Also, is there any good reason for me to suspect Wiggy lies about his "shrink"? Its been bothering me for years...
1) how would he still be so nuts?
2) whats his actual diagnosis?
3) WHO goes three times a week?
4) psychiatrists prescribe, not give intensive therapy
5) he never includes "seeing his psychiatrist" when detailing his schedule, only as a preface to a bit
6) he has changed the explanation for why he goes depending on what he needs the reference for...
7) hes a known pathological liar
I could go on and on, but I'm just wondering what you think.
Great post, and welcome!
I'm sure he's lied about several aspects of his therapy. I'm equally sure he's told several lies to his therapist. And I'm sure you're right, and he doesn't go much, if at all, these days. Maybe he's in the "tune-up" phase, where he just goes if a traumatic event occurs (because he's so cured
), like his wife refusing to play the name game, telling him she doesn't like him, and hanging up on him.
He's worse now than when he started. Much worse.
The thing I want to focus on is how he's weaponized his therapy. Fillmore hit on a lot of it. I'd like to bring up another aspect, using two specific examples.
Remember when Ronnie made his Ronnie-esque engagement party speech? The "Let's keep it the same!" speech? While Howard was shaming Ronnie about it, he claimed his therapist couldn't believe it, and was very emotional about it.
First off, NO therapist would react the way Howard claimed his therapist reacted (emotionally incredulous) towards that speech, especially a Freudian/non-directive therapist like Howard's. It's all "and how did that make you feel?", not "OMG, WHAT WAS HE DOING?!? OH, THE HUMANITY!!!".
Howard was just trying to put a "Ronnie's officially crazy" stamp on his shaming of him.
Secondly, any therapist worth his salt, who knew the inner workings of Howard and Beth's mockery of a retarded horrorshow relationship, would be MAKING Ronnie's speech to Howard.
The second thing is when Howard declared that his therapist told him that he was no longer allowed to talk about Artie. First off, what a mind-fuck for Artie! Secondly, no therapist would tell someone to stop talking about a problem/emotional topic. Well, maybe something truly traumatic, like abuse they weren't ready to talk about, but not an employee on smack.
If any aspect of that was true, it was probably that the therapist told Howard he was enabling Artie, and Howard kept trying to change the therapist's mind, and give him the "what you're doing is ok" stamp of approval, and the therapist wouldn't do it.
If that's true, how diabolical does that make Howard? Lying to his therapist, lying to his bro, trying to get his therapist to ok his exploitation of his bro, then shaming the bro when the therapist wouldn't.
Marone!
It's all speculation, obviously, but it's got to be closer to the truth than what Howard was spewing.
More than anything, Howard used, and still uses, his (past) therapy as an all-pervasive, nameless, faceless, "checkmate" weapon, and it's always to shame another person.
Howard runs on marbles and shame. Everything in his life boils down to those two things.
"My therapist said......." is (or was) the new and improved "we got a lot of e-mails about........".
