SPOT ON

PROBLEM SOLVING

[From the casebook of Doctor Spot, Emeritus Professor of Urinology, University of Yonkers]

[Case #352. Olga Volt. Transcript of tape recording, Friday 9 March, 19—]

OV: Tell me, Doctor, why do I always find it so hard to solve my problems? Why do I get this feeling that every attempt to solve a problem only seems to make it worse?

DS: Oh my, Olga, what a condundrum! Tell me, have you got any solutions?

OV: How can I have solutions when I can't solve my problems?

DS: Ahah! Ahah! There you have the crux of the problem. But you also have the solution. Stop thinking about your problem. You think about it so much that you are blind to the possible solution. You see nothing but the situation which is causing the problem. Put the situation behind you. Think about something else. Better still, think about solutions. Any solutions. Make a list. Get a notebook. Then, when you have a problem, look at your solutions and fit one to your problem.

OV: Is that the best advice you can give me?

DS: Listen, for the fee you pay me, you expect good advice? You want good advice, go see a psychotherapist. Go see a lawyer. Better yet, go see that smart-aleck brother-in-law of yours - the one who charges the earth to take wrinkles from one place and put them in another. With chutzpah like that he must have all the answers.

OV: Okay, okay, already. But give me a clue at least.

DS: You want a clue? Listen to Hippocrates: "It is more important to know what sort of a person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has." Thank you. That will be forty dollars, and I'll see you next week. And bring your notebook with you; the notebook with the solution.

[Case #352. Olga Volt. Extract from letter dated Thursday March 18, 19 --]

Dear Doctor Spot,

Enclosed please find cheque for ten dollars. I figure that if I'm not actually visiting you, I'm entitled to a discount.

Herewith a page from my notebook. Please let me know what you think about my solutions. If there's anything wrong with this system, or the money isn't enough - well, that's your problem, and my advice is to remember the words of the hypocrites.

Yours in good health. . .

[Case #352. The solutions of Olga Volt.]

1. Ignore my problem. Tell myself there is no such thing as a problem.

2. Think about the way I see my problem. Keep an open mind about it. Accept that it is going to continue frustrating me, but maybe I can find a new perspective on it.

3. Consider what sort of messages my problem is giving me. Perhaps the problem is not really a problem at all, but a channel for discovering some part of my life that needs investigation, or change, or reframing.

4. Accept my problem. Learn to live with it. Get on with my life. Pay the price for living with it and save forty dollars a week.