I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. By long time I mean ... well, sixteen years,…read morelonger than Yelp has existed.
I saw Francis from 1988 to 1998. I may be off a year at both ends, but it hardly matters. I initially went in for a joint session with my father, a hateful, bigoted, abandoning, alcoholic and unrepentant jerk. The session did little good in the end save assuage my father's guilt for being all of the above. I was a wreck over my mother's death, which happened four years earlier, and needed someone to talk to. The girl I was dating at the time was an emotional icebox, and Francis seemed a nice enough man. He also offered at the time a sliding scale for poor sods like me, which I appreciated.
I can't tell you how many times I saw him in all those years. I went in whenever I had the cash, which wasn't a lot, and life was beating me down, which was happening all the fucking time. I had no one to talk to, and Francis, admittedly, comes across as a decent listener. He's decent. Not great. Oftentimes I felt he hadn't heard a word I said, interrupting me or redirecting me with little acknowledgement that he heard me. Perhaps in these intervening years he's improved, though it's a moot point, since I see he's gone off to Costa Rica for a Peace Corps assignment.
So, listening. On a scale of 1 to 10, Francis scores a solid 3. I needed an 8 or 9.
Therapy. Did I get better? Did my life improve? No, on both counts. My needs weren't met with Francis, who was convinced that I had to maintain a relationship with my father in order to "get better." I gave that a go. It was a phenomenal disaster that ended up doing great harm to me. As for my career, he, Francis, said something horrifying, something that has stuck with me to this day. He said, "You must sell yourself, Shawn, then become yourself." I must, in other words, be inauthentic and unreal before, bowing before my paymasters, I "become" myself. It's unethical and unreasonable on multiple levels, that advice; that it came from an ex-priest, both Catholic and Buddhist, floored me. It still does over two decades later.
Francis had no interest in me finding or discovering myself. His push was always toward that long, gray line of American manhood: the corporate job, the cog job, the 9-to-5 grind. He was convinced that was the "healthy" thing to do. (Note: when a psychologist uses that term with you--"healthy"--run screaming in the other direction. It's a trite and shallow term full of bullshit and psychobabble. "Healthy" more often than not means "doing things my way.") But the truly healthy thing for me was to pursue my real and lifelong passion, which, after 2003, I finally ginned the courage to do (writing). Francis knew of my passion for it back then; so why did he ignore it utterly? Even if he claims ignorance of such a passion, the question becomes--why? Wasn't that his job, to learn of such things? He convinced me instead to complete my teacher training and slope into the classroom, which I ended up doing for many years, until another doctor, measuring my blood pressure, warned me to make a choice. I was miserable as a teacher. I hated it. When I expressed reservations about continuing as one, ol' Francis got on me pretty good. I was flirting with disaster, he said.
Yes, I was. I was listening to him.
So, therapy. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Francis a 2.
Francis eventually got tired of seeing me. I must have been too much for him. I was threatening his perfect record of perfect automatons he'd turned out of his practice. One day he told me I was clinically depressed, then "fired" me and referred me to a psychiatrist so I could be put on antidepressants. Still trusting in his counsel, I met with the psychiatrist, who after a ten-minute consult gave me a prescription for prozac and tracedone. The asshole charged my insurance $200, and told me to meet him in three months.
For the next three years I felt like a bowl of moldering tapioca pudding. I soon couldn't afford the psychiatrist's fees, as I had quit my teaching job and went out on my own as a professional tutor. I got tired of feeling absolutely nothing, which is what antidepressants are designed to do, so I quit them, not knowing that doing so is potentially deadly. For me, it was. I nearly killed myself in 2001.
So, follow-up and compassion. Francis scores a 0 on a scale of 1 to 10. He let me fall through the cracks. I didn't need medication; I didn't need his continual warnings of doom and gloom with respect to my father and my profession; I didn't need to be "fired." I needed a fucking friend, not a bully, and certainly not another father figure. He should've figured that out. That was his job. He didn't do it. But hey--he got probably $10,000 from me over all those years, which I suppose he can use in Costa Rica.
While there, I hope he takes a long and sunny time to consider whether he should remain a psychotherapist. My vote, and advice, would definitely be no.
