Career Path

My writer friend wants to become a therapist.

She says she was in the grocery store, talking to a homeless man. She says the man had a bottle of wine, a blue nose, and vomit on his hat.

She says she thought about how Writing Professor would handle talking to the blue-nosed man. Writing Professor, thought my friend, would imagine a story told from this man's voice, and would then feel virtuous about talking to him in the grocery store. My friend says a lot of writers she knows would feel like that--good--for talking to the homeless man.

My friend did not feel good for talking to a man with vomit on his hat. My friend couldn't figure how to extricate herself and was being only polite.

But the man said some interesting things.

And this is, for my friend, how narrative and therapy might meet: everyone, she says, should get to tell their own story.

And she would like to help them.