How to drive your therapist crazy in 10 easy steps

Psychotherapy, like all relationships, has its ups and down. So for those dull therapy moments when you find yourself getting bored with your own self, and wonder whether your therapist really loves you, or you just want to spice things up a bit, here's a quick and easy guide on how to do drive your therapist crazy.

I broke it down into points, though they are not steps in the common sense, and can be followed in any order. Also, you do not need to follow all of them. Chances are you will begin to see results after only 3 or 4, it all depends on you perseverance and focus.

I should add that this list has been compiled based mostly on my 9-5 clinic patients, who have a different view of psychotherapy than, say, your average private patient, and who generally think of me as their social worker rather than their psychotherapist.

HOW TO DRIVE YOUR THERAPIST CRAZY IN 10 EASY STEPS:

1. If you don't feel like keeping an appointment, remember not to call and cancel.

2. When your therapist calls YOU to find out whether you are still alive after you have missed three consecutive appointments, try not to answer the phone. Or, if you must answer, make sure to have a TV on in the background. It doesn't matter what channel it's on, as long as it's loud. If your therapist can still hear you, turn the volume up, or walk closer to the tv. Oh, and don't forget to mumble.

2a. A fun alternative to #2 is to answer the phone and pretend not to be home. "Who? Maria? Nooooooo. She's not here. What do you mean I sound like her! SHE IS NOT HERE!"

3. After you've missed several sessions, return to therapy driven by a firm refusal to discuss any psychological reasons for your absence, but be prepared to resume your conversation where you last left it, 5-6 weeks prior. Good opening sentences in this case might be: "That letter never came", or, "That letter arrived", or "Did you write me that letter?".

4. When you are presenting a complicated situation involving several people of the same sex, make sure to use pronouns only, as in 'He told him that if he ever did that again he would call him up and then he would know what he was talking about!'.

5. If you weigh over 300lbs and have multiple weight-related medical conditions so that your doctor and your therapist are on a first name basis with each other, make sure that whenever your therapist attempts to explore your relationship with food you answer: "I don't know why I'm fat. I never eat!". Ideally, you should try to have potato chip or cookie crumbs on your person when you say that.

6. Ask your therapist to make phone calls for you to settle your unpaid utility bills and make sure to say that this is because you do not feel like wasting the minutes on your pre-paid phone.

7. If your therapist insists that you make the calls yourself provided she/he lends you their own office phone, make sure to sneeze or cough into the receiver.

8. Take off your shoes to show your weird and potentially smelly foot fungus.

9. Ask for help obtaining obscure entitlements such as government-issued blocks of cheese. They do exist.

10. If your therapist has never heard of goverment cheese, or balks at your request to use his/her phone for your personal calls, or cracks open a window while you air out your smelly feet, make sure to look outraged and say "But aren't you a social worker?!"