even considered writing to GPs about such referrals: “Dear Doctor. It makes such a pleasant change to see someone who has been so normal for so long and likely to remain so.” But even if I was brave enough to do this, I suspect I wouldn’t have been very popular – either with the medics or their patients.
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• This article was amended on 8 September 2015. An earlier version implied the writer was a practising clinical pyschologist. He is no longer practising.
