2015-04-09. Nothing to Do with Anything, but Good for a Laugh
Nothing to Do with Anything, but Good for a Laugh.
from the Desk of George Barnard — April 9, 2015.
This happened many years ago during the time when Tamara Chelsey and I were involved with clinical (ethical) hypnosis — hypno-therapy is actually the proper term. One of our eight students was a young man called Luigi, a new arrival from Italy in the Land of Oz.
Luigi was loud, hard to understand as he murdered the English language. And at this time, while he had completed just four of the first 12 lessons, he decided he knew it all. What kind of a therapist would he grow up to become? I dreaded the prospect of guiding him week after week. With a sign above his door and an advertisement in the local paper, he thought he was ready for anything.
Since he lived in a rather Latin part of town, and his having a name like Luigi, it wasn’t long before his first patient rang the bell. Enter Tony, a sickly young man, who for years had visited many physicians, psychologists and even the odd (pun intended) psychiatrist. No one had come up with the answer to what ailed Luigi’s countryman.
It took a number of tries for Luigi to hypnotize Tony. At last the patient showed the tell-tale signs of rapid eye movement behind his closed eye lids. What to do now? Luigi didn’t know. As yet his lessons in specific therapies had not begun. Therapies would come many months down the track. Perhaps his patient would begin to speak. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Luigi waited, and waited, and he waited some more, but Tony didn’t say a thing.
Finally Luigi could stand it no more, and he shouted at his patient: “What the &%44&# hell is the matter with you?”
Please, don’t try this at home.
Shocked and surprised Tony opened his eyes and muttered, “I’m allergic to starches.” Problem solved, but what a way to go about it. Here we now are, we have an Italian allergic to starches. No more spaghetti, no more pasta. What is left?
It taught us the valuable lesson, however, that deep down we know precisely what is wrong with us. It taught proud and overconfident Luigi to study up on his long, long list of therapies.
All the above is fairly well remembered. Oh, yes.
And it’s just a small thought from George Barnard.
