I, like Tom Cruise,(yes, I had to bring it up one more time) happen to also hold a dim view of psychiatry as it's practiced today.  It's all about psychopharmacology.  I am not talking about someone in crisis (eh hem, Britney) or someone born without certain chemicals in the brain that help this function properly. 

I'm talking about the everyday guy or gal with one little boohoo or some insomnia and out comes the prescription pad.  It doesn't matter why you're sad, depressed or having trouble sleeping.  Take this pill and let me know if it works.  If not, I'll give you more!

I walk around NYC in the morning and count how many people wandering around trying to pretend that their little medication coctail they took before bed has worn off.  They move like they're walking underwater with that glazed, zombie look in their eyes. 

Even if you find a psychiatrist that still has talking sessions, most allow the patient to direct the flow of conversation.  Little good that does when the mind and emotions are very skilled at avoiding the pain of confronting it's demons.  Many of those demons stem from events that happened in your life many moons ago.  I know, I know. Your parents didn't hug you enough.

Tom Cuise (oops! There I go again) is right about one thing.  He says easy or hard you have to do the right thing.  Sometimes doing what's best for you or others can be extremely difficult. 

The pill pushing psychopharmacologists are right too, it doesn't matter why this and that is happening.  They just want it to stop but medication is rarely the answer.  Sometimes you just (and this is by no means easy to do) have to let it go. 

For example, I won't get into my childhood here but at some point I just had to say okay, let's just pack this crap up and stick it way back here in the dark corners of my mind and just f**k it.  That's the way things were but that's not the way things are now so no need rehashing negative feelings that just bring me down.

It's tough to admit that you're not so tough.  So why not cover it up with every negative thing that ever happened to you as a kid. 

Physically, you hate being too cold, too hot, too sore from exercising, too hungry.  Mentally, you hate admitting that you're too scared or adverse to do the work it takes to get the results you're looking for.  So what does the mind do?  It creates an amazing complex web of rationales (excuses) as to why you can't or shouldn't do this or that.

I'm with Dr. Phil on this.  He attacks problems head on.  None of the round-about, "Let's begin when you were a fetus" route. 

His method seems straight forward.  This is you.  Look in the mirror.  This is what's going on in your head.  Acknowledge that your mind and emotions have created a warped reality in order to deal with something bad that happened or something you perceived as bad. 

You know, it's all about how you perceive things.  If for some reason you perceive a nice, sunny day as a bad thing, your mind will form all sorts of rationales to convince you that a nice spring day is the end of the world.

Yes. Most of our parents would be lead out as a chaingang in handcuffs by today's standards. 

Ask to many questions, you got a "Shut your trap" as an answer.  Talk back about how it's your room and you don't have to clean it and you got your bed put in the garage.  My favorite was curse while The Mommy Nazi was brushing your hair and 'CRACK' on the head with the hair brush.  No words, no warning, just bammm!

But guess what? You're a grown up now.  You probably have your own kids (I'm sure you swore you wouldn't raise them the way you were raised, which is why their footprint is probably on your forehead, right now, but's that's another story).

It's time to drop the subject already.  Let it go.  Move on.  Forgive but maybe don't forget.  Back in the day, a parent's job was to keep you alive, fed with a roof over your head.  After that, you're on your own, bub.

Now go look in the mirror and scream, "This is SPARTA!" and smack that ornery teenager with a hairbrush.  He'll thank you for it later.

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At least he didn't say to kick the dog!