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Cav, it really doesn't surprise me that you ran into a weird shrink. Alot of my family is/was in that profession. Let's put it this way, there was only ONE physchiatric professional that I have met that seemed like a normal Joe. The most wacked out people go into that profession. I guess it's in the hopes they'll learn to diagnose & cure themselves.
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My wife is a family doc. Most of her colleagues in the psychiatric end of the profession are ALL like the Caspar Milquetoast CavVet rubbed into the dirt. (Good on yer, CavVet!) Many have some REALLY messed up families too. One local psych was murdered by her "troubled" sixteen-year-old daughter, using a hammer, a while back. My wife knew her and the daughter, and said she wasn't surprised one bit- both were wackos from day one. the difference was: one was being treated for mental illness (unsuccessfully, natch), the other was paid to treat those with mental illness....
As for the curative effects of psychiatry and counseling, I remember reading a very long interview with the late psychiatrist R. D. Laing, who said that psychiatry really didn't have all that much effect on people, since most people tended to get better, or learned to cope with their conditions, anyway.
His main take, after being in the field for so many years, was that psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors mainly provided a sort of "hand-holding" comfort for the patient- a bit like the Reverend on the Simpsons, who pats people on the shoulder, and says "There, there..there, there", and every bit as ineffectual.
RD Laing was the fellow who said that the insane were only reacting in a sane manner to an increasingly changing, alienating, and isolating modern world that had indeed, itself gone insane. The insane's problem was that they had only reacted accordingly...
After all the world went through in the 20th century, who wouldn't be surprised?
Prozac, anyone? (No, thanks- In prefer my insanity straight up!) :^)
PS Cavvet- other than the stuff about women, I agree with you 100%. BTW my missus took my name when we got married- no hyphenated crap.