Therapist, to what can I compare thee? To a barber, of course!

Barbers sit in their office and wait for their patients to arrive; they rarely do house visits. The patient (or barbee) sits in a nice comfortable chair while the work is done, the barber trimming away the wayward growth and softening the rough edges. Some patients come in for a full work-up, others only have a little bit of shock to shed. And still others have a bad case of the dreads.

A therapist and a barber are similar indeed, though one shaves manes and the other saves brains (or, perhaps, wanes pains). Bear with me.

While we may have our spikes up when facing the world, when at the barber we let our hair down; we let ourselves be seen, bald spots and all. We talk about anything, or about nothing; we may sometimes feel that our time is up sooner than we thought (and sometimes quite the opposite!).

Why the comparison? You may think this exercise a bit of fluffery, but perhaps you too notice that we are so quick to regard the differences in others, and so slow to see the sameness. Make no mistake: there is so much more that is same than is not - between every human being, between every lash, thatch, and ringlet.

The next time you find yourself contrasting another, try recasting that other into a brother; a living, breathing being with the same hopes and dreams and the same secret schemes...even if you play for different teams.

Shimmy Feintuch, LCSW CASAC-G maintains a private practice in Brooklyn, NY, and Washington Heights, NYC, with specialties in addictions and anxiety. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University. Contact: (530) 334-6882 or shimmyfeintuch@gmail.com. 

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