Readers,


I started Tales of a Shrink 3 years ago in late December. It's somehow fitting that this blog should end around the same time that it began.

I am glad that I kept a blog. Looking back over my past entries, I realized how nice it is to have a record of what I was thinking and doing for the past few years. And, of course, I met some interesting people, got embroiled in some interesting drama, and made some friends along the way.

I haven't been the best blogger. Certainly, there are others out there who are funnier, or more fashionable, or more insightful. But I was honest, and I presented myself as I am: I gave advice on chocolate, provided weekly doses of culture and hot guys, made fun of the Culture of Desire in the gay community, and generally snarked at anything and everything that crossed my path.

In fact, keeping a blog under my real name has been interesting. Everyone from clients to my accountant have, at one time or another, let me know that they were reading it. I think that's kind of cool. But in another way, it was kind of transgressive. We therapists are supposed to be blank slates--we don't have our own feelings, our own desires, our own insecurities, right? More than once I was challenged by readers who said, "How can I trust you as a therapist if you don't like Mensa/Think Republicans are stupid/feel frightened about your own future?" Interestingly, fellow clinicians have said to me, "Aren't you harming your clients by letting them see your personal life?"

I always responded in the same way: I am a human, with all the beauty and flaws which that state of being entails. I am not a "blank slate," and I am not a God. Neither do I wish to present myself as one. (Question: What's the difference between God and a psychotherapist? Answer: God doesn't think he's a psychotherapist.) If my clients can't understand that I have a life outside of the 50 minutes I spend with them, or if they can't relate to me because we differ in our beliefs on a particular area, then that's an issue for therapy.

Now that the blog is gone, I suppose I won't hear sentences that start with, "I was reading your website the other day..." Nor will I have to wonder, every time I lose a client or a friend gets angry at me, if it was something that I wrote.

Thank you for all the support you've given this blog. Thanks for reading, for writing me e-mails, and thanks even to the folks who took the time to look up my address and send me Christmas and birthday cards.

I don't know if the blogging bug will bite me again. I suspect that sometime, in the near future, I might return to keep a blog in another form. The idea of keeping an anonymous blog appeals to me. Who knows what the future holds?

Thank you again. Be well.

Matt