One evening on my way home I read the nameplate of a psychiatrist and the writer in me stood still for a long time looking at it with excitement. This was exactly what I needed! I hurried home to write down all the questions I could think of to ask the psychiatrist.
I had just completed the first draft of the novel PHOBIA. Now PHOBIA is basically a story revolving around a fear that is so ingrained in the psyche that it borders on paranoia.
I needed to seriously clarify some doubts before working on that draft.
There were so many questions… so many scenarios to consider… Have I got the psyche of the patient right? Is that how the person having a phobia is likely to react? How would a psychiatrist go about treating that patient?
Now understand that this happened before the beginning of the current century when finding data at the click of a button was not the norm.
So off I went to meet the psychiatrist.
When he saw the very long list of questions I pulled out of my bag, which was several sheets of foolscap pages, he looked a bit boggled.
I asked him to recommend some good books to save time. He pointed to a stack of three books that looked like the psychiatrists encyclopedia. He expected me to balk at the size for each book contained about 1500 to 2000 pages.
To his surprise I asked, “If I promise to handle them with care, could I borrow them for two three days?”
He laughed at my request, for he didn’t think I would manage to read more than a page or two of the complex subject, let alone understand it. But he was amused by my enthusiasm, and he gave them to me on a whim.
And that was how I ended up reading psychology textbooks all day and most of the night too for the next three days, and I got the answers I wanted!
When I returned the books, I thanked him for his help. He was happy to get the books back in pristine condition. But I don’t think he really believed I had even opened the books!