Read Two Chapters and Call Me in the Morning

“If we can have aroma therapy, then why not?” my friend Steve said.

It was somewhere around the 7th inning of the Norfolk Tides season closer, and I’d just outlined the cutting edge, interdisciplinary field of practice my sister and I stumbled upon earlier in the day.

Now, admittedly, the idea is choppy and according to my friend, Jen, there are several outstanding “key issues” to address, but what we’re thinking is literature therapy.

The idea behind this revolutionary concept is to pair clients with literature that would resonate with their own personal “key issues,” leading to wonderful epiphanies and the like. My sister’s thinking it will lead to magazine covers and television interviews. I’m imagining scholarly references to our research in upper level text books. Presumably, I would handle the fictional match making with my literary prowess, and she would put her imaginary counseling certification to work once the, you know, emotional issues surface in response to the readings.

Jen, who doesn’t have any official psychology credentials under her belt, yet, either, says the whole thing will fall apart as soon as an ADD client falls under our auspices.

“What are you going to do then, hand them a copy of Don Quixote?” she scoffed.

My husband was quick to jump on the Quixote angle as well. “What kind of client would benefit from Don Quixote?” he asked.

I told him it was hard to say, being only a tenth of the way through the tome myself. “All we really know at this point is that he’s a Spanish gentleman who read so many books about knights and chivalry that it deranged him. He’s gone off now, in search of adventures, and we don’t know how it will turn out,” I said.

“Yes,” my husband said, “Very interesting. Especially that part at the beginning about how he became deranged by all the literature he read. Let’s explore that.”