I've always sorta known I would do a show in which I discuss my former profession as a psychotherapist. But now that the clock is slowly ticking down to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2012 I'm both excited and terrified to put myself on my own 'comedy couch.'
The show is called Reverse Psycomedy (see what I did there?) and it's about how an American psychotherapist found herself doing stand up comedy in the UK, despite years of telling herself she could never do it.
Normally reverse psychology only works on fairly gullible patients and kids, but turns out I share a lot of features with both. I think a lot of comics do - not the gullibility so much, but the curious characteristic of being told you can't and then doing it anyway. In my own case, it was my own head telling me that, not others, but sometimes of course that's the strongest voice.
The show's not about mental health, mine or anyone else's - it's more about the observations of human nature that eight years in the clinician's seat taught me, and the reasons that those observations led me to do what I really wanted to do with my life: stand up comedy.
I rarely ever mention my old career on stage because there's been something so personal about it. That might sound weird to anyone who's seen me talk in detail about masturbation and school shootings, but mentioning my old life has seemed almost the greatest taboo.
For starters, people who know what I used to do often say "oh wow, you must have so much material." To which I always wanna reply "yeah, confidentiality aside, that case I had with the guy whose mother beat him up was HILARIOUS."
No, I won't be shucking aside my patient ethics to do this show. Not that I haven't heard some funny things from patients over the years... but to be honest, the real funny comes from the strange role I was in, and the realisations stemming from the very personal, intimate connections with others in their darkest and most vulnerable moments. And sometimes, in my own.
There are lots of cliches about how crazy psychotherapists are, not to mention Hollywood portrayals of the "wounded healer." It's true, spending your days focused on other people's heads while they sit in THE CHAIR (it was never a couch, just THE CHAIR, not to be confused with the ELECTRIC CHAIR though both equally feared) is a good distraction from your own shit...or a way to pour your shit into another outlet.
Comedy, on the other hand, will force you to face your shit head on, and share it with your audience. But then paradoxically, you have to be pretty well mentally intact to help others in emotional pain, and comedy allows you to be batshit crazy in public. In fact, it's encouraged. Both require a weird mind at any rate and perhaps not coincidentally, a desire to be in something of a power role. Shit, that paragraph contained five uses of the word "shit."
The funniest comedy to me is always the most true, the most personal. So I guess I decided that 2012 was as good a year as any to dig a little deeper into this past job of mine and, hopefully, in doing so, fully launch myself into the new one. I don't want to bring back the side of me who wore that clinical hat...I actually want to put her down for good. But she deserves a proper funny burial.
I wonder if other comics feel this sense of trepidation before their first real full length show, too - not just because they're taking all the usual risks with putting on a show, but also putting their heart and soul out there in a way that a club set often doesn't. I don't give up much of myself at the average gig, but I hope I have the courage to do it in this show. Don't misread me, this isn't a therapy session, because you're paying, not me. Though funny enough, the length of a therapy session and Edinburgh stand up show are the same. Bonus.
Edinburgh is an amazing prospect for this mission, and yet the most daunting. I have had earfuls of conflicting advice over the past year since I went full time with stand up: don't do your first solo show for a few years. Don't do it at a paid venue. Don't have any expectations of anything coming from it.
Well, in the spirit of Reverse Psycomedy, I've ignored all the advice. I'm doing it now because in my little kid excitement I can't wait any longer, I'm doing it in an expensive fuck off venue which may come back to bite me, and I'm hoping it changes everything despite all the odds. Shit.
See you in Edinburgh in August 2012, venue and times to be confirmed. Please don't tell your friends about the show.