Everyone has an opinion.

     One day when I was rushing off to a meeting, I asked a professor who was walking past me if he was going to the same meeting.  He replied,"No.  Everyone has an opinion!"   I laughed it off, chuckling how right he was.  It appears nowadays that everyone has meetings and then sub-meetings and then more meetings about the same thing.  Everyone does have an opinion and often it clashes with someone opposing it.  So who is right?  Is there a right and wrong way of thinking?  How does one know, if one is off track?  Look at politics, religion and views about sex.  Are these three little words not something that people are often informed at important social gatherings not to discuss because it may cause disturbances?  I like breaking rules and so I always talk about what I like, because I believe in democracy.  I would have already been killed in some countries where men with big egos and very little else run rampant silencing those much smarter than they could dream of being.  I am not going to even mention the Taliban.  I shall leave that for another time.  Please leave my head intact, sir.  Me needs it, me thinks.  Anyhow, I suppose I am a bit annoyed because there is an opinion and then there is an informed opinion.  I had a young woman once remark that a psychotherapist from the States had made an opinion about what she thought  regarding an issue in her field. This young woman without any training whatsoever stood firm in her uninformed opinion about something that actually is common knowledge but not known to her because of her lack of training.  I was amazed and stunned, into silence.  It was not because she did not know.  That is always forgiving.  We cannot know everything because there is just toooooo much.  Something as simple as one and one, is two, became three to her.  Her argument simply an anology which did not apply to her.
      Sometimes people become more bold and think they know the answers to people's problems and it is no laughing matter.  They demean others giving them diagnostic labels and telling them how they can be cured.  I have a low tolerance for such labels and the damage it does when not diagnosed by one with the proper training.  In my undergrad, I learned in Personality Psychology that it was called "naive psychology".
     I was annoyed by someone who told me that homosexuality is wrong and that I as a Catholic should "cure" them.  I replied that I was raised in a homophobic home, and understood her "phobia" (I did not call it that).  I also knew that it was removed from the DSM because of pressure from the gay community (she referred to a psychotherapist from the States using that as an example that homosexuality is wrong) which surprised me because that would be unethical here (bashing that is).  I informed her that I attended a workshop for counselling gay people in the Catholic Church and they are to be treated with respect (like anyone else) according to the Catechism. They also have masses for the gay community at Our Lady of Lourdes.   I also continued that there are difference due to research and continued that gay men as women use both sides of the brain in the same way.  I am no expert in homosexuality and have no interest in specializing.  I enjoy counselling everyone regardless of the issue.  I enjoy helping all people and keeping up with the data to help them.  Initially, I thought I would not counsel drug addicts, nor pedophiles but I have changed my mind.  Keep in mind that I have a duty to report.   After my studies and because I am worth it,  I will be more restrictive with probono or sliding scales.  I too need to pay off student debt, etc.....   Am I venting today?
     Last night I had a dear friend bring me an art piece and then he informed me how the clients will see it because he wanted me to hang it on my office wall.  What he was doing is called "projection".  Because he viewed his piece of art as brokenous and a hope for a better future, he believed that clients would see it as such, and that I should inform them as such.  As he spoke, I began to see his art as depressing and told him that I would hang it up for a while and depending on any feedback I receive remove it if it caused a negative result.  I was annoyed once again that someone had the adaucity to even suggest what I should say to any client.  Even though I respect this man, he is not a therapist.   He placed it on my mantel and asked me to just look at it.  This morning I was eating a blueberry toasted bagel before going off to start a day and I looked up at the mantel and remembered his painting as it stared back at me.  What I saw was a tired looking cabin (which I would live in by the ocean) surrounded by trees and flowers.  The flowers were bright in colour and as I continued to look at the picture more carefully with my untrained eye,  I thought of the contrast of nature which is so beautiful even in its chaos than anything we can build.  I saw God vs man.  I saw love and beauty.  I saw no brokenous.  I cringe when I hear that a person is broken, by someone who has no idea what that means.  We live in a world full of wars (I was told in a social science class once that there were 22 in any given time), full of poverty, full of extemes.  I also believe that we don't have to live this way, though my remedy may not be considered very social.  After all, that is my uninformed opinion in areas I know not too much about.  But what the heck.  Who am I to be different than anyone else?  What do you think?  And for people out there, MYOB.