Psychobabble

First I’m going to state right up front that the title of this post is in no way intended to disparage either the disciplines of psychology or psychiatry.  That being said I will admit that I have some perhaps ill-conceived impressions of both but more on that later.

Marvina has restarted, again, college.  I say again because over the course of the ten plus years we’ve been together she’s started and stopped work on her degree on more than one occasion.  There have been good reasons for stopping and there have been not-so-good reasons.  She stopped when I became ill, something I blame myself for.  Her stopping her education that is.  I know that the choice was entirely hers to make but it bothers me knowing that I had a negative influence on her education rather than a positive, encouraging one.

But she has indeed restarted and by the sounds of it she’s going for the gold this time.  She has less than a years worth of work to do and she will be awarded a Bachelor’s in Psychology.  It has been a long journey for her that began well before I entered her life.  Before I did she had bounced around a bit not really focusing on a particular degree.  To that end she’s accumulated a lot of credit hours.  Enough so that, should she choose, once she has attained the Bachelor’s in Psychology she could burn a few more hours and also net a business degree of some sort, most likely one in human resources.

She’s a very smart cookie.

She has already started looking further down the road not just towards a Master’s and even a coveted PhD.  Psychology?  Business?  Basket Weaving?  It matters not as it is not the end that is important so much as it is the journey getting there.  Marvina just has a tendency to take the long scenic route.

I enjoy the enthusiasm she has for studying.  I also enjoy the frustrations that bubble up from time-to-time mostly because I know that she will not give up and will prevail.  In a perhaps perverted sense watching her struggle is like watching a couple fight, in this case her and what she’s working on, knowing that there is going to be some seriously good make up (mental) sex in the end.  Each of these struggles don’t serve to deter her but actually serve to energize and empower her to move on to the next battle.

As I said, she’s a smart cookie.

As I also said I may harbor poorly conceived opinions of psychology and psychiatry.  The later I can easily beat up on, if that term is acceptable.  Mostly I view psychiatry, at least what little I’ve been exposed to in the form of two psychiatrists is that they were not much more than dispensers of prescription narcotics.  Seriously, my experience has been sort of like this:  (1) Make an appointment; (2) Show up and pay whatever fee you owe beyond what your insurance will cover; (3) Have a short five minute or so visit with the psychiatrist and be rewarded with (4) a prescription for a drug that will make you happy.  There really isn’t any cure involved nor, in my estimation, any working towards that goal.  It’s mostly just maintaining your legal buzz (or fuzz) that allows you to get through your day without having a major meltdown.  It’s really kind of sad especially since, again in my limited appreciation of the discipline, it all began as something quite different than being a pill dispenser, something where psychiatrist and patient actually paired up and worked through whatever challenge(s) the patient had until they arrived at an acceptable goal (i.e. cure?).

I suppose that’s where the discipline of psychology came in.  I imagine right about the time that psychiatry moved from talk therapy to pharmacological therapy leaving a huge gaping hole in the patients therapeutic needs.  Psychologists, unable to prescribe really cool drugs, were left with the only tool set open to them, talking.  That’s been my experience either directly or indirectly with Psychologists.  They listen, they talk, they actually engage the patient and aid the patient towards the patients desired goal of getting better.

If I were to take a shot at psychology and it’s older sibling psychiatry it might be something centered around why so much has be derived from the works of a drug addict (Freud).  Seriously, the guy was seriously into nose candy (cocaine) yet from his work a mountain of psychological theory has been created.  George Carlin, the comedian, in a routine was joking about what we refer to currently as “gateway” drugs.  You know, smoking marijuana will lead to heroin addiction.  George delivered a very Freudian punch line by stipulating that mother’s milk leads to everything.  Blame it on mom.  That’s what Freud would have us believe, that some quirk in the nurturing given us (or not) by our mother made us what we are today.  I suppose that may be true.  I must have been bottle fed hence my fascination with Marvina’s breast.  Oh wait, Freud would tell me that is some kind of oral fixation.  Yeah, I suppose it is.  But then she does have nice…well, you get the picture.

I could go on beating on the two disciplines but I won’t.  Not because I can’t but because I don’t want to and that is entirely because of Marvina.  I ask her to tell me about her studies.  True, I adore hearing her voice but I also really love hearing her intellect engaged in a passionate affair with what she is studying.  And she has a gift for explaining what she is working on in a way that even I can understand it, or at least as much as I am capable of understanding.

This ability of hers is somewhat ironic.  She is very critical of herself and occasionally lapses into bouts of blasting her limited brain power, except that it really isn’t limited at all.  If thrown an in-the-moment challenge she might stumble a bit seeking out the correct words.  She might even miss the occasional opportunity to fire off something profound or witty.  I think she sees that as an overall negative and I suppose it actually may appear to be to someone who might not know her.  But they have not had the opportunity to see a relaxed Marvina, a Marvina not fearful of committing a faux pas, delve into theories that the vast majority of us are simply clueless about and doing it as easily and naturally as a fish lazily swimming in a quiet pool.

She might not think so, or she might resist admitting it, but she is one very smart woman.