Cat Therapy (not-yet-registered trade mark)
At 3 a.m this morning I found myself eagerly planning some world-wide project to make this planet a better place... Something including cats...
It started with an idea: "Cats instead of Prozac", or something like that. (Why do all the good ideas come to mind when you are just a little bit too tired/drunk to have a chance to remember it all the next day?! I´ll try to reconstruct these plans anyway...)
It´s not the first time somebody gets the idea to use my cats as a mental health promoting device - or as part of a personalized November Depression Prevention Program (NDPP).
It´s difficullt to feel really shitty if you sit by the fire with a nice purring cat in your lap - and my cats can do that for several hours (purr in your lap - not feel shitty...) I´ve been using them for years, and now the word is out, so I was first thinking of something like "Rent-a-cat"-business, but why not go further? How about an entire "Cat Therapy Center"? It should be located in a huge old house, with lots of cats, where you can stay in a comfortable room, with a fire place, if you like that, or with a widescreen TV/DVD-player if that´s your preferred method of escaping reality. Then of course there would be coffee, tea, good (not-too-healthy) food, wine and beer and other refreshments... Different kinds of music would be offered, some bathtubs, and an old fashioned sauna. But the main "treatment" in this place would to spend time with the cats...
It started as a half drunken joke, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds like something this world really needs. My job in this Therapy Center would be to choose, and take care of, the cats - and to empty the multiple kitty litterboxes, of course.
Then I´d hire other people to do all the administrative work. Understandably, treatment at this place would be expensive... (I mean, if you really want to invest in your mental wellbeing, you have to pay for it, right?) Those people most in need of long term Cat Therapy-treatment, they are the ones that work so hard that money is no problem.
But, there would be other (non-profit) branches of this "Cat Therapy Concept" - children´s groups could stay with the cats for free, and groups of cats could be permanently relocated to homes for the elderly.
I do believe in this concept. I mean, if people are willing to swim with dolphins or whales (or whatever... sharks?) in order to feel better about themselves, why wouldn´t they be willing to pay to spend time with some wonderful, furry cats?
And no, in case somebody wondered, I do not NaN0... Instead I´m busy developing my personal NDPP (November Depression Prevention Program) . It includes watching lots of movies, reading books, listening to just the right music, drinking moderate amounts of red wine or beer, and a lot of time spent in good company, talking about important things in many different languages. And most important of all, the company of cats!
This could actually be a separate branch of the CTC (Cat Therapy Concept), helping people find their own personalized NDPP. For a fee, of course!
Now it´s time for today´s first movie. Got to go! Stay tuned for updates.
[And now I feel bad for making it sound as if I´d have made up this potentially life-changing concept all by myself, when in fact at least half of the inspiration comes from G., who has been receiving Cat Therapy Treatment now and then for the last two months, and who might open the first Cat Therapy Center in France - some time in the future...]
It started with an idea: "Cats instead of Prozac", or something like that. (Why do all the good ideas come to mind when you are just a little bit too tired/drunk to have a chance to remember it all the next day?! I´ll try to reconstruct these plans anyway...)
It´s not the first time somebody gets the idea to use my cats as a mental health promoting device - or as part of a personalized November Depression Prevention Program (NDPP).
It´s difficullt to feel really shitty if you sit by the fire with a nice purring cat in your lap - and my cats can do that for several hours (purr in your lap - not feel shitty...) I´ve been using them for years, and now the word is out, so I was first thinking of something like "Rent-a-cat"-business, but why not go further? How about an entire "Cat Therapy Center"? It should be located in a huge old house, with lots of cats, where you can stay in a comfortable room, with a fire place, if you like that, or with a widescreen TV/DVD-player if that´s your preferred method of escaping reality. Then of course there would be coffee, tea, good (not-too-healthy) food, wine and beer and other refreshments... Different kinds of music would be offered, some bathtubs, and an old fashioned sauna. But the main "treatment" in this place would to spend time with the cats...
It started as a half drunken joke, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds like something this world really needs. My job in this Therapy Center would be to choose, and take care of, the cats - and to empty the multiple kitty litterboxes, of course.
Then I´d hire other people to do all the administrative work. Understandably, treatment at this place would be expensive... (I mean, if you really want to invest in your mental wellbeing, you have to pay for it, right?) Those people most in need of long term Cat Therapy-treatment, they are the ones that work so hard that money is no problem.
But, there would be other (non-profit) branches of this "Cat Therapy Concept" - children´s groups could stay with the cats for free, and groups of cats could be permanently relocated to homes for the elderly.
I do believe in this concept. I mean, if people are willing to swim with dolphins or whales (or whatever... sharks?) in order to feel better about themselves, why wouldn´t they be willing to pay to spend time with some wonderful, furry cats?
And no, in case somebody wondered, I do not NaN0... Instead I´m busy developing my personal NDPP (November Depression Prevention Program) . It includes watching lots of movies, reading books, listening to just the right music, drinking moderate amounts of red wine or beer, and a lot of time spent in good company, talking about important things in many different languages. And most important of all, the company of cats!
This could actually be a separate branch of the CTC (Cat Therapy Concept), helping people find their own personalized NDPP. For a fee, of course!
Now it´s time for today´s first movie. Got to go! Stay tuned for updates.
[And now I feel bad for making it sound as if I´d have made up this potentially life-changing concept all by myself, when in fact at least half of the inspiration comes from G., who has been receiving Cat Therapy Treatment now and then for the last two months, and who might open the first Cat Therapy Center in France - some time in the future...]
posted by grumpyoldbitch | 3:33 PM
1 Comments:
And you'll be pleased to hear that your not-yet-trademarked idea is an evidence-based intervention. Yes, there's lots of research out there that stroking a cat or dog actually lowers your blood pressure and provides other physical and mental benefits. That's why there are programs that take pets into nursing homes and the like. We're always calling Sam over for a mental health intervention, which she accepts more or less willingly but with occasional bat at my face. So I'm the one with the low blood pressure and the bloody lip.... Perhaps better to come and get the true Swedish-speaking Finnish intervention.
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