Laurence Passmore's Therapy

In “Therapy” by David Lodge, Laurence Passmore, a middle-aged man narrates his experiences with therapy and his divorce. Laurence is a mediocre writer and the creator of a show called “The People Next Door,” who goes to cognitive behaviour therapy, physiotherapy, aromatherapy and acupuncture. Laurence has a habit of looking up words he says to “compensate for [his] lousy education,” (Lodge 33) but the words he looks up are not random; they are his subconscious way of putting his cognitive behaviour therapy to use. The words indirectly reference to something good about himself; meaning Laurence is attempting to cure himself by convincing himself that he should not be depressed. Laurence’s interest in diction seems to emphasise that he is not a good writer as well as illustrate the type of writing he does. However, his interest reveals that his depression cannot be cured by simply going to therapy sessions and attempting to get rid of his symptoms. Two words that demonstrate this are “gingerly” (Lodge 4) and “recession” (Lodge 85). The first word that Laurence draws our attention to is “gingerly” (Lodge 4) he looks it up to find out if the adverb has a different form to the adjective. The fact that he looked gingerly up is a surprise as Laurence is a writer and should surely know this and not have to …show more content…
He retreats further into himself and avoids trying to find the reason for his depression which prolongs his healing process. Instead of going for therapy sessions, attempting to cover up his symptoms, for example, self-esteem, and trying to keep his life the same, he should have just embraced change. The words sprinkled in the story are not to demonstrate Laurence’s shortcomings as a writer; they are there to remind readers that some issues cannot be solved by glossing over them and convincing ourselves there is nothing