Background:

Background: Many types of psychotherapy strive to help clients improve their lives by reducing the stress caused by certain negative emotions and thoughts. 

Additional background: it is sometimes possible emotional states to be temporarily overridden by an immediate existential threat, as described in detail in 2024-03-04’s “emotion displacement” idea, which explains the process of replacing negative emotions with pure terror.

Proposal:

Surprisingly, there is no recognized school of psychiatry that applies the obvious combination of the two statements above. But that’s about to change, thanks to WOLF THERAPY.

The process is simple: a client goes to a psychiatrist’s office and sits on the stereotypical psychoanalysis sofa.

Then, the psychiatrist releases a pack of angry wolves to attack the client (Figure 1). (The wolves may optionally be on leashes to prevent them from actually tearing the client apart.)

Conclusion:

While the client is being attacked by wolves, all their negative emotions are likely to be at least temporarily de-emphasized. If the negative emotions return, more wolves can be applied as needed.

Note: there is an existing therapy technique that goes by the name “wolf therapy” (where clients apparently interact with wolves in a positive and supportive fashion). It might be necessary to change the name of one or the other of these methods in order to avoid awkward misunderstandings.)

PROS: Provides gainful employment for the nation’s much-maligned wolf population.

CONS: Could reduce the number of psychiatry jobs available for humans, who would undoubtedly resent the wolves for taking their jobs.

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