From the Top Shelf - Who Needs Psychiatry?

I've found a real gem for you today. It's a letter originally published in Corporal magazine several decades ago, which explains the rather old-fashioned values. It is written by Dr. S. Adams, supposedly a Psychiatrist. Whether it's real or imaginary, I hope you enjoy it.

Dear Sirs:

There are times when honest conscience steps in and takes precedence over smug hypocrisy and I am chronicling one of those incidents today.

Personally, though a practising psychiatrist for over a decade, I have always secretly believed that much of the nonsense about neuroses, repressed libidos, transferences, and all the other so called ailments which we make respectable with elaborate jargon, could be done away with at a single blow... or to be precise a number of blows, with a hairbrush or some similar object to instill proper humility and realisation of elemental facts in the patient.

We have hypochondriacs and frustrated people galore, all of whom pay persons like myself a handsome living to prescribe some cure, all for their mixed up, unsatisfactory lives. They seek a panacea, some magic formula, to make everything alright. They suffer from the stage-struck, self-pitying, self glorification which can well be expressed by Hamlet's neurotic lines; 'The times are out of joint, a cursed spite, that ever I was born to set them right."

They aggrandise their simple feelings into a maudlin set of would-be noble motives. And the simple truth is, so many of them are just downright, but without the fortitude to admit it, masochists.

But let me come back to the real reason for my having written you this letter. Yes I have observed patients' foibles for quite some time and there are times when I am brutally frank with them. Some of them take offence and go to one of my competitors who will coddle them and blow up their egos. Happily, and interestingly, two weeks ago I encountered a patient who at least had the courage to meet my frankness with an equal candour.

She was the spoiled daughter of wealthy parents, now separated. At 23, she was superbly attractive, with flaming red hair, an ivory complexion, oval sensitive features and the figure of a young nymph. Her health was excellent, but she had been visiting my office for clinical diagnosis and consultation for the past six months.

She complained of moodiness, of sudden inexplicable feelings of being unwanted and unneeded. In short, she was feeling very, very sorry for herself.

She tried to fix the blame on her parents, or on an unhappy childhood, although the only unhappy thing about her childhood was that her career-minded and somewhat philandering parents never once had a meeting of minds about her but simply gave in to all her whims and petulance. All she had to do was threaten to throw a tantrum. It's what I call psychological blackmail.

She had been engaged half a dozen times and had broken it off each time, flippantly putting it down to the lack of mature stability on the part of the male who temporarily had infatuated her, with a further claim that all had really been more interested in her money than in her.

She didn't have to work for a living. She was well read, too well in fact, so that she could quite glibly quote me all that a layman knows about Freud and Jung. She loved the sound of her own voice, and made it as poignant as she could, her large blue eyes welling with tears as she lay on the consultation couch, telling me of her childhood dreams, her fears, her current distaste with life and her worry about what was to become of her. Needless to say, each face was presented with the maximum dramatic effect.

One afternoon, when hers was the last appointment, I lit a cigarette and while my red-haired, rich, neurotic young lady was in the full flower of speech, detailing how utterly miserable she was, I interrupted her bluntly and said, "Gerry, if you'll pardon me, I think I could solve your problem and your outlook by one very drastic step, if you had the guts to go through with it."

She eyed me for a long moment, then asked indignantly, "Oh, so now after 6 months treatment you suddenly think you can cure me in one easy lesson, Dr. Adams?"

"I can't 'cure' you, Gerry, and I doubt that anyone can. You have to do that yourself. But what I can do for you is apply a simple, elemental catharsis. Then you just might wake up and smell the coffee!"

"Doctor Adams! You are very sarcastic and vulgar this afternoon," she accused me.

"Guilty as charged," I admitted, "And do you want to know why? Maybe sometimes even a psychiatrist gets human and wants to eat through a whole heap of sham and pretence and fancy sounding verbiage to get right to the heart of a problem."

"Now what's that cute and cryptic remark supposed to mean?" she demanded haughtily as she sat up from the couch, reached into her purse and pulled out a cigarette.

She waited for me to light it, but for once I didn't oblige. Instead I stared coldly at her and continued:

"Gerry, at the risk of alienating you and driving away a very profitable patient, I'm going to tell you what you really need."

"Oh," she tossed her head,confident of herself now, and a slow knowledgeable smile came to her lush mouth. "I know now, Dr. Adams. You are secretly and madly in love with me and if I yield my body to you it will cure all my fixations and whatnots."

