Popular Culture in Counseling, Psychotherapy, and Play-Based ...

Acknowledgments
It is not uncommon for a therapist to query a client regarding the client’s
earliest memory, as such might provide valuable insights for selfunderstanding.
As I organized my thoughts for this volume, I tried to
recall my earliest popular culture memory. It was the song, “Itsy Bitsy
Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini,” by Brian Hyland, which dates to
my then-burgeoning awareness of the inescapable sights, sounds, objects,
and people that comprise popular culture. In retrospect, the litany of
my interests, possessions, passions, and subsequent low-brow collecting
obsessions reads like confessions of a baby boomer pop culture junkie,
which I guess it is. To name a few: Beatles albums, Schwinn Stingray
bicycles, a twice-built, 5-foot tall replica of the Saturn V rocket, baseball
cards, Aurora monster models of Frankenstein, Wolfman, and Dracula,
beer cans, melamine (aka Melmac) dishes, Chuck Taylor Converse Hi
Top sneakers, superhero and Archie comic books, paint-by-number “artwork,”
Heywood-Wakefi eld mid-century modern furniture, and Disney
movies . . . and don’t forget three 1970s Volvo 1800s, aka Roger Moore’s
cool sports car on the 1960s television show, The Saint.
I’ve long since sold off my baseball cards; and my monster models,
precious Saturn V rockets, and comic books are slowly decomposing in
some faraway landfi ll along with the childhood memories and possessions
of a legion of others. However, I still wear Cons, love superheroes,
ride around the neighborhood on my Stingray, and type this work while
at the desk of my retro furniture. For me, the stuff of popular culture is
clearly about a romanticized tie to my past, but it still pervades every
aspect of my current life in innumerable ways. It is for this reason that it
made sense for me to ask: In what ways have I and the other therapists
you will meet in this volume tapped into the stuff of popular culture as
a resource for self-understanding, healing, and growth? I deeply thank
each of them for doing so.
I wish to thank, fi rst and foremost, my parents, Esther and Herbert,
who in their innocent efforts to indulge or perhaps pacify me unknowingly
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