Therapist's Notes: New York Times Mental Health Clinic

Rob Long:

First Session:

The clients gathered for the first time today for our surge-related-depression clinic.  Forgot to order extra chairs, so for the first few moments several of the clients were forced to stand “Gitmo style,” as one of them complained.  When asked to elaborate, the client simply lashed out and accused therapist of “forgetting” and “sweeping under the rug” the unconstitutional actions of the Bush administration.  The arrival of more chairs seemed to help matters, but there was still a general sense among the clients that it was too little, too late.  Even as they took their seats, there was a lot of grumbling about the “chair surge” not really solving the problem.  They complained that the therapist had misled them into believing that there would be enough chairs to begin with, that the therapist had lied to them, that the therapist had poorly planned the first session.  When asked to describe how they were feeling, several of the clients simply sobbed quietly.  The session ended in silence.

Second Session:

The clients gathered today in a deep state of gloom and paranoia.  The news from Iraq seems grimmer and grimmer.  Attempts to reconnect clients with the more positive side of things - a faltering economy, the potential for wold-wide economic depression, the lack of national health insurance - fail to make inroads.  Clients seem stuck in a negative pattern of cognition: Issues of self-worth and self-empowerment are enmeshed with the events in Iraq.  A few are cheered by reports that recent Iraq War veterans seem to be disproportionately represented among violent criminals, but other may require medication.

Third Session:

The therapist began the session by announcing some good news. vices were reporting that a car bomb was said to have exploded, killing dozens of bystanders.  The session then began on a cheerful note, with many clients expressing cautious optimism that their surge-related depression was lifting.  Many of them smiled for the first time during therapy, and a general sense of joviality and laughter pervaded.  "You see? one of them said. “The surge is a failure!”

Therapist then asked them all to share some good new of their own.  Several contributed stories of their children’s successes at various private schools in the Manhattan area.  Others talked happily about the previous week’s episode of HBO’s The Wire.  Still others talked about finding a few great new ethnic restaurants.  The session evolved into a general, upbeat conversation.  The therapist asked each client to create a sense-memory association with these emotions, to be able to summon them up at will.  Clients all agreed to practice this exercise.

Then, therapist informed clients that the wire services had not, in fact, reported a car bombing.  To the contrary, the past 48 hours in Iraq had been incident-free.

Immediately, the depression returned.  There was some sobbing, and in a few cases some of the clients rolled themselves up into fetal balls.

Therapist urged them all to remember how they felt just prior to his announcement.  To remember the happy news about children, HO and Thai food.  To use the sense-memory exercise.  Clients threw coffee and food at therapist.  Therapist suggested increasing dosage.

Fourth Session:

This was the final session covered entirely by the Employee Health Plan.  Therapist attempted to engage clients in a serious examination of their thought patterns.  He reminded them that this was the final covered session, although he is available for follow-on sessions on a pay-per-session basis.

Clients were led through a series of image-reaction exercises to try to isolate and identify certain thought patterns and associations that lead to this kind of reactive depression.  Clients were shown photographs of people and events in the news, and asked a series of multiple-choice questions after each image.  Although the exercise was carefully designed to identify individual unique patterns, therapist was surprised to discover that all clients scored exactly the same, each one responding identically.  Therapist remains baffled by the statistical anomaly, and concludes that the exercise must be flawed in some way, as the alternative explanation, that all employees of the New York Times think exactly alike, is too bizarre to be seriously considered.

The session ended without progress.

Recommendation to Senior Management:

Attempt to downplay coverage of the Iraq troop surge and its related successes.  For the mental health of the employees of the New York Times, management is urged to focus resources on more positive topics, such as global warming and economic collapse.  Also, electroshock treatment may indicated if victory is achieve in Iraq.

Yea, as far as I know, Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican; Abraham Lincoln was a Republican; Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat (but democrats back then were very, VERY conservative) and George Washington didn’t even WANT to be President, let alone join a party that did not even exist yet. :P