'my dog could write a blog'

my dog could write a blog - not - pastel and water colour

This comment, 'my dog could write a blog', was made by a foodie journalist, complaining in a weekend magazine about the number of food blogs that have sprung up in the last few years. It reminds me of the comment that is sometimes made about contemporary art - 'a child of five could do that!' In the same vein, I have heard many negative comments about therapists recently. I guess there is a culture of complaint out there - bloggers, artists and therapists are not alone! However it did make me stop and think about how therapy is sometimes perceived by dissatisfied or even unwilling 'customers'.

One of the comments was made in Cairns recently, when I was participating in a conference breakfast responding to the Queensland floods earlier this year. The comment was about the influx of social workers and psychologists into the small town of Theodore, whilst it was still recovering from being flooded and evacuated. Clearly this occurred too early, and one slightly naive interaction with a psychologist was taken too seriously and provided as evidence of the ineptitude of the entire profession. I started wondering why...

Psychologists are in some ways often seen as fair game, as they are undoubtedly the dominant group of therapists and the rest of us may envy their 'special' qualities, such as being confident their favourite therapeutic approaches are evidence based (i.e. well-researched). Social workers usually occupy a lower strata and are mainly blamed for horrific child safety failures. I have heard many examples of poor therapeutic interventions, but does this mean that therapy per se is a bad thing? Of course not! There are good and bad therapists just as there are good and bad journalists. Writing about the bad ones is easy. To write about the good ones, we may just have to admit to consulting with one... 

The following were all done in Cairns:

Daintree - watercolour pastels

coast road north - w/c pastels

tree of life - water colours, pastels

If my dog wrote a blog, which is unlikely, it would only be of interest to other dogs.

And negative comments, such as this one, should not be taken too seriously.

more later.