BY STEELE CODDINGTON  |  NOVEMBER 21, 2012

Freud and you ...

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steele coddingtonAfter a highly informative healthcare article last week, exposing at great personal risk explicit details of my gall bladder operation, several gastroenterologists have asked me to lecture on how important the patient’s own efforts are to the success of recuperation. Their medical concern has been the failure of patients to over-come the embarrassment associated with the expelling of air pumped into the area around their gall bladder to facilitate removal. To avoid tedious repetition of those physical details involving flatulation, any student should read my last printed scientific discourse on that subject.

And that allows me to concentrate on the doctors’ request to expound more fully on the mental strength needed by patients to cope adequately with full recuperation. Because of the complexity of the subject, I drew on the research of Sigmund Freud, and quote his famous 1903 psychiatric observation that recuperation from practically anything, “Is like the game of golf – 90 percent mental and the rest is in your head.” For more detailed information on using your mind to help recuperation, or if you just want to sound half-way intelligent, becoming familiar with Freud is a must.

Knowing words like libido, ego, flatulate, and id is a prerequisite to understanding the mentality involved in recuperation. In fact, using Freudian terms in social situations to strike up conversation is like a voyage on the Santa Maria to the New World. You’re never sure where it will take you. I mistakenly stumbled into a meeting of liberal healthcare officials intent on thinking up lies to explain the excessive costs of Obamacare. Not knowing how liberals greet each other I fell back on Freud’s old psychiatric greeting and introduced myself to the lady next to me – “Hi, show me your libido and I’ll show you mine.” She thanked me profusely and showed me her new I Phone.

But delving into Freud requires care to avoid misconception. After reading a treatise he wrote in Munich entitled, “Eyes and how to find sexual gratification,” many people are afraid to look another person in the eye and will only converse by cell phone. However, no one should worry about developing a phobia just by studying Dr. Freud. He was, after all, a doctor diagnosing mental problems that could originate in gall bladder removal. Heck, you shouldn’t feel strange just because some guy wearing a bow tie winks at you. Or when a woman who is much taller than you asks you to dance. Just enjoy it and try not to suffocate.

Freud had to have a sense of humor, laughing all the way into the bedroom of our minds. But his interpretation of our dreams might indicate he is the one with the phobia. If I were a patient, I’d think twice before telling him I dream of dark chocolate. I’m sure he’d never understand why it’s delivered by a topless woman wearing cowboy boots. And this started after my gall bladder operation.

Well, so much for the mental side of recuperation and Freud. Just don’t worry. Your libido will never disclose anything that is a security risk to your id. Your job is safe.