"You're so wide of the mark, it's laughable." I said. "And that last remark is just another fine example of the intellectual stupidity which you have trotted out ever since you became my patient."

"Well, I like that! How dare you!" she flared.

"I don't expect you to like it. But it's the truth. To quote an old cliche, the truth always hurts."

"My, my," she taunted. "Aren't we getting just too, too homey and philosophical, Doctor? " She puffed furiously at her cigarette. "Well, if it's not a passionate love session, just what is the magic treatment?"

"A good sound spanking on your bare bottom, my dear girl," I said quietly.

She stared at me in disbelief and then screamed, "What? You're out of your mind!" and rose from her sitting position as if to leave.

"I told you that you didn't have the guts to take the treatment. And I'll bet you, if you leave my office and find another, more hypocritical, psychiatrist who will cater to your pampered illusions of grandeur..." her face was reddening with rage, "...you will wind up a thoroughly frustrated neurotic with nobody who gives a damn about what happens to you except the leeches who make money out of you."

She faced me and she was clearly steaming. Nobody had ever talked to her like that in all her 23 years of cloistered living.

After a long silence she said, "I actually think you're serious."

"Never more so, " I replied. "But you haven't got the guts. You're so busy feeling sorry for yourself and bewailing the lousy tricks life has played on you that you don't take stock of all the good things, like fine health, good looks, a good mind and all the things what would make a decent man happy, and yourself too into the bargain. Instead of getting a job, all you're interested in is the so-called smart repartee with a socialite set that's nothing better than a bunch of egotistical, opinionated snobs."

"How dare you call my friends snobs!"

"Well, you are one yourself, Gerry, and that's why you get along so well."

"Damn you, Dr. Adams, you are going out of your way to be nasty this afternoon."

"Alright, Gerry. You know you're at liberty to cancel all further appointments, and I'll mail you a bill for today's session. No, on second thoughts, I'll contribute this one appointment, gratis, as my good deed for the day."

With this, all the resentment and fury building up in her came to a head and she slapped my face. Then she stamped her foot. Then she screamed a tirade of insults at me, telling me what a brute and vulgar idiot I was, how dare I step out of my professional role in order to make such ridiculous suggestions ...etc.

And then she wound up her hysterical dissertation by giving me another slap. That did it. I truly stepped out of character, and even at the risk of trouble, I caught hold of her wrist deftly, and swung her round as I sat on the couch. A very surprised redhead found herself lying across my lap in the classical position. She started to kick and squirm, insisting I let her up or I'd be sorry.

I clamped my right leg over her silk-sheathed calves, and swiftly used both hands to tug up her skirt and slip, exposing a superbly spacious, jouncy round pair of buttocks, tightly encased in a white satin panty-girdle. She shrieked vituperative threats at me and reached back to claw at me with her nails. Parrying those with my left hand, I swiftly unfastened the stocking tabs, then put my left palm down on her back and pinned her along the couch while I used my right hand with energetic strength to ruck down her panty-girdle.

That was quite a job considering her furious twists and struggles. My receptionist had left for the day and the office was empty, which encouraged me to disregard her yells and much of her language, which I may add, would have been worth of a truck driver in a freeway tie-up.

At last I had her bare from the waist to the tops of her beige-toned silk hose, and the creamy firmness of her bottom told me she was about to receive her first ever spanking. I sardonically asked her to confirm that this was indeed the case.

She swore at me, and said that it was. But she added that this would be the last time I ever dared to humiliate a patient and that I was going to be hauled into court so fast it would make my head swim.

She redoubled her efforts to get loose, and actually managed to slip down from the couch, remaining clasped between my legs. I reached down, hauled her back up and flung her, none too gently, along the couch, then I gripped both her wrists at the small of her back in my left hand, tightened the pinion of my right leg, and applied the first smack that had ever been visited on Geraldine's snobbishly pampered backside. She yelped with surprise more than pain, and turned her head to regard me with blazing eyes and a very red face.

"Goddam you, stop that and let me up or you'll have your licence taken away for good." she screamed.

"I think it would be a fair exchange, when I have to deal with noisy, profane, spoiled brats like you, young lady," I said. Then I let her see my hand coming down on her other cheek right in the juiciest spot. It was a resounding whack and this time she squealed with considerable feeling.

