picture source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frasier_CraneIn Unit three (SHRINKS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS) EXERCISE 7, you can read this: "Kara Bazzi is a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Seattle area (...)"
Do you know Cheers spinoff FRASIER? Dr. Frasier Crane also lives in this area, we can say he is a therapist, as well, but is a totally different professional!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbjUL9Er-Yg
Frasier Winslow Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Frasier and Cheers. He was played by Kelsey Grammer for 20 years, tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television, which was set by James Arness, who played Marshal Matt Dillon on the show Gunsmoke. Grammer received Emmy Award nominations for portraying Crane on three different NBC shows, including a 1992 guest appearance on Wings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frasier_Crane
What's wrong with shrinks and this topic? Some never want to say they are visiting one!
Let's see what this unit brings...
Well, this is a complex issue that can cover different kinds of people, different problems different situations... My first contact with this world was some years ago when I was stuying in the boarding school. The second year there was a girl that repeated course because of the illness that she had suffered the previous year. My friends and I didn't know anything and she was a fantastic, very hard-working and intelligent girl. We become friends at once. When the spring arrived we discovered her problem, she suffered from schizophrenia and new outbreak used to begin in the spring. My friedns and I were very worried because we were very young and didn't know what was happening. She went into psychiatric hospital and when she was better come back to the boarding school. This problem happened again year after year and it was very sad because she was very alone. Her illness was hereditary and her family couldn't look after her. My friends and I helped her in everything we could but when we finished to study we lost the contact.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I think in this issue I feel sad because I know that wherever she is, she will be with her problem. This is a illness that can be controlled but it always is there.
You are right Lucía, some people don't want to say they are visiting a psychologist, psychoanalyst or similar... I think in our society there are still a lot of prejudices.
Cheers,
Cristina González Angós
Well,Thanks Cristina, that was a serious problem.
ReplyDeleteHere we tried to se the more positive aspects of visiting and getting help from a professional adn even getting the funny side of it, or the funny side of understanding we all have a crazy side inside ourselves that we need to keep life going, like Dr. Frasier Crane.
Have you watched this show?
Hi Lucía:
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to have been so serious or to have told so sad story but as much I try I don't see the possitive or funny side of visiting one of these professionals. Are the world blood with crazy people? Judging by the news, yes. Every morning at seven o'clock I watch the news and I cannot believe what I see; people killing people. Are all of us going mad?
Cheers,
Cristina González Angós
I agree with Lucía that there is a funny side in visiting a psychologist, and I dare to say that we must always seek the funny (or the positive, at least) side of everything, even illness and disgrace... but, of course, only in the case we are speaking about ourselves. Others' suffering must be absolutely respected and taken seriously. But, as regards the own suffering, it is proved that there is no better medicine than good humour and relativity (or this is a matter of Physics??). Indeed, one of my worst illnesses (if not the only) is to take myself too seriously. Well, yes, I'm a little hypocondriac, and it is usually enough for me to think I am sick to immediately get sick. So I would probably be a case for Psychiatry, but wouldn't it add more unnecessary preocupations to my already preoccupied mind? Isn't it but another imaginary illness? And, going a bit further: do all those professionals anything but allow the whole crazy system to keep on turning around, guaranteeing its subjects to be always ready and in good shape for fitting in their respective positions? They say the problem is the lack of ressistance to stress, but they rarely investigates where all this stress comes from, and how we could eradicate it. I'm afraid, in sum, that we insist in considering individual minds as separate from social structures, but this is nonsense, as they are two manifestations of the same human reality.
ReplyDeleteSorry for my verbosity, it's just a way of practising my English.
Best regards.
I must confess I did assist to therapy. I am a compulsive overeater, and I thougt I was crazy because whenever I´m nervous I turn to food, but I learnt I´m not the only one and that helped. I don´t go to therapy any more,but it worked, although I sometimes binge, but now I know I´n not mad. Sorry to be serious, like Cristina, but sharing helps me and it may help others. Big hugs to everyone, Elena.
ReplyDeleteHi Elena,
ReplyDeleteso you have attended a therapy session... Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us!
