Wizard of Oz, MD

"It is common for an analysand (the patient) to say that the [psycho]analyst is the most important person in his life. When I was in therapy, I thought of this attachment as the "Wizard of Oz" phenomenon. For me, my therapist became a floating head that accompanied me everywhere, with whom I had conversations that extended way past my sessions, late and night and early in the morning. Psychoanalysts often explain these intense feelings as the reenactment of childhood experiences, but they probably owe their intensity to the weird asymmetry of the therapeutic relationship… Therapy, when it is working well, is a powerful, intimate experience. … Their therapist can be their personal, sacred, perfect source of wisdom." (Of Two Minds, 104)

Can you smell the seductive scent of power? You too can be someone's personal Wizard of Oz! It is very sobering to think about the power one person gives to another. Why do we allow people to have such strong influence in our lives? And this really is not only psychiatrists, but extends to teachers, pastors, mentors, role models… Heck, if David Powlison told me that he really didn't I wasn't cut out for counseling, I'd probably drop everything and be a dermatologist or a pastry chef instead.

I think we're all hoping that someone has the answer. It might take a lot of looking under rocks and finding dirt, but we all cling to the hope that someone out there can fix us and all our problems. There's someone out there can understand us truly , can figure out why we seem to get stuck in the same muck, who can speak just the right words that will free us from the spell and hand us the key to life, love, and happiness. I want to believe that there's that perfect counselor out there, somewhere. (Cue Fivel: Somewhere, out there, beneath the big blue skkkyyyy…..)

We're built for worship, as David Powlison and his colleagues at CCEF say, and so we're primed to look for heroes to turn into our gods. And that's the danger of being a psychiatrist - that you could have that much power over a person. The mystique is only increased by the asymmetrical relationship, and you can read the silence of the psychiatrist as the deep brooding of an oracle of truth.

Yet what can be done about this? How do we counteract the tendency towards savior-complex and hero-worship? Jay Adams' solution was through biblical counselors sharing how they worked through any similar struggles, through being honest as a sinner before another sinner. He also proposed interchangeable counselors, so that a patient would come not to depend on having a particular counselor for help, but begin to look to God.

The latter solution doesn't look particularly workable in the psychiatry framework. But how about the former? Some of the best counsel I have received from my mom is when she's shared stories of her related struggle, and how she moves past that. And I think part of its effectiveness is because I start to recognize that I am not the first and only one to struggle with a particular issue, (say, of rejection) , and it gives me a door outside of my prison cell of self-centered thought, to caring and thinking about other people, and recognizing the same symptoms in others.

So what will be the consequence of handing this power to psychiatry? The ideas of psychiatry inevitably trickle down and wash culture in a bath of theories of the unconscious and guilt and self… What will be the consequence of giving psychiatry the throne of God?