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"What brings you here, Adam?"

The eyes of the twenty-something German Shepard appeared to be pulled down by some hidden force. A weak, shaky breath forced its way out of his mouth. He closed his eyes, opening the passage for several drops of tears. His hands jumped to protect his face. In mere seconds, my patient had become distressed to the extent of visible suffering.

I felt a pang of guilt hit my chest for asking, as I had not expected such a quick reaction. This young man was really upset about something. I'm glad he came to me before attempting to alleviate such gloom in more unhealthy, permanent ways. Stay quiet, Carol. Just stay quiet. Let him have his moment before speaking. You're here to listen, not to make him feel better.

His lungs expanded nearly to full capacity, slowly deflating, though with a few tremors. His hands are coming down. His ears fold back. His eyes are finally looking at mine. He had his moment. We can now begin.

"I'm sorry...it's just really hard. I miss her so much."

He misses her. A woman is involved--a woman no longer within his reach for comfort. As tempting as it is to put the rest of his story together, I must remain impartial. Objectivity and active listening trumps most methods of extracting information from such distressed furmans. Don't assume, Carol, just wait a bit longer. Just wait...let him continue.

"I was recently dumped by my girlfriend--dumped by text message."

Ha! Knew it. Heart-break, a favorite among youngsters. And by text message, woof! She must be quite the bitch. And cue the rimshot! Hahaha! Ugh, stop it, Carol! Be serious. Don't make fun of him. He's really hurt and he's looking right at me. He'll see through me if I don't stop laughing internally. Damn non-verbal communication. Just stay quiet.

"It's been about a month, now, and it's been getting worse. I miss her more, and more, every day. She's all I can think about, anymore. Everywhere I look, I see her, somehow. I miss what we had, and, uh, though I know it's better to let go and move on, I can't. I want to, but at the same time, I wonder if she just needs some time away from me before we try again. I feel like we can make it work--no, I should let her go--but, no--uh, I, uh...I don't know what to do."

Shit, another complicated canine. Doesn't know what he wants. Wait, his hands...he has his hands interlocked, and he's softly squeezing one hand with another...gently caressing the back of his hand with a finger. He's subconsciously compensating for physical loss. His tail is also in his hands. Slight fidgeting and picking at the bit of molting hairs--nervous tick. Nervousness. Emptiness. Immediate reaction to normal introduction. He's been through this, before. He knows the routine. Hell, he even admits his awareness to his best course of action, yet there's ambivalence. He wants to move on and knows it's what is best for him, yet there is some tidbit of information I'm missing that is causing him to become confused.

The mental distress from heart-break is merely the catalyst for this young man's pain, but now that the pain has started, there's something else that continues to make it escalate, as he mentioned that it's been getting worse over the previous time estimate of thirty days. Something's missing...but I must keep quiet. Wait, Carol...just wait...he'll reveal enough hints to make it obvious enough for me to properly diagnosis his symptoms. Keep listening. I know he's looking at me to say something, but he needs to keep talking. He's getting there.

"We've been dating for about a year, though, uh, we had known each other for over six years. I always had an interest in her, but though she was friendly, she seemed to keep a bit of a distance from me while she had dated many guys, back then. Due to grad school, she became really reclusive and avoided contact from everybody, including me--this was around Year Two of knowing each other. Uh, anyways, I always tried to make myself available, and whenever she did acknowledge me, her responses were always warm. Then, after graduation, she moved away for several years after finding a job. She started ignoring all of my messages on Facelog."

Facelog...the successor of MyNest, as well as the most common source of so much miscommunication and animosity between youngsters lacking social skills, as well as an inhibitor of said necessary skills. Adam must be another case, though he means well. He knew this woman for six years, and in the late adolescent world, this is long enough for him to have developed a deep attachment to her...an attachment that he attempted to nourish. He saw--no, he still sees something in her that makes him want to be with her more than any other woman, hence his ambivalence. A personal investment of six years in one furman is no easy burden to rid of. Still...he's yet to tell me the real reason for his pain. He knew her for a long time, but mentioning that amount of time was said in passing, as if merely factual. There's something else. Patience isn't just a virtue, after all, it's also a medicinal tool in psychology...and a bloody pain in the ass. Carol! Focus!

"Skip to Year Five. She silently moves back into town after changing jobs. I met her by chance in a pharmacy--I was picking up a prescription for my mother--and she was one of the head pharmacists working there. We were both surprised to be seeing each other. It usually takes a few hours to fill a prescription, but upon seeing me, she had it done in under ten minutes. We agreed to meet after work, and we hit it off, instantly. I've...never had such a connection with another girl..."

