A while back, I was commenting on a few books I’d read by physician John Sarno in relation to chronic pain. I found his ideas were interesting, but on some level, wasn’t ready to embrace them for my own situation. However, I have returned to them recently. His argument is that chronic physical pain is really a distraction from emotional pain, and to get rid of the former, you need to deal with the latter.

How do you deal with it? Well, he’s written books of advice on the topic which I can’t summarize all of here. But one recommended technique is essentially journaling — talking yourself through your emotional states past and present.

I’ve been doing that, and, of course, using voice dictation as I do for all my writing. I actually find literally talking the stuff out, as opposed to writing, has additional advantages. I kind of feel like I’m on the psychoanalysts’ couch which makes the process more familiar (not because I’ve actually ever been in psychoanalysis, but because we’ve all seen that scene in a million movies.

It struck me today that I could design a piece of software that would more thoroughly create the correct psychoanalysis environment. Basically, the user would talk out their problems, and every so often the software would respond in a thick German accent. “Yes, yes, this is very goot!”