A few years ago the mother of one of my patients needed extensive surgery and she would be unble to bring her daughter to see me for at least 8 weeks. I was not pleased about that long an interruption of treatment as this had been a difficult course. Mom's surgery was essential, so my dilemma was what to do about the kid. How could I keep up some type of contact? Phone appointments work with adults but this kid isn't particularly verbal. I pondered the situation and then I remembered something that Milton Erickson did in similar situations. Dr. Erickson's beagle Roger wrote letters to children he'd treated and on occasion wrote letters to the Erickson children. When Roger died, letters continued to arrive from ghost Roger. Thus the Dougie letters were born.
Now to look at Dougie, he may appear to be a dull-witted but congenial pooch; however he is also a prolific writer. The same girl needed surgery on both of her feet this summer. She had the second operation week before last, so Dougie wrote her a letter. I just found out that Dougie was the only one to send her get well wishes. In the latest letter to her, Dougie touched on anger, blaming of others and lying. A Dougie letter to an adolescent boy, whose Mom was trying to emasculate him, warned him about the dangers of cats, an animal with a strong unconcsious feminine association. The goal was promote a stronger masculine identification.
Son read one of Dougie's letters and thought it was sophomoric. How can that be?? The delicious part is that nice little directives can be slipped into these rather silly letters about fleas, rolling in the mud and other doggie adventures of living with the old man and the old lady.
2 comments:
Hmm.. since Jeff and I lack pets, perhaps we could write letters from the fruit flies that love our summer produce so. I'd call them "Directives from Drosophila." They would pretty much consist of statements like, "Fruit smells good. Must lay eggs in fruit." However, every now and then, they would grow Marxian (i.e., Groucho) with comments like "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
Groucho says it best, does he not? You're from California..you could always send a letter from one of your past lives or your twin. No limit to the possibilities.
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