His breathing is getting heavy. There's a small mound of fur forming between his feet. Damn, he's picking at that thing as if pulling weeds. Quite the bodily landscaper. Now, he's fidgeting his left leg, raising and lowering the heel in small, quick bursts. Subconscious easing of discomfort through micro-movements of routine muscle memory. His breathing has calmed down. He's struggling to tell his story, but he's beginning to open up to me. We're getting closer. Patience...Carol...patience.

"...and the way she talked to me...it was so down to earth. The way she would smile, kiss, hold my hands...there was a sensitivity and gentleness in how she would display affection that was so damn magnetic. She made me feel special. She was beautiful, warm, gentle, and so loving..."

Tears. Eyes peering towards the floor. Fidgeting with his tail more actively. Running for Body Landscaper of the Year, by now, with that small fur mound getting taller. Discomfort and self-confidence is plummeting. Ears folded back as if stapled to his skull. He's breaking in front of me. Though a lesser feline would take the opportunity to call this boy a loser and call it a day, doing so won't keep fish on my table. Fish, or whatever stereotypical food felines consume. I need to quiet my inner monologue and wait. Just wait a few minutes more, Carol.

"...I often felt I had found The One. She once told me that she had never wanted pups, and after several months of dating, she told me she wanted to have pups with me, and that it was the first time she felt this way with anyone. When we started having sex, I started really falling for her. Wanting her for so long, then suddenly having her all to myself...it was a dream come true...it was...it was a dream. Then..."

Already, he's the two-time body landscaper champion. Fucker's pulled out so many hairs that it's beginning to block my view of him. They could use that fur mound as an organic T-ball plate with how high it is. I have my own personal Mount Everest in my office. Mount Furrest. And he's drilling a hole into my carpet with that foot fidgeting. Look that thing go! Drilling through the earth like a pro! By the end of this session, I will have a mountain and secret passage to China in my office. Groovy. Ugh, Carol! Knock it off! Focus! You're almost there. Almost...

"...she started talking about her past. She suffered a lot during her childhood. Her father was never there for her, she was always bullied, called ugly, and abused during her school days. She was even raped in her last year of middle school. No one cared for her nor gave her attention. Her mother didn't know how to help her, and would often beat her for not defending herself, as if beating her would teach her daughter how to become a stronger furman, though it only made matters worse, and was the leading cause of her depression."

Daddy issues and a dark past: a common theme of the standard whore with damaged goods...tsk tsk tsk, hahaha! Carol, what the fuck! Stop it! You're getting closer. Just stay quiet a bit longer and he'll reveal the inner core of all his pain. Patience, you insensitive feline. Patience!

"After revealing all of this, she gradually started acting differently. She would begin to cry for no apparent reason. She would start saying mean things to me whenever we disagreed on something, even if it was something insignificant, only to apologize over, and over, afterwards. She stopped her habit of hiding her depression since she felt comfortable enough with me, as well as since I was the first man that she felt she could be herself with. Hearing such negative things and having to deal with sad thoughts every day was beginning to take a toll on me. I was no longer as happy as before. Over time, I started resenting her for making me become negative, and I started becoming avoidive of her."

I can almost taste it. We're right outside the gate of epiphany. Poor boy. He meant well and had to suffer through such emotions unequipped. Reminds me of the lesson a former superior of mine had told me since falling in love with our own patients was more common of a problem than us doctoral graduates had realized. Of course, when such cases would occur, we would have to notify our superior so that we could be counseled, ourselves, in order to get rid of these little infatuations. We were trained to handle such cases of depression--to target, dig up, and display the deeper reason for one's sadness and pain.

He loved his woman, and upon learning of her troubled past, he wanted to be her knight in shining armor, so to speak. This boy was trying to do the same thing as us newly-made psychologists were professionally trained and prepared to handle, yet, due to his inexperience in handling such cases, his infatuation grew into something more.

He wanted to be her hero, but his desire to meet this need would cost him his happiness, as furmans with depression are selfish beings--they take more than they give, leaving others empty, though it's not their intention, as they just want peace from their irrational, constant sadness. Her verbal hostility is a mere symptom of her unending fear that is of her depression.

He gave so much of himself that when he needed something in return, she failed to fulfill those needs, causing him to resent her, thus causing him to not want to be around her. Despite this wealth of information I have unearthed, there's something more to this. I know it. Wait...

