So walking into the room we get the formalities out of the way: insurance papers and disclaimers, hipaa acknowledgements and privacy statements. He’s old and patient, stereotype, textbook shrink. But I’m comforted by his age: he’s lived, he’s seen it all.
He asks me: have you had previous treatment, have been hospitalized? No, only for stitches. I wonder if he’s noticed the scars on my arm. I tell him about the in school therapist at john jay. He wonders aloud where’s he heard john jay from before.
I clarify: john jay college of criminal justice. He asks me if I wanted to go into law enforcement and I reply how I originally wanted to be a cop, then a federal law enforcement officer but how a professor changed my mind. I point out how I have a degree in forensic psychology. He follows up with if I was familiar with behavioral sciences and I was.
He then asks me if I had any questions and I’m a blank at first. I think of what I was supposed to ask from what i read online: what’s your approach? Do you ask a lot of questions or just let the patient do all the talking? He responds (correctly) that it depends on the person: one patient he has comes in, talks about his issues, arrives at a conclusion and leaves. “I am more of a spectator to his process.” Another comes in and she’s all over the place and he presses her.
Next question: under what conditions would you refuse to see a patient? He explains that there some areas that are not within his expertise. That addiction isn’t something he would take on. And sometimes during couples therapy he’s had patients put him in the middle and issues on confidentiality might arise and he would recommend another therapist for one of the partners. He also gave an instance where the man had an order of protection against the woman and she had an order of protection against the man and yet both went home to sleep in the same bed.
And during this time I can’t help but notice that instead of a coffee table, he’s got this nice looking leather office chair with wooden arms sitting atop of a plastic sheet right in the middle of the room. So I ask, what’s with the chair? Is it for you or the patient. And his response was, “Well, the chair doesn’t work and I ask people not to sit in it. That’s it.”