Brief therapy

 

Nearly twenty years ago a short term memory was suddenly lost as the aftermath of an operation.  The hospital saw us every few weeks. He had had a problem but Everything Was Better Now.  The Maudesley Head Man said, "Actually, it's you who is having to cope with thi. You could benefit from the talking therapy."  So I arranged some Brief Counselling.  Thought it sounded just the ticket, so that I wouldn't be spending the rest of my life trying to unwind and unravel.  Just ten sessions, secretly, in my lunch hour.  The best thing, in my eyes, was that the therapist was German, so I didn't have to explain about the husband, the mother in law, the past.  The sessions often made me Quite Cross.  But when she said goodbye she handed me a slip of paper that said If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always got.  I was a bit cross about that, too, but I stuck it on the wall and looked at it for a week or two. 

Then I took off my fawn raincoat, put an ad in the paper, and started a new life.