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Cheaper
Than Therapy
by Mad Dog
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Most of these
cheaper than therapy claims are probably true. After all, depending on
where you live, who your therapist is, and how lax your HMO is about
checking the outrageous bills they’re handed, therapy can cost between
$75 and $125 an hour. |
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The other day in Time a man was quoted as
saying that learning to fly an airplane was “cheaper than therapy.”
Since I’m not a pilot—hell, I can hardly get my career off the
ground better yet an airplane—I’m not in a position to debate this,
but considering that over the past few weeks I’ve also read that
gardening, thrifting, knitting, quilting, yoga, ice skating, and playing
Bunko are all cheaper than therapy, I’m starting to think
psychotherapy may be even more overpriced than I thought. Bunko, in case
it’s unfamiliar because you’ve been spending too much time trying to
learn to pronounce the word “nucular” to pay attention, is an old
dice game which is making a comeback as a replacement for Tupperware,
lingerie, and Botox parties. On a good night it’s not only cheaper
than therapy, but can actually be a profit center.
Take a quick look online and you’ll
find out that Texas-born singer-songwriter Ginger Mackenzie says writing
songs is cheaper than therapy. Ice creamers Ben & Jerry claim the
book The 3 Minute Meditator is cheaper than therapy. Radio
station WWOZ in New Orleans says listening to musicians jam in Jackson
Square is “a lot cheaper than therapy.” And the Strategic Account
Manager’s Annual Conference swears it’s cheaper than therapy, and at
$150 a person I’d say they’re right, though you have to wonder about
the hidden cost of having to sit through seminars like “Improving
Customer Coverage Without Creating Channel Conflict” and “Designing
Differentiated Offerings Based on Customer Value Analysis.” Years of
therapy sound much less painful.
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There’s a
long list of other things that claim to be cheaper than therapy.
There’s the band from Cincinnati name Cheaper Than Therapy which I’m
sure you can see for under ten bucks a session. |
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Most
of these cheaper than therapy claims are probably true. After all,
depending on where you live, who your therapist is, and how lax your HMO
is about checking the outrageous bills they’re handed, therapy can
cost between $75 and $125 an hour. Since conventional psychotherapy
takes an average of seven years to show improvement—unless you’re
Woody Allen or Richard Lewis in which case it’s a life-long
preoccupation—and many people go twice a week, you can figure it will
cost as much as $91,000 to forgive your mother for dressing you as the
Tooth Fairy before sending you to your second grade Halloween party
where the other kids kicked your butt for being so cheap with their
tooth rebates. That’s a lot of money, enough in fact to buy a
3-bedroom house in Richmond, Virginia, two of the new Hummer H2s which
eat SUVs for breakfast (providing you can talk your dealer into a small
quantity discount), or 154,237 chocolate bars, which by the way the Vegetarian
Kitchen says is—yes, you guessed it!—“cheaper than therapy and
you don’t need an appointment.”
While gardening, thrifting, knitting,
quilting, yoga, and ice skating are without a doubt much cheaper than
therapy, flying isn’t. To get a license to fly a single-engine
aircraft the FAA makes you take at least 40 hours of training and a
flight exam. Forty-two if you’re from Saudi Arabia. If you want to fly
a private jet you’ll need between 3,000 and 4,000 hours of training.
Since it costs $90 to $120 an hour for the plane, fuel, and
instructor—plastic Jesus on the dashboard extra— it could set you
back a whopping $480,000 to get your small jet license. For that kind of
money your whole family could get therapy. Of course if they did you
wouldn’t need to. After all, why bore a therapist with all those
redundancies?
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Will knitting cure
obsessive- compulsive disorder or just help you turn out the world’s
longest scarf? |
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There’s
a long list of other things that claim to be cheaper than therapy.
There’s the band from Cincinnati name Cheaper Than Therapy which I’m
sure you can see for under ten bucks a session. Comedian turned talk
show host turned where-is-she-now-question Roseanne was quoted as saying
that studying the Jewish mystical Kabbalah is cheaper than therapy. Of
course she also said “Before Kabbalah I had no friends and everyone
thought I was crazy.” At least therapy, for all the time and money
invested, effects changes.
This is
important since even though something may be cheaper than therapy, the
question remains: Is it more effective? Will knitting cure
obsessive-compulsive disorder or just help you turn out the world’s
longest scarf? Will listening to musicians in Jackson Square help your
inferiority complex or will it send you into a downward spiral because
you can’t even remember which fingers to use when playing chopsticks
on the piano? It’s hard to think that becoming a hyphenated
singer-songwriter would be good therapy for someone with bipolar
disorder. And face it, if your world is spinning out of control how can
a triple axel on a skating rink be good for you?
One thing
that is cheaper than therapy, and very possibly as effective, is the
Sigmund Freud Action Figure which you can get from Archie McPhee
(www.mcphee.com). For only $6.95 you can keep this five-inch-tall figure
of the Father of Psychiatry which is holding a phallic cigar on your
desk where he’s always ready to listen to your problems. He’ll never
send a bill, he doesn’t go on vacation, and you’ll never need to
replace him and start over. In other words, his therapy is cheaper than
chocolate.
©2003 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
Read them, they're cheaper than therapy (and hopefully more fun).
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