There's a woman named Sarah White who is conducting so-called therapy sessions in the nude and no one is asking the most important question. Why? And I don't mean the "Why?" that is getting the answer, "Because it helps people (which means men for all intents and purposes) open up and talk more openly about their feelings." I mean, "Why does she feel the need to bare all while she talks to men and call it therapy?"
I get if it if Miss White is hoping to garner her fifteen minutes of fame by making a few laps around the Internet, needs more attention than most 24 year-olds, gets off on the idea that she is desirable (when naked) to complete strangers, likes feeling sexy, powerful and seductive, (because let's face it, they're not showing up for the conversation), or maybe it's something as benign as wanting to be noticed for something and this was the best she could come up with. To her credit, it worked!
She will probably realize when she is a little older that this wasn't such a hot idea. In the meantime, besides looking at why, and despite the media's effort to get to the bottom of it, I think there are still a lot of unanswered questions, such as:
1. What is the therapeutic benefit? She says, "Seeing a naked woman can really help them [men] focus." And my question to that is focus on what? She says it helps her patients, which again happen to be mostly men, (no big surprise there) feel more open and comfortable. So then why would they not also free themselves from the constraints of their own clothing and strip down too?
2. Why disrobe in a strip-tease like fashion? Why not simply start out naked? My best guess is that the tease itself has something to do with it.
3. Most of the sessions are via webcam. Does that mean that she only allows wide shots to ensure her patients don't masturbate? Or does she have a policy that goes something like, "Keep your hands where I can see them?" Or does she come right out with it in a rule that states, "No masturbating." I mean, how does that work?
4. Why does she increase the rate five times to "counsel" patients in person? What changes?
5. What if she were unattractive? (She is not.) Would this therapy model work? Would her clients then be mostly women? Would men have any interest in her for her brains, counseling techniques and non-naked therapeutic abilities?
6. How does body language factor in? Crossed legs? Open? Any non-verbal communications expert will tell you that crossing is a no-no. So, um....
7. She says she has nothing to hide. Well yeah, physically that appears to be the case. But psychologically and/or emotionally, I don't think that's true.
8. When they're talking, do they discuss her nakedness, or make pretend that she is sitting there with clothes on? Ironically, to ignore it would likely fall under "denial," maybe "delusion," and to engage in a conversation about it is apt to land them squarely in the soft porn category. Worlds apart, indeed. The point being that neither helps the patient who is serious about growing, healing and improving. Yet, in the end, isn't that what therapists are supposed to want for their patients?
9. She talks about "power through arousal." But what's power got to do with it and whose arousal are we talking about? Does she think she is providing men with a sense of power by "giving" them an erection? Or is it her power over them that we are talking about here? Either way, power in therapy is misguided, to say the least and manipulative at its worst.
Let's face it. This is really not about helping people. It's about feeding an ego by turning men on. It's seduction-for-hire. Not therapy. So, please, let's not call it that. And while we're at it, we can call Miss White many things - a sexy pin-up, a student with a few psychology courses under her belt, someone's girlfriend, a wannabe model, a beautiful woman, smart even; but calling her a therapist serves no one but her.
Find Donna on:
Krysalis
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
