Charlatons, Soothsayers and Therapists

So, I went to the markets with a friend of mine today. (Yes, I'm being a good girl and trying to make sure that I get out of the house regularly). So apart from picking up my usual loaf of yummy bannana bread, on a lark, my friend and I decided to get out tarot cards read by a 'clairvoyant' who is there every week.

Some of the reading was somewhat predictable. She asked me to take off my sunglasses, and then commented on how I put up a mask to hide from the world. (I then informed her, they were prescription sunglasses, and spent the next few minutes fumbling in my bag for my normal specs. She made mention of my health issues (hrrmm...could the medi-alert necklace around my neck have tipped you off?) But other than those two very obvious observations...erm... I mean psychic feelings, a lot of what she said was pretty spot on. Well, at least, she seemed to be in agreement with a lot of the things my therapist (D) has mentioned. She said I needed to focus on respecting myself, and deciding what other people do and do not deserve from me, rather than allowing other people to make those decisions. To have confidence in my own choices. And to let go of the pain from the past that no longer served me. I needed to stop being so cautious and allow my 'cheeky, daring, inner child' to explore. She said that I was at a place in my life of transformation.

Ultimately it was really, not that much different from the average therapy session. The only difference being that I didn't say a word, or nod, or shake my head for the whole session. It kind of made me wonder how many of the mini-epiphanies I have experienced in therapy are due to the therapeutic process... and how much of it is just having a therapist who is as skilled as this clairvoyant and reading body language and other pragmatic cues.

I guess the other option is that this lady was really psychic. The one thing that did really creep me out was the fact that she kept mentioning snakes. Snakes (spare me your dream interpretations please) form a very strong part of a recurrent, very frightening nightmare that I have about the abuse in my past. I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons why snakes are in there symbolically. And when I went into hallucinations after my overdose, it was hallucinations of snakes crawling all over me, the bed and the room. The psych nurse who was on constants with me at the time later told me she had never seen a heart rate go as high from anxiety as mine did during that episode. Needless to say snakes as a whole terrify me.

The other vision she had was of me smacking my hand with a ruler... that made me laugh on the inside a little. Self reproach is certainly my specialty.

Anyway. I do believe, ultimately what happens in my therapists office is a lot more complicated than that. Afterall $10 for a Tarot reading versus $130 for a therapy session it would have to be, right?