I generally admire psychologists who work with children. I remember debating with my university companions about it and declaring that it felt like it was double the work. The professional not only has to try and extract a sense of what is going on with the brat in a mind that is too elastic, but also the little creatures have to be entertained! At least we don’t have to explain to the kid that it has an obsessive-compulsive disorder. That, we inform the parents.
And then there’s adolescents. Those are a real piece of work. Depending on the mood, the results we can mine for in the whimsical tunnels of their minds. I have only had one teen patient. And that was enough. She was in her late teens, in truth, and the only way I accepted having her on the couch was because her grandfather was an old friend of my mother. So, one afternoon, in came to my office nineteen-year-old Camila Suarez, accompanied by her father.
The girl remained silent while her dad profusely thanked me for my time and reported what a good reputation I had with my mother’s friend. I brushed the gratitude and the compliments away and invited them to sit down. I waited idly until either the man or the girl decided to jump-start the conversation and inform me what was going on. “You see, Licenciado, my daughter is passing through what I believe is a ridiculous phase. She’s begun dating.” I looked in disbelief. Surely this was not the issue at hand. I pressed by way of awkward silence. Camila just looked out through the window, deliberately ignoring her old man. “But she’s not dating men or women”. Now we’re talking, I thought. What could she possibly be dating? Dogs? Cats? I verbalised my intrigue. The response was that she was dating cars.
I wondered if he was oversimplifying things. I asked if he meant that Camila was dating certain men because they owned certain cars. The lass suddenly lit up. According to her, no, she didn’t go for the men, or women behind the wheel, but for the vehicles themselves. She found herself attracted to them. The father looked at me desperately. I could see he was not being able to handle this. I couldn’t quite blame him either. The whole thing felt too outlandish as if it were a deliberate ploy to humiliate her parents. I could not dismiss that hypothesis.
I switched gears, trying to get to the bottom of it, and asked the pertinent “Why?”. She explained that she found cars to be the ultimate companion for a young lady. They had none of the problems humans brought with them. They were mechanical, of course, and therefore had no feelings other than the emotion they could transmit through their eye-like headlights or their colour. That certainly piqued my interest. We’ve all played that game with cars when younger. But, here, it was not a game. I asked her to further her point. She giddily remarked how the family’s silver Renault Megáne, which was a “he” apparently, had a bit of a naughty, impertinent yet elegant look. Such elegance was, as she detailed, provided by the colour. The Renault had “a French James Bond seductive attitude”.
Camila waited outside while I spoke to her father. I told him of my two theories. For one, it was all a long con. On the other hand, maybe she was delusional. Either way, I’d treat her. Dejected, he said he’d bring her again next week.
© Roger Garrett 2023-08-09