Barbershop Manners and Diner Chats

• Healing The Moral Animal: Reading List by James Brody, 3/3/98
  
  

(Part of "Healing" chapter for HTMA coursebook)

Many aspects of evolutionary psychotherapy are similar to other types of therapy; there are also differences. Evolutionary techniques will -- once all the elements are in place -- have a lot in common with a visit to a barbershop in a small town or a chat over coffee at the diner. We have been helping each other since life began; the forms and settings shift but the essentials are constant. Mutual Aid was a fact before Kropotkin discovered it. Many elements of therapy are species general yet doctors get surprised and annoyed that other healers, without diplomas or licenses, can be as effective. There can also be a grandiose smugness that a territory is owned by a particular kind of practitioner; it isn't. The certificate, like other icons, entices people into the office but they won't come back if reciprocity, trust, and competence are not evident. It may be that their:

1. Cheater detectors fire

2. Sense of alliance is not satisfied

3. Assumption of competence is challenged by therapist behavior

4. Sense of privacy is violated

5. Conclusion forms that the therapist will not be their tool for influencing a parent, mate, or supervisor.

None of these factors is surprising; all of them apply equally to therapists, barbershop confidences and diner chats.

However, There are several contrasts with barbershop therapy and the doctored variety. First, the barber doesn't have a receptionist or a set of forms take your history. He personally acquires what he needs to know. He also acquires only information that he needs to accomplish the haircut, not to satisfy a records review committee. Second, the barber extends respect. The client is seated higher than the barber, not the reverse. Third, return visits are acceptable and natural. Fourth, there is no expectation that insurance pay the bill. Fifth, the barber will not likely become wealthy by what he does. Unlike managed care assemblies, there are no fixed ratio schedule contingencies.

The helping professions are also different to the extent that we formalize them with regulation and codes, that we make exceptions (such as sharing information) explicit and only with client permission, that we become annoyed when people with other training also attempt to help the client ... that altruism from another person toward our client somehow cheats us! Finally, we can have a beer with the barber, swap crude jokes, flirt with his wife, or engage in barter ... all of which are subject to civil suit and personal redress, not licensing boards.

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