I would like to share with you a nice film that i saw with my teenager daugther whiht is colled good Will Hunting (el indomable Will Hunting). The movie treats on the relationships between a psychiatrist and his patient. on the film we can see how the psychotherapy can help not only the patient but also the doctor.
ReplyDeletethe screenplay was written by Mat Damon and Ben Affleck who are actors as well. The film was awarded with 2 oscar for the best supporting actor , Robin Willian and for the screenplay too.
If you want to see a beautiful film meanwhile knowing how a therapy is working you should see this film.
Best regards.
Mª Isabel Jimenez Rosales
I'd like to thank our classmates for talking about their personal experiences: you're very brave!
ReplyDeleteNow talking about Frasier: I just love it! I have the whole series on DVD and I still play my favourite parts when I'm feeling a bit under the weather: they always cheer me up.
Frasier Crane is good, but his brother Niles, also a psychoanalyst, is Great. Don't you agree? ;D
The truth is my idea about psychoanalist is quite bad, and I don't think they are really helpful, but this is my own and particularly opinion. And the reason is because a psychoanalist will be able to help you if you can conect with him, I mean if you feel confortable, and you really open to him. And this is not very often, this is the reason why most of the therapies don't work.I don't think any psichoanalist can help any person and not all therapies work in the same way to all people. So the effectiveness of the therapies are quite low and randomely.
ReplyDeleteHello people. My friend Sandra and I were talking the other day when the conversation turned to a recent car she was on. She recounted how it was on one of those older taxis so she hit something and then it was like she was free-falling. It was only a few seconds, but it was the most terrible moment in her life. She felt so helpless and out of control. Helplessness can lead to feelings powerlessness as well.
ReplyDeleteAfter that accident, she tried to forget the incident but she couldn´t. I strongly think that she need a psychological therapy.
Thanks, Víctor, we share the same view,I'd never laugh at such serious events as those written here. Life is too hard.
ReplyDeleteElena, I'm glad to know you feel much better now, thanks for sharing.
Isabel, I've watched the film as well, it is really fascinating what we are still missing about our mind.
Inma, I think many poeple like "Frasier" as we see something in him we all have, leading our crazy and stressful lives, our habits, our funny little ways...
María Jesús and Aratzazú, I think what you're kindly telling us lead us to believe the best choice is to do what we feel is better for us.
Thank you all for your stimulating comments.-
Mª Jesus, I agree with you. Also I don't trust so much on psychoanalists, because I think it depends of if you want to recognize your problem and if you want to be helped or not. I have visited once a psychoanalist in order to solve a marriage problem, and believe me, I knew all what he was going to say. Anyway I can't say he didn't help me, because I reaffirmed myself on my ways, discovering I was not wrong in what I wanted or I needed. On another hand, I have a friend who has visited a psychiatrist and she hasn't been helped so much, first because she doesn't want to have the treatment and second because she doesn't colaborate so much to recognize some of her problems. She is still in a bad way of her strong depression and we feel she is not going to solve it easily, untill she wants it.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really have much idea about psychoanalysis. Here in Spain there is no tradition in having a personal psychoanalyst as in the United States or Argentina. I‘ve just heard about the usual well-known stuff like sexual symbology and interpretation of dreams. I’m not really convinced about these weird Freudian theories. I imagine the patient lying on a couch explaining his problems and the psychoanalyst nodding all the time saying ‘Hu-hum...mmmm...interesting...well, your case is clear Mr. Waggstaff, your in love with your mother. Heres your bill. See you next week’. The sillier the diagnosis, the more they charge. Nobody pays 60 euros to know that your in love with Scarlett Johansson.
ReplyDeleteInterpretation of dreams also is a major contribution to continue this psychological nonsense. I imagine Mr.Freud at his desk with a patients dream on one side and a bag full of pieces of paper on the other:
-Mmm..let’s see what we’ve got today. This guy has dreamed about a kangaroo playing a piano.-
Then, he randomly takes out one of the papers in the bag and reads:
-You hate your father and your in love with your granny. Wow! This one is a goody. I’ll charge him 150 euros for this diagnosis.-
Plain simple people just can’t contradict these theories. If the psychoanalyst tells you: ‘Fred, my opinion is the you urgently need to exchange corporal fluids. Go tonight to the ‘Happy Belly-button’ and have some fun with the girls.’ You’ll probably answer: ‘Are you kidding? I don’t need a 60 euros the hour psychoanalyst to know that!’