"I became distant. She then became the one to pursue me while I was more content when she wasn't by my side. We kinda switched roles. I would do my own thing while she would be trying to reach out to me. It was during this phase in our relationship that I realized that it wasn't going to work, and the day that I realized this, I cried so much. I cried more than the day she dumped me, actually. I didn't want to believe she wasn't the one for me, but I knew it, deep down. I knew I had to break up with her right away, but I couldn't. She was beautiful. She was sweet to me in a way no other girl had ever been. She would tell me how I made her the happiest girl in the world. When I realized all this, my love for her went away, but I couldn't let her go. I held on and wanted to keep this relationship alive..."

Bulls-eye. Damn, this boy went through much emotional turmoil, but...huh...he wanted to be there for her, despite not loving her. Hmm...interesting. He held on and wanted to keep it going, despite not loving her. He became distant and avoidive of her, yet it hurt him when she dumped him. The heart-break is getting worse instead of better, even though he knew it wouldn't work out. He wonders if she's the one for him, despite knowing the answer, already.

These facts don't sit well with me. Why would he be hurt by her leaving him when he wanted to leave her in the first place? Huh...he said she was sweet to him in a way no other girl had been. Oh, shit...shit, shit, shit, that must be it. So, by dating her...he would receive that sweetness and gentleness he wouldn't get from another furman, thus...helping himself. He became dependent on her, which was indicated by his wanting to keep the relationship alive, despite knowing that it wouldn't work. She became a coping mechanism for him, as it's apparent by his low self-esteem and insecurity indicated by his non-verbal cues of holding his own hand, fidgeting with his tail, creating the organic Mount Everest, building my future vacation route to China with his foot drill, as well as his eyes moving from mine to the floor, from time to time. It's starting to make sense.

Though he didn't love her, he still needed her in order to cope with his own personal battles. He wanted to keep her at a distance, yet just close enough to still be able to seek out comfort from her, as indicated by how he has more than once stated how she was sweet to him in a way no other girl had been. When she dumped him, he lost his personal coping mechanism, and since they had been dating for so long, he's now having to fight his personal battles on his own, which is difficult for him since he had forgotten how to fight them, alone. Sure, he might miss her company and the bouts of sex they would share, but his real loss was the loss of his deep, personal attachment that served as a distraction from his own weaknesses. Bingo. Now, I can finally get word in. Be gentle, Carol. He's still hurt from this. And I'm sure he wants to enjoy his recent body landscaping championships. Fidgeting fucker.

"Adam, I would like to stop you for a moment. It seems that you already knew what was the best course of action, yet what is interesting is that you held onto something that you were well aware should have ended. Despite the distance you had built up and despite wanting to leave her, you were still hurt when she was the one to leave you. Adam, you are not hurting because you lost her. You are hurting because you now have to handle your problems on your own."

The young dog gave me such a puzzled face. I felt like I had just made his frisbee disappear. Or like I made a really weird sound effect that makes dogs like him twist their face in odd angles. Damn lapdog. Carol! Be serious! Fuck, I just felt my lips curl. He's frowning. Shit, I hope he didn't notice.

"Are you smiling? Do you think this is funny?"

Son of a bitch. Nice going, you insensitive alley cat. Ugh, so annoying when my inner thoughts seep out of my body's guard. Non-verbal communication has to conveniently make up to 90% of furman communication. At least he stopped fidgeting and sounding like a pansy. Too bad I won't get to enjoy my secret China vacation. Heh. Whelp...time for the ol' switcheroo.

"I'm smiling because I find it a bit sweet, what you did. You wanted to be her knight in shining armor. You wanted to be her hero. You meant well. You're a good, thoughtful man, and I know you will make a girl really happy, one day."

Is he blushing? Fuck, what a softie. I defused that so damn fast that one might think I worked in the bomb squad before becoming a full-time psychologist. Such a moldable male. Whip material. The only type of girl he would make happy would be a dominatrix. Pfft. Ugh, we're running out of time. I know I can knock this one out of the park before closing. Carol's got this. And...go.

"But, Adam, the whole time you were speaking, I noticed that you were fidgeting quite a bit. You were grabbing at your own hand as if it were hers, you were jumping your leg up and down like you were the drummer of Mayhem, and you were picking at the hairs at the end of your tail so much that I could knit a quilt from the fur on my floor."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I..."

"I'm teasing. Maybe a mitten is more accurate, but that's besides the point. Adam, while you were telling the story, you gave me many signs of insecurity and self-doubt. By holding onto this relationship that you knew was not going to work, you were actually holding onto the one person who was capable of alleviating your own pain and suffering. You lack much self-confidence and self-esteem, and this was evident when you kept her around rather than seeking comfort by being alone. You needed her...not for love...but for coping with your own problems. This, my dear, is the reason why you're hurting so much. You lost your coping tool. This wasn't love. This was a combination of infatuation and using her to distract yourself from your own personal battles. Now that she's gone, so is your protection from yourself."

