Cat-Dependent No More! - Learning to Live Cat-Free in a Cat-Filled World

Informationen zum Autor Jeff Reid Klappentext Cat Dependency. What is it? Who suffers from it? And how can those afflicted free themselves from the tyranny of their tabbies? At last! there's a book that offers new hope to the millions who for years have been trampled underpaw. Without pussyfooting around! this recovery guide teaches how to live care-free and cat-free again. Chapter One THE CULT OF THE NONEXPERT   The cat owner can’t smell the box, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t stink.            —SUPPORT-GROUP SLOGAN     I’m no expert, but I play one on TV. You may have seen me on the chat-show circuit talking about my cat-dependency workshops, yet I’m no more of an expert than you are. If I appear more knowledgeable it may only be because I know more—a cognitive advantage gained through an acquired experience differential.   Despite my non-expert status, however, people often ask me, “What is cat-dependence? Who has it and why? What are the symptoms? Is it contagious? Could I have it and not know it?”   I say, “Whoah!” Or as some say in the counselling industry, “Hold on a second.” If we answer all those questions at once, confusion may result. “Right away is right awry,” as the recovery slogan goes—meaning that changes quickly made are just as quickly unmade. Moreover, if we cover (or recover) too much ground too quickly it won’t be much of a book, will it? And although I’m no expert, just an ordinary person like yourself, I have amassed some small expertise in the course of writing several books on various feline domestic disorders.   EASY DOESN’T   Luckily for me, cat-dependency is an amorphous concept that defies easy definition. Even within the counselling field, debates rage as to whether cat dependency is a disease or just a dis-ease. Some maintain that all cat owners are to some degree cat-dependent; in effect, any relationship with a cat is unhealthy. Others believe that healthy cohabitation, that is, cat-habitation, is possible in theory if difficult in practice. There is even a rancorous dispute in clinical circles about the movement’s nomenclature, i.e., should it be referred to as “cat-dependence” or “cat-dependency”? It is, as we say in the field, “all academic.” (See especially, Cat-Dependence or Cat-Dependency: A Submerging Issue by C. Ibid and E. G. Frinstanz et al.).   It certainly seems that when it comes to cat-dependency, the only thing certain is uncertainty. In any case, cat-dependence, whatever it may be, is closely connected to the booming co-dependency cottage industry. (Co-dependency is that constellation of interrelated syndromes in which the personality is deformed by close proximity to aberrant significant others. These “others” are often chemically dependent, or fat, or lazy, or disinclined to perform household chores. Or something. And the co-dependent, or insignificant other, tends to make excuses for the true malefactor’s bad behavior—to the point of totally distorting his or her own life.)   Like co-dependency, cat-dependency is the “sickness” of the “well” partner. Obviously, by analogy, cat-dependency is the condition whereby a person distorts his or her life by extreme emotional fealty to a feline. And, as often happens with the mates of alcoholics, the cat-dependent person covers up the problem, takes the blame, makes excuses, denies there’s a problem, and enables the problem to continue—thereby ensuring that the problem gets worse.   Like a smoker, or someone who dates lawyers, the cat-dependent person exists in a cognitively dissonant state of perpetual denial. The cat-dependent person may know unconsciously that what he or she is doing is dangerous or wrong, yet no evidence will dissuade him or her from the path of cuddly self-destruction (the dozens of cat-borne diseases, the damaged property, the damaged lives.)   These cat lovers may love unwisely, but they...

Product details

• Authors: Jeff Reid, Jeffrey Reid
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.11.1991
• EAN: 9780449906682
• ISBN: 978-0-449-90668-2
• No. of pages: 144
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 6 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Comic, cartoon, humour, satire; Guides > Nature