Without further comment I began to spank her firmly, giving her a cadence of about eight a minute, alternating on the cheeks of her writhing bottom. She fought with all her strength and I was hard put to keep her in position; she tried to fling herself to the right and off the couch, she arched and twisted and wriggled her backside, she tugged her wrists, and she kept looking back over her shoulder, her face redder and redder, eyes ablaze with hatred and anger.

I really laid it on, going after the initial spanks at the summits of her posterior, from the base to the top, then back down again to the tops of her thighs, and followed that pattern until she'd had fifty good hard spanks. Her bottom was a uniformly fiery red, and must have hurt, but she refused to cry, instead she kept crying out furious threats and insisting I let her go or I'd regret it. But her face was twisted and tight with suffering, and her eyes now sparkled with moisture so I knew that real tears were not far away.

"Now I'm ready to hear your apology for all those foul names you called me a while ago" I told her.

"You can go right to Hell, you dirty swine!" she cried and again tried to break loose.

"That's all I needed to know, Gerry," I chuckled. "Now you'll get a REAL spanking." And with that I unbuckled my pants belt with my right hand, keeping a tight rein on her jerking wrists, and, when I had the belt free, I doubled it, lifted it up and ...WHACK!! It slashed down over the summit of her writhing hips.

"Ow!" she yelled, "Stop that! Damn you!"

WHACK! Down it came again.

"Stop that!" she squealed. "I've had enough. Damn you to hell!"

"As long as you can still curse like a trooper instead of pleading like a well bred young woman, you haven't had half enough, Gerry," was all that I would answer, then gave her another hard whack across her fiercely blushing behind.

I resumed her spanking. Slowly now, about five whacks a minute, I laid the belt over her bottom, from the tops of her splendid hips to the tops of her stockings, then returned to the swelling promontories of her burning behind.

Now she began to show that she was far from impervious. Tears had begun to trickle down her red contorted cheeks and her face turned back to me more and more often; each time the belt collided with her burning, angrily crimsoned behind, she flattened herself, then jerked and twisted her hips convulsively from side to side, with a series of sharp cries. Her language was still atrocious, but it was improving slightly with each whack of the belt.

I paused a moment.

"Want to apologise?" I asked gently. Her bottom was twisting and wriggling all by itself, and her breath was hoarse and panting. I heard unmistakable sobs from her, but I determined to be hard hearted and finish what I'd started.

She shook her head defiantly, then buried her face in the couch as if daring me to do my worst.

I did not disappoint. Raising my arm even higher, I brought the belt down in vigorous volleys that swept the doubled leather diagonally across her furiously streaked and swollen buttocks, often visiting her thighs in order to alter the pattern of pain and humiliation. Now her head rolled from side to side, muffled sobs shook her shoulders, and her arms writhed feverishly as I felt her long lovely legs stiffen, then clench, then arch and twist under my over pinning right leg.

I increased the tempo - crack! smack! thwack! The belt fairly rained down , and at last she began to cry without inhibition, like a child, and turning a piteously tearstained, anguished face to me, moaned, "Oh for God's sake, stop, please, please, I beg of you stop. I've had enough! I apologise!"

I suspended operations, freeing my leg over hers. "Very well. You see how easy it is to get what you want when you ask politely?"

She lay there, just weeping as if her heart would break.

Then she tottered to her feet, biting her lips and rubbing her red bottom furiously, facing me and looking deep into my eyes while the tears ran down her lovely face.

"Oooooooh ...you near killed me ...but I needed that, didn't I," she moaned.

"Yes, you did indeed."

Then, to my amazement, she put her arms around my neck and gave me the loveliest kiss of peace a girl ever could and murmured, "Thank you. I think that is going to help me. I feel a lot better already ...even though I'm very sore."

I kissed her tenderly in return and patted her bottom which was very hot, and said, "You'd better let me put some cold towels and cold cream on that for you, Gerry."

"Nope," she said, shaking her head. "I want to feel the lesson just the way you gave it to me or it will be worth nothing at all."

She put her clothes back on and left my office, walking painfully. The next day, she called me at home and asked if I'd take her out to dinner.

Well the upshot is, we're engaged to be married. Gerry playfully insists that if I find any more patients like her that need such drastic 'catharsis' she'll make sure she's present to help me administer them.

I have agreed, adding the stipulation that if, as my wife, she requires more of the same, she will get it even more rigorously.

So I have lost a patient and gained a wife, simply by being honest and letting my conscience be my guide. Perhaps there is a moral here.

Sincerely

Dr. S. Adams

I wonder if the good doctor is taking any new patients.