The same force that made him look down, earlier, seemed to come back. I got through to him. Now, his tail is behind his back, his leg is no longer moving, and his hands are now by his knees. I just saved my carpet's life, you know, if you ignore the gazillion coffee stains. Whatever. This is progress. Now, for the kill.

"Adam, you're a good boy, you're handsome, and you're young. You have much to learn. Before ever helping someone else, be sure to help yourself, first. Don't offer counseling if you're not professionally trained to handle difficult cases. You know, in my practice, if a family member comes to me for counseling, I immediately refer them to someone else, because it's impossible to objectively administer therapy to someone you deeply care for, especially those that you love. You're not a psychologist, so don't play as one."

Wow, the boy is sitting up straight, hands on the armrests, and his ears are even upright. Ah, he's finally beginning to man-up. Nicely done, Carol. Well, what can I say? You know all them boys love pussy...cats. Ugh, I'm such a dog. I really need to stop this pun shit. Focus, Carol! Your patient is speaking!

"Okay, so I have a self-esteem issue. How do I fix it?"

Got him. Asking for advice, already. I'm too good at this.

"Now, what you need to do is start reflecting on your own life and ask yourself questions. 'What makes me feel insecure?' 'Why do I lack confidence in myself?' Consider writing reasons for each of these and similar questions and answer them. Positive answers, of course. Make it a habit to write down any negative thoughts that come to you, and try to reason out why you thought them, and if they are even accurate. This is called Cognitive Behavior Therapy. It's important that you write everything down, as it's not effective to perform these coping techniques in your head. Over time, you will come to understand why, you will be better prepared for negative thoughts, and you will be better able to overcome them."

The German Shepard finally looked back up at me, nodding slowly. Looking better, already. Damn, I'm too, too good. Another one-session K.O. The crowd goes wild. Where's my championship belt? Oh, that's right, the sad fuck has the championship belt for his body landscaping. Carol! Calm your tits! He's not out of your office, just yet. Shit, he's going to say something.

"You're right, uh, I didn't realize I was dependent on her, like that. Uh...wow. So, I was just using her to forget my own issues. Wow."

Time's up. If only I had a ball to throw so I can get him out of here, sooner.

"And that's okay...at least you know, now."

"Yes, I do. Wow, I never would have thought..."

Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I get it. You're a loser, boo-hoo. Time go to, kiddo.

"It happens, but now that you know, and that you now have a method for handling such negative thoughts, you can begin to improve your self-confidence and belief in yourself."

"Yes, and I will. It's just such a shock--"

Five minutes past the official time that the session ended, already. He's feeling better and he knows what to do. He has got to go.

"Adam."

"Yes?"

"Do you want me to starve?"

"Uh..no...why?"

"I have more patients and you're cutting into their time, which gives me less time for patients, which gives me less payments, which gives me less money, which gives me less food. I'm afraid it's time for you to leave."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"It's okay. Thank you for stopping by."

"And thank you for helping me."

I'm going to kill him.

"You're welcome. Take care."

"You, too, Dr. Tanner."

"Thank you."

"And I would also like to thank you for--"

He's done.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"

And now, he's gone. Ah, another successful session of preventative sociopath development. I think he was starting to see me as another personal attachment. Ugh, no, thank you. Go to Eve for that. Oh, there's my receptionist at the door. Damn mutt took so much of my time that I didn't get to ask for my next patient. She's such a lifesaver.

"Dr. Tanner?"

"Yes?"

"I have your next patient ready."

"Send her in, please. Thank you."

So, that's 1-0 for the good pussy doctor. Let's see if we can go for 2-0. There's my next patient. Ah, a young skunk girl. And she brought her doll, how adora--what the...is that a puppet? Why does she have a puppet with her? Huh, maybe it's just a recreational trinket for personal comfort and entertainment while outside the comforts of home. Typical among infants. Nothing unusual...

"Why, hello, young lady! It's a pleasure to meet you! My name is Dr. Carol Tanner, but feel free to call me Carol! Now, what is your name?"

"Hi, I'm Pamela, and this is my friend, Puppeta."

What. The. Fuck. I am too old for this shit. Now, one might think that such a response was rather normal and devoid of any sort of indication of psychopathy, but one would be quite bloody wrong.

"Hello, Pamela and Puppeta. Welcome! So, what brings you here?"

"Hey, I'm over here! That's Puppeta. She can't talk, she's just a puppet!"

"Right..."

The stinky little fuck thinks she's the puppet. Fuck me. So much for 2-0.

Welcome to the world of psychology.