Time Essay: The People's Analyst

Patient: Doctor, I think that I'm a dog. Doctor: How long have you felt this way? Patient: Ever since I was a puppy.

Not exactly a thigh-slapper, but not terrible for a psychiatrist joke either. The genre may be about to expand, however. With the victory of Psychiatrist James A. McDermott over Dixy Lee Ray in the Washington State Democratic primary last week, the country trembles on the brink of having its first psychiatrist Governor. Dr. McDermott has offered himself as a "Governor who listens," and when a psychiatrist says a thing like that it is not mere political cant. But are the people prepared, emotionally, for his succession? Already, questions are beginning to haunt the air like irrational fears: Will the Governor charge $60 an hour? Will his hours last 45 minutes? Will his staff know each other's last names? More urgent: Where will he be in August?

Enough. Dr. McDermott must recognize perfectly well the risk he is taking in superimposing one risible profession on another. Indeed, other than making passing note of his years of distinguished service as a consultant to juvenile courts and county jails, his campaign speeches betray little sign of his background. Nonetheless, the times may be exactly right for psychiatrists to hold public office. Not a moment too soon. (Another paid-up member of the American Psychiatric Association, Scott Sibert, is running for Congress in New Jersey's First District.) For one thing, their public image, by and large, is still impeccable. To be sure, there have been exceptions, like the psychiatrist played by Leo G. Carroll in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, who shot his colleague, and the one currently played by Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill, who sports a blond wig and goes after patients with razors. But such methods are unorthodox. The image most people carry of psychiatrists is that of Lee J. Cobb in The Three Faces of Eve —gentle, calm, kind, the sort of person you would entrust with your mother. You remember your mother?

Still, there are plenty of advantages besides image that a psychiatrist brings to a Governor's mansion:

Nothing is unspeakable to a psychiatrist. In fact, he appears shaken upon receiving good news.

A psychiatrist takes everybody seriously. This is bound to unnerve people like women and mayors, who have never been taken seriously before.

A psychiatrist searches for underlying causes. Warn him that students and garbage men are storming the statehouse, and he will ask: Why should this be?

Psychiatrists are born reductionists. As Robert Benchley put it, "Tell us your phobias, and we will tell you what you are afraid of."

Psychiatrists believe that problems can be solved. Not a way to reach the White House, of course, but charming nevertheless.

All of the above are, conceivably, virtues that anybody might contribute to public office, but psychiatrists have several others peculiarly their own. As a group they are almost uniformly liberal and antiwar, and they admire the United Nations, which is certainly unusual. They also have very soft voices, which seem to arise inside of you rather than from them. When one talks with a psychiatrist, therefore, one has the impression of talking with oneself, which can be an alarming symptom for which one might seek help.