HAIL TO THE CHIEFS

Come listen colleagues, while I relate
A story that we can celebrate;
It all began with Sigmund Freud,
A man who thoroughly annoyed
The doctors of his time and place
Because he told them to their face
That all their patients, nervous wrecks,
Were suffering from screwed-up sex.

Instead of chasing cute young yummies,
Men were dreaming of their mommies,
And women, picking up the fad,
Were making plays for dear old dad.
So though it sounds like Greek to us,
Freud said, "Zeir problem iss Oedipus!"
"I'll cure zem," he vowed "And to sveeten ze bargain,
I'll srow in zum high-cless fency jargon."

Repression, regression, reaction formation,
Denial, avoidance, and rationalization,
Projection, undoing, and compensation,
Acting out and sublimation:
If it weren't for Freud, where would we be,
When it comes to talking about you and me?

And then along came C.G. Jung,
Whose sensibilities were stoong
To the very core by people's problems,
Because he believed they were caused by goblins
And other strange creatures whose eerie screams
Resounded through nightmarish dreams
In which ancient gods and demons battled
Until the dreamer's brains were rattled.

"To explain it," said Jung, sitting back on his haunches
"I sink I'll invent ze collective unconscious.
I know my momma vill be overchoyed
If I can manetch to top old Frued."
No sooner said, of course, than done,
And then he added, one by one,
The thoughts that were to make us sure
That he was deep, or at least obscure.

Anima, animus, shadow, and Self,
The fairy realm of witch and elf,
Introvert, extrovert, archetype:
For terms like these the world was ripe,
And riper it grows and that's no maybe-
We've really come a long way, baby!

Meanwhile, on the ranch, our own Carl Rodgers
Had devised a system by which old codgers
And young snippets too could gain relief
Without any odd European belief
In archetypes or Oedipus--
In other worlds, with little fuss,
Less muss, no depth, and far fewer riddles,
We all could become as fit as fiddles.

Carl called his therapy nondirective,
Then directed to his students to be reflective.
"Not in terms of thinking," he told his hearers,
"But in terms of acting like plate-glass mirrors."
Repeat, repeat what your clients say;
That's counseling in the Rogerian way.
It was later found, in a study by Garrett,
That Rogers was really a green-breasted parrot.

Nevertheless, to his great credit,
He gave us easy words to edit.
Client-centered, open, and trust,
Becoming, process, is all we must
Learn to earn (and it's not hard)
Carl Roger's positive regard.

That brings us round to Frederick Perls,
Whose penchant for pinching the bottoms of girls,
Made lechery a therapeutic style
And encouraged those shrinks who know what's worthwhile
To develop it into an art of their own,
An art that the world had never known--
For where has there ever before been a doctor
Who charged his patient while he foctor?

"I do my sing and you do yours!"
Snickered Perls, addressing the freaked-out boors
Who sat at his feet, devouring blintzes.
"Loose your mind and come to your sintzes!"
They nodded, they swayed in perfect rhythm
To let him known that they were with'm.
"Effery act iss natural, including sodomy!"
They rose in unison, chanting "Autonomy!"

Despite nasty rumors, Fritz was not too far gone
To engage in the game of inventing jar-gone.
He called his treatment style Gestalt
And won the prize (not by default)
For being the most authentic conner
In the here and now -- which is quite an honor.

Finally, though, we have B. F. Skinner.
No doubt about it; he's the winner.
His cunning methods of shaping behavior
Have qualified Him as the latest Saviour.
While He explains human motivation
As well as a pigeon explains The Creation,
He has won the unqualified endorsement
Of S*C*I*E*N*C*E* for naming reinforcement.

The be-all and end-all of everything--
What Kant might have called Das Dingaling-
An-Sich. Besides which, He wrote Walden Two,
Which gives Him edge over me and you.
So even if He cannot tolerate
To see a patient, we nominate
Him titular head of Behavior Mod,
The therapy that's next to God.

Desensitization and reconditioning,
Operant, classical, now He's petitioning
To be anointed in a hurry.
But never fear; we need not worry.
When Skinner is crowned King of Dreams (or REMS),
We'll all be rewarded with M&Ms.

There are others, of course, but these are our heroes,
And while some may say they're a bunch of zeroes,
I submit that their therapeutic preachments
Deserve neither censure nor impeachments.
Man (and woman) kind might not be worse off without them,
But the most magnificent thing about them
Is the fact that they labored without misgiving
So that you and I could make a living.