Word: phobias
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Terry is demonically possessed by an internal critic, bears not a monkey but John Simon on his back, constantly rasping, "Trite, trite, done already." His phobia for the commonplace, his obsession with originality, keep him not only from writing but even from talking or living without wondering whether it's all been seen on some stage before. His friends have to be Holvard Solness and Miss Julies and when they can't, when he sees them as "cardboard characters" and "cartoons," and their "soap talk" as unsuitable dialogue, he abandons them, forgetting that the stuff of everyday life must...
...disco-oriented "Travolta-clone" scene in Act II was equally memorable). And while all of the actors did creditable jobs within the horrible confines of the format, there were a number of unquestionable standouts (at least in Act I): Shipley Munson as the aforementioned squeakyvoiced space-person named Xeno Phobia, Michael Der Manuelian as the slick and sleazy Otto Beolaw, Stephen Hayes as the seductive and slinky Giovanna Dance, and Willy Falk (Betty Won't--get it??)--my personal favorite--as the wacky robot R2E2. (To those actors who undoubtedly stood out in Act II: I offer my apologies...
...most experts are sure the affliction is a psychic one. Freudians consider it a neurotic symptom. Many psychologists see it simply as learned behavior: a patient has an initial breakdown so traumatic that it leaves him in a constant state of anxiety over a possible recurrence, thus producing the phobia...
...problem is that behavior modification works better with specific limited phobias?say, of dogs or birds?than with the generalized panic of agoraphobia. Says Dr. Claire Weekes of Sydney, Australia, a specialist in agoraphobia: "Agoraphobia is not a true phobia. It's one phase of an anxiety state." Weekes, author of Simple, Effective Treatment of Agoraphobia, has treated 1,200 agoraphobics in person and 4,000 more with records, tapes and letters. In her opinion, behaviorists are on the wrong track when they train agoraphobics to avoid panic. Says she: "Recovery lies in the attack itself and learning to cope...
...Globe's reporter made two untrue assertions: First, she reported that Fairbank's effort publicly to "exorcise Jim Thomson's phobia about sheep dung" related to my mishandling of a sheep-dung lecture-slide back in 1958 when I was his teaching assistant. Second, she reported that I was not even present at the Chairman's valedictory lecture...