The Slippery Slope

You know the old joke: Q. What's a Freudian slip? A. It's when you say one thing but you mean your mother.

Yesterday I witnessed (from my secret Internet hidey-hole – I’m not a weirdo; I’ve been tested.) two grown men discussing psychology like it was a science. Yes, I know, an actual science! At best, psychology is an amalgam of folkloric wisdom and some best-guesswork to explain, for example, why the outsider beat the favourite, or why being bullied makes you sad. At worst it offers a mountebank’s solution to man's desire to overcome the weaknesses of mankind; grifters, after all, use psychological traits to exploit their marks. Some in the psyche game do the same with public funding.

What we used to call nerves we now label performance anxiety. What was once shyness has blossomed and polyfurcated into a whole industry pivoting about self-esteem. I've never met a psychologist who wasn’t a little odd; not because of any obvious defect in their basic intelligence, but if ever there was a sub-set of humanity needing validation... And then there’s the language of the game: Id, ego, super-ego, angst, gestalt, gruppentherapeutische; much psychology is hokum, masquerading as truth, engaged in by the needy and validated by the use of complex phrases. In German.

The best practitioners of useful psychology are the observant; it's why your cat has the measure of you and why you love your dog even though he appears to be an abject fool; both know how to push your buttons. In other words, despite the wholesale destruction of entire forests to record man's fascination with the inner workings of the mind, the average psychologist is no better judge of character than your nan. Criminal psychology is exactly that - a criminal waste of resources pursuing a conclusion that could be arrived at by a Women's Guild knitting circle with a fraction of the fuss.

Lest you think I’m dismissing mental aberration and illness out of hand, I’m not; there are some real nutters out there (not me though – I've been tested). But it’s a very convenient peg to hang any and all of your anxieties and failures on and there is an army of practitioners - some genuinely helpful, some manipulative charlatans, some misguided amateurs – ready to part you from your (or the taxpayers’) money.

The talking cure in particular is a stroke of genius. Everybody – I mean everybody has at some time felt the need to unload to a stranger - it's what barmaids are for. But offloading to a 'professional' on a regular basis is a drastic measure. After his Southern Oceans ordeal Tony Bullimore famously turned down offers of therapy on the basis that it was a load of old bollocks and he had actual, real friends and family to talk to.

That is not to say that the study of psychology is not valid, or that psychotherapy does not help people, but it’s not so long since the study of phrenology was taken seriously and while the dedicated psychologist presumably looks down his nose at homeopathy, crystal healing and horoscopes – palpable nonsense, all – they might just bear in mind that they are held in much the same regard by a significant proportion of the population (blokes, mostly… chicks will fall for anything!). J

So next time you feel the urge to get help, why not catch yourself on and head off to the park I mean pub (I’m not strange! I’ve been tested!).

Pucker Up!

It's no good, I'm all out of angry right now. I can't seem to get riled about anything very much at the moment.

I've tried. I tried shouting at a recording of Andrew Marr yesterday, but what with it not being live I somehow didn't have the enthusiasm.

I've done Europe to death. I've ranted myself hoarse over the diversity and leftification of a once independent Britain and there can barely be a raggedy-arsed, fake-Roma, pikey metal thief in all the land who has not raised my ire.

I've had it with politicians, I've railed all I want about the monstrous children some of you are raising and the pointlessness of your moronic welfare-fuelled existences and  I've come to the realisation that pretty much the entirety of modern society isn't worth a weak wank into the winceyette .

Then, just when I'm thinking it's all over, the Daily Mail gifts me with this: a young woman is described as "A woman addicted to lip filler injections " FFS Addicted? Addicted to having poisonous fillers pumped into her lips to make her look like she's wearing a pair of bloated pink slugs on her face? Get out of here. Oh my giddy, piss-soaked aunt - what in the world of sweet Jesus-fuck do these deluded princesses think they are doing?

Leslie Ash, Meg Ryan, that ridiculous Jordan woman, Patsy Kensit, Amanda Holden... the list goes on and on and depressingly on.

Fortunately, I harvested the article before the DM pulled the link. It goes on to say: "[Her] problems started while growing up in Hampshire. At the age of 12, she was diagnosed with acute anxiety, insomnia and obsessive compulsive disorder. Poor self-esteem saw these problems develop into body dysmorphic disorder - a mental illness in which people become obsessed with perceived physical flaws or imagined ugliness - by 15. Following a breakdown, [she] was admitted to Warneford Hospital in Oxford and was prescribed anti-psychotics for her increasingly obsessive behaviour. At no point did any of the doctors who administered the injections attempt to stop her, despite knowing that she was taking medication to combat mental illness."

Dear Lord, seeking such treatment is itself a sign of mental illness. And most of her head conditions are actively promoted by a mental health system driven by a deep desire to pathologise the entire population; only when we're ALL mentally ill and self-harming to suicide music will they finally be satisfied.

They give this look the cutesy epithet of The Trout Pout, as if wearing the rubbery-lipped look of a young Mick Jagger gurning like a malevolent, thwarted child was a desirable thing. In case you didn't get it the first time - it looks bloody ridiculous. You want to look like that, you're seriously screwed up and it doesn't take a deluded shrink to say so.

But the body-chop-shop industry really doesn't give a shit either, does it? You want to have a nose shaped like a shovel, Jodie Marsh? Go ahead! What else awaits the poor woman? Tummy tucks, tit jobs, arse-implants, botox... cut it out, stick it in, move it here. Picasso wasn't just an artist, he was a prophet.

And talking of profit - it's this sort of shit that passes for industry these days. If we just took a step back down the road to simple, fruitful and worthwhile endeavours, such as making stuff we actually need, the whole country would benefit from better prosperity, dignity and - who knows - we may even recover our once-proud sense of humour.

Angry? Don't talk to me about angry! Grrrr!