Putting the Nation in therapy….first session.

After an evening and morning of simmering over the recent political debacle, I have decided to approach the issues facing our nation in a different light. I’m taking advantage of all the money I’ve spent on a Masters in Social Work degree and applying known-effective counseling techniques to our current dilemmas.  If it works for the individual, maybe…just maybe…..it can work for the country as a single unit. Regardless, things can’t get any worse, right?

Using Solution-Focused Therapy, or SFT, the client looks at where they want to be and then plots out the changes needed to get there. You find a solution, and then you do what you have to do to reach it.  SFT is my favorite therapy to use because – to me – it has a lot of benefits as you use it, not just once you’ve finished it. The outcome is clearly defined and obtainable, which makes deciding which changes to make easier. Once those changes are decided upon it’s easy to measure progress as you go, which provides a sense of accomplishment. Furthermore, like I mentioned before, in most cases there are immediate benefits to those changes even before the final solution has been accomplished.  So, treating the country as an individual, where do we want to be when we finish therapy?

Hmmm……. gainfully employed with a stable financial future and a happy family. Sounds good.

So, again, pretending the country is an individual, what are the problems preventing us from reaching our solution?

• Employment issues.  Work is complicated.  We have a boss and the boss is directed by two different boards of directors, each board works with a different set of ethics and values, which sometimes leads to a complete and total shutdown of productivity.  It’s difficult for us to tell who is in charge sometimes because both the boss and the two different boards make deals with other agencies that include promises and cash flow that usually benefits the other agencies rather than our employees. This basically creates an upper-level system of marketing and commerce solely benefiting the upper level but being funded by the employees, resulting in gross amounts of income for those upper-level members while most of our employees are filing for welfare. Speaking of our employees…..most of them are twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do and no money to earn because their work is either tied up in unions (included in the aforementioned “other agencies”), outsourced overseas, or eliminated through automation/technology.
• Dependents. Deadbeat kids who are demanding specialized treatment because they’re adopted. Deadbeat kids who are our own but are demanding that we “take care of them” for no other reason than that we can. We love our kids so they shouldn’t have to work, right?
• Greedy neighbors. We have trade agreements worked out with our neighbors because they have something we need and we have something they need. However, trade is no longer fair because now our neighbors want 15x for their item as we want for ours. Furthermore, this neighbor only charges a fraction of this cost to their own family members. That doesn’t sound fair.
• High debt load. It’s happened to everybody….went on a spending spree and racked up too much credit card debt. Trouble is, we’re so fiscally irresponsible that we borrow money to pay for our borrowed money. If we don’t get into a debt management system soon we’re going to be forced to file for bankruptcy.
• Family mayhem. Our house has a standing set of rules which each family member has interpreted to their own benefit, resulting in a great rift between family members over whose interpretation is the right one. This situation is complicated by peer pressure from overbearing and influential friends who want to see a particular interpretation come to fruition for their own selfish benefit.

Okay, so we have 5 major areas we need to work on. For a first session, we’ve made wonderful progress in identifying our problem(s). Now we can begin to develop solutions….in our next session.