The Professional Sounding Board

 

It occurred to me this morning that there should be such a thing as a professional listener, somebody who would let you pay a fee to lie on the couch for an hour and complain bitterly about whatever you found particularly annoying that day. I know, I know, there are shrinks out there who perform something like this service, but that isn’t what I mean.

Your shrink, your psychiatrist, psychologist, or psychiatric social worker, is there to help you make sense out of your mental problems, or your social interactions, or the fact that you have never been able to get along with your mother. I need—probably most of us over a certain age do—someone to bitch at, someone who will pretend to listen to complaints but will offer no advice and make no judgments. My feet hurt. My teeth hurt. Next week a molar has to come out. I’m losing my eyesight. With what’s left of my eyesight I see things I don’t want to see. Nobody likes to be told stuff like that. Unload such complaints on your friends and they will soon begin avoiding you. Unload them on your spouse and he will think you’re blaming him.

When I was quite young I had a friend who was so self-absorbed that  I could tell her anything, secure in the knowledge that she would forget it at once. I, on the other hand, was so self-absorbed that she could safely do the same. Years later I realized she had pointed something out to me that I refused to see at the time, that I was in love with a fellow I considered a mere friend. In those days I probably needed an actual shrink, or a very wise mother. My mother had her own problems. She could have used an hour on some stranger’s couch to complain about her life.

And who couldn’t? After an hour with the Professional Sounding Board we might dry our tears and go forth into the world with smiles on our faces, our dispositions outwardly as sunny as a day on St. Thomas. But what sort of qualifications would this person have to have?

Years ago there was a computer program called Dr. Sbaitso. It came with Sound Blaster and ran on a PC. You typed in questions or observations and Dr. Sbaitso answered you in a strange mechanical accent. “What is your problem?” “How would you usually deal with such feelings?” The good doctor promised to wipe all memory of the session away when it was done. People liked that. They got so deeply into it sometimes that they forgot they were dealing with a machine. But this would not be the function of my Professional Sounding Board.

The PSB would not ask you how you were dealing with things. The PSB would not care. As far as fixing your problem goes, you would be on your own. In fact the ideal PSB would have no idea what you were talking about. Maybe he or she wouldn’t even speak or understand English. The PSB would simply sit there and appear to listen, perhaps nodding from time to time. Any insights you gained from your fifty minutes of whining would be a gift you gave yourself.

I like it. Now if only we can get our health insurance to cover it.