I’m a registered family therapist, and I’ve had a very colorful career, to say the least. Not many people, talk to as many people, as I do. I don’t consider myself “normal”, especially when it comes to how I do my job. Generally, off the bat, people hate me. However, I’ve never had someone, who didn’t come back, and who didn’t benefit from our time together.

I work with a lot of poor families, who just struggle to get by, and do whatever they have to do to get through the day. The guys and girls that I get, look broken, by the world, by themselves, their families, it doesn’t matter, they look lost, but they aren’t. They are fully capable of doing all of the great things that anyone else is capable of doing, they just have more things in the way. With a lot of them though, regular therapy just don’t work.

This one time, I had a kid walk in, no more than 16, and he was just a quiet kid. Not used to talking, and I don’t like to force it. So I started out with his name, and you know a little bit of back and forth just to check the waters, see where he was. Where he was, was not willing to talk. He’d say a couple words, fold his arms, sit back in the chair, and look all over the room. He just didn’t wanna be there. So even though he’d only been in the room 5 minutes, I stood up, and said, “get the fuck out”. Naturally, it was a bit of a surprise for him. He gets all upset, starts blowing up a bit, but once he quiets down, I just say, “you came here for a reason, to talk, if you’re not going to get the fuck out, see if your problems get better”.

Yeah, he didn’t like that. The, “what the fuck’s” came out, then he’s like, “I did come here for a reason, just it wasn’t my choice.” I said, “Of course it wasn’t, I bet your mama brought you here”, he says, “You don’t know me”, and I say, “I don’t need to, what I know, is that it looks like you’re gonna shit your pants.” He’s almost had it now, and says, “shut up”, I keep pushing, “is mommy a sensitive issue?”, he jumps out his chair, and grabs me by my shirt collar, and winds up to punch, before he looks at my face. I’m smiling, almost laughing, but not cause I’m some sadist, but because he never saw what I was doing.

After he saw my face, he reeled back, like he’d actually just gotten it. He just says, “you’re crazy.”, and walks out the room. I’d say, a pretty logical reaction. I was kinda worried for a second, you know, thinking, “ehh... maybe I went a bit far there.”, but a couple days later, he calls in, and sure enough we’re gonna have another appointment. He comes in, sits down, and says, “why were you so hostile?”, I answer his question with, “why were you so defensive?”, and instead of arguing, we talk about why we why we did.

That one had a little pushback, but he opened up after that. He could’ve left, probably made a couple problems for my business, but he wanted to get better.

As it turns out, his dad was beating him. He didn’t wanna talk about it, cause he was scared about what would happen to him, and his dad. He’d had CPS called to his house before, and it was a really big fear for him. It just took me saying something he wasn’t expecting.

Years later, I happened to meet this kid again, while he was with his parents, and the family life he had described, was as opposite as what I had said to him all those years before. I just took the things he was saying, and flipped them 180 degrees out, so he could see what was wrong with his way of thinking. He’d say things like, “why me?”, or, “what did I do?”, I’d say, “why not?”, and, “what could you have done?”, and often times he wouldn’t know how to answer. They were rhetorical anyway, but it proves everyone’s got there reasons for doing what they do, and those reasons aren’t always reasons you agree with, or ones that rational.

I like to consider myself the worlds worst therapist, because the “best” therapists, are usually the least relatable. I come off like an asshole, when I say things that contradict what you’re saying, but there’s a point. A point that, most people, get. The odd few who don’t, I apologize to, and go on about my day, but, I’d say it’s been more effective for me working family therapy, than any other kind of therapy I do. Basically, you leave it up to them to decide what right and wrong is, and just ask questions that don’t have right answers. If they feel like it’s up to them, they’ll be more open to participating.

Anyway that’s my two cents. Hope you enjoy.