Diego Pérez.
Grace and Diego,
ReplyDeleteDifferent but good contributions, thanks!!
Well, I am going to try to give another point of view about this topic, from the side of a person who lives with another person who has a depression.
ReplyDeleteIt is really hard to see that the person you love the most suddenly and due to a problem at work becomes a shadow of what once he used to be. You keep telling yourself that is not your fault and your mind tells you the same but in your heart it hurts when you realize that there is nothing that you can do to make that person feel better, that the person must go to the shrink and that after talking with his “doctor” and taking a pill the person fells better.
It is frustrating that a tablet makes him feel better when you have been doing your best to help him. What his shrink tells me to do is to be patient and to be there for him. Yes, and I am, but at what cost? My own mental health is at stake. Do I also need a shrink? Probably in the future, now I must stay healthy for him…
Marisa Gordillo cavacasillas
Uned Mérida.
You are so right, Marisa! Depression is a wicked illnes for the one in pain and for the rest of the people around him/her. All the best.
ReplyDeleteIn USA a lot of people goes to shrink but I do not think it so necessary.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note... If you guys like Woody Allen movies you’ll probably remember lots of very funny references to psychoanalysis in almost all of them. Personally, there’s one scene in particular that I really love. It’s in Annie Hall. Mr.Allen’s character Alvy Singer is remembering his childhood. So there’s this skinny red-haired kid, 10 o 12 years old, with the typical huge Groucho-like glasses that cover almost entirely his face, sitting, arms crossed and frowning, next to his mom on a couch in the doctor’s waiting room. The mom tells the doc the kid has been depressed because of something he read. So the doc asks him “why are you depressed, Alvy?”. Alvy tells him: “the universe is expanding”. The doc looks surprised and repeats Alvy’s words “the universe is expanding?” So Alvy adds: “well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!” At that point Alvy's mom gets all worked up and screams at him “What is that your business?” And to the doc : “ He stopped doing his homework!” Alvy : “What's the point…”. Then the mom goes berserk and tells her son “ What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!”. Then the camera settles back on the doc who chuckles and while taking a big puff from his cigarette tells Alvy “ It won't be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try to enjoy ourselves while we're here, huh!”
ReplyDeleteYou can check out the original scene from the movie by clicking here
Enjoy the holidays if you have some time off. And if you don’t, follow the doc’s advice: try to enjoy yourselves! Cheers. Valérie
God, I love Woody Allen! And Annie Hall is one of my favourite Allen movies so thanks for that clip...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, back to the subject. I went through a period of time when I was a teen where I was quite depressed and my marks in High School suffered from it, so one of my teachers suggested my parents that they took me to see a therapist (I must have been 15 at the time). So I went and after 5 minutes I was crying (you know, like in movies, only that in real life is not so funny). She made me talk about painful things (I don't come from a nice home) so she made me feel worse than I already did before visiting her. I went back the second day and the same thing happened. So when my mother was about to take me to the third visit I said I didn't want to go anymore. Going to therapy was making me feel more depressed than not going! So I guess perhaps you have to be an adult to go to therapy and being able to handle thing a little bit better, or maybe I was just unlucky. Who knows...
But I think sometimes the problem can be seen in those Woody Allen films: we think too much about things when we live in cities and we lead this really stressful way of life. Just look at people that live in small villages, there are no therapists there. I'm not saying that people with real mental illnesses should not seek treatment, that's a different story, but overthinking can be as bad as not thinking at all, and sometimes it's just better to try to solve our little problems and go on with our lives... Then again, that is not as easy as it seems either...
María Badía Santiago
Hi I'm Mari Carme Garcia Jara
ReplyDeleteI Hate doctors as well and it is because of the many hours that I had t spend in hospitals, not because I was ill, my parents were the ones ill, first my father and then my mother.
I don't go to the doctor unless I feel really bad and even then I have a bad time.
I can't say anything about going to therapy because I hadn't done it. I think that anything that helps you is good but the problem may be taking the desition to ask for help and sure that's not easy