Last time I reported to you that I’d been absent from the pages of Dorset Eye for a few weeks because of my time away at the All Change Retreat, where I was going through a range of therapies to become a new person. It was not an entirely happy experience.
To be perfectly honest, I expected to receive some traditional therapies such as Counselling, Aromatherapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and maybe even some Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy. I would probably have accepted some lesser known therapies including Music, Mud or Magnet therapies.
As you might have grasped by now, these are not what I was exposed to. This was my fault entirely. I had not researched the All Change Retreat properly. If I had, I would have realised that it was not one of the normal retreats you might expect to find scattered across the country. No, the All Change Retreat is different and specialises in what it calls Aversion Techniques, which turned out to be a combination of Pain and Persecution Therapies.
My stay began happily enough. All the delegates, patients and fucking psychopaths (call them what you will) met for a chat over an indescribably bad vegetarian dinner before being introduced to the actual therapists.
Norman specialised in Foot Beating, while Colin’s specialty was Colour Therapy, neither of which bothered me too much as I misheard Norman and thought he’d said Food Beating and I felt secure that Colour Therapy was safe enough, even for me. However, Foot Beating was definitely part of the programme and the benign sounding Colour Therapy turned out to be the colours black and blue – plus a sprinkling of blood red when things got out of hand or when Colin became over-exciting.
During my second week, I was introduced to Diana. Her talents lay in Testicle Tasering, which came as a real fucking shock to many of us. Personally I found it quite invigorating, especially during my fourth and fifth sessions, which were entirely voluntary.
Based on these insights you can imagine how easy it was for me to become a new and more positive person, not to mention more sensitive and a lot more cautious of people’s job descriptions.
It’s over now and I do recommend the All Change Retreat for all my readers. Just one word of warning; don’t retreat too regularly because that’s where Michael’s special talents will catch you unawares.
The Tea Maker
PS: You can comment on this story by emailing me at [email protected] and I’ll respond to your emails in next week’s column. We’ll never publish your email address.
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The Tea Maker
