MY DOG AND BUDGET PSYCHOTHERAPY

MY DOG AND BUDGET PSYCHOTHERAPY

Ever heard of Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson? Back in the Eighties, he made a name for himself by claiming that Sigmund Freud might have suppressed key research findings, in order to preserve the intellectual purity of his theories.

That may explain why, in his book Dogs Never Lie about Love, Masson questions the supremacy of laboratory research as the way to knowledge. He does so by defending the value of personal, anecdotal evidence about dogs and their feelings:

“Since we can never know for certain what another person is feeling, anything we say about his inner world is, in a sense, pure speculation.” This being the case, Masson tells us, “Why should we not be permitted to similarly speculate about dogs? We watch their eyes and their ears and their tails, we listen for sounds.” Same with humans: we watch their faces, their eyes and mouths, listen for inflection in their voices, etc (p. xxii of the preface).

Those reading this don’t have to be told such things. We know it’s true as certainly as we know anything. Our dogs are not just humble beasts, not organic things among other organic things in the world, like tomatoes or worms. Our dogs are variations on personhood. They are sentient, perceptive beings who look straight at us, and do a remarkably good job of communicating without access to human speech.

What’s also true is that when I stop to reflect on how I respond to my dog, doing so opens a window on me, to me. I consider my border collie mix, Chelsea, to be something like a Freudian psychoanalyst.

I mean “talk” therapy, the kind in which the patient speaks freely, on whatever he chooses. In so doing he reveals information to a person trained to analyze what’s meant but is not being consciously presented in the patient’s monologue.

I talk quite a bit to my dog. This morning, I told her about a couple at dinner last night, people my wife Barbara and I have known for years, but only casually. Last night was different: they were part of a group that went to dinner, and my wife and I sat with them.

The following day, I found myself trashing these people to Chelsea. True, our exchange wasn’t exactly the same as it would be in a Freudian analyst's consulting room. I wasn’t lying down or sitting in an easy chair; my dog was doing the lying down, on an oriental rug. She’s blind in one eye, and when I looked at her, the good eye was trained exactly on me as I talked.

She didn’t understand me—not entirely--but she was listening. This fact caused me to stop and think, to analyze why I was going on in such a hostile way about this other couple.

And after I think about it some more, I’ll explain what I’ve come up with.
HERE'S THE BOOK

CHRISTMAS: BEING THANKFUL FOR SURVIVING STUPID

CHRISTMAS: BEING THANKFUL FOR SURVIVING STUPID

Christmas is a good time to be thankful. This is especially true for me when I recall doing something so stupid that it should have stamped CANCELLED on every future Christmas I had coming.

In southeastern Michigan, helicopters regularly crisscross the sky. They carry media types reporting on weather or freeway traffic, also the governor on his way between the state capital in Lansing and his home in Ann Arbor. In the spring, other tiny helicopters join them, in the form of thousands of seeds from silver maple trees.

When we bought our house, the owner explained what I would need to do to take care of the pond in the backyard. This would be accomplished  with the quaint, old sump pump in the garage. Just stick it in, turn it on, and let old mister pump do the rest, she said.

So, that first spring in our new/old house, when the silver maple seeds finally stopped dropping, I got started. I managed to get the pump working, and effluvia began gushing from the attached hose. My dog Chelsea watched, lying before the pond. She was almost blind then, so what I was doing came to her mostly as smells--rotting vegetation, mosquito larvae, etc.

Mucking out our pond reminded me of an analogy Freud used to explain the process of psychoanalysis. He compared it to draining the Zeuderzee, a swamp in Holland. The more you drain, and expose what lies hidden below the surface, the more of it becomes part of your conscious life.

Joining this analogy for me now is the name of a Ron White comedy concert: “You can’t fix stupid.”

I noticed the pump's wiring was partially exposed, but since the thing worked, good enough. As the pump chugged along, exposing more and more of the yucky pond, I slipped off my shoes, stepped down into the water and began scooping out rotted leaves and seeds. As I worked, the oddest tingling played about my feet, even in my hands.

Who can say how long I felt this tingling before it dawned on Professor Knister, defender of Freud, scourge of the dangling participle, tireless enemy of the passive voice, that where water and electrical current are present, humans should be absent?

Hearing all this later, my friend the electrical engineer stared at me. After a long moment, he shook his head and shrugged. “Don't ever do that again,” he said. “You've used up all the luck you ever had coming to you in your entire life.”

Both my border collie Chelsea and the pond are gone now. I still remember them, my wise old dog lying on the sunny grass, watching me. I am thankful to have known her, and thankful for the many Christmases since that spring afternoon. Thankful to have survived stupid.
HERE'S THE BOOK