Why Shrinks Hate Blogs...

...or at least they should.

I have to imagine that counselors, social workers, priests, and psycho-docs of all sorts are losing income because we now explore our emotional side online. I'm not implying that we're solving any problems here, but then again, I'm not convinced that shrinks solve any problems either. The role of a shrink, in my opinion, is to help her patient explore her inner-self and come to peace with what she finds.

Blogger, myspace, xanga, livejournal, and the like are allowing every tom, dick, and jane of every age and demographic to have a voice in the world. And there are some scary voices out there. I happened upon one teen girl's site the other night that made me cry -- eating disorder, posting the calories she'd eaten and burned each day, and the blog was filled with photos of the skinniest, sickliest models I'd ever seen. I hope this young girl makes it.

I have to wonder if the teen suicide rate, the domestic murder rate, or the violent crime rate have increased, decreased, or maintained status quo because we're now all in cyber-therapy.

I've tried "talking to someone" twice in my life. The first time I was 30 years old, had just ended the relationship of my life, moved, and was going to have a hysterectomy -- just a little bit of stress. The relationship with my shrink lasted exactly two visits when I decided I was just too private a person to talk about myself with anyone. You see, in my family we were taught to solve our problems, not share them. My second experience was last year, a decade later, when I felt like I had so much anger in me I was going to explode! I'd been bottling up ten years of pain and finally had to address it. I never felt my therapist listened or helped in any way, but by making the committment to see someone, I also committed to exploring my psyche on my own and came to peace with that decade.

I've journalized throughout my entire life. As a kid, I had a little book with a tiny lock on it. In college I kept leather-bound notebooks. Sometimes what I wrote had substance -- sometimes it was simply a retelling of my life experiences. And sometimes it was pure fiction. But never did it occur to me to share these journals with anyone else.

So, here I am, sharing some pretty significant thoughts with my cyber-friends, who in reality are folks who I know and see. And I'm not embarassed or ashamed to admit that I'm not perfect. For years I thought the internet was pulling us further apart, isolating us, and helping us nest. Now I feel like the internet is helping us build relationships, learn more about others and ourselves, and enriching our personal lives.

It's nice to know that we're not in this alone -- that everyone has pain and hurt and anger and demons. I have to think that blogging has helped create peace in our lives. Or at least it gives us something to laugh at!