The Voice

Dr. Robert Firestone, the self-proclaimed inventor of Voice Therapy, says the voice is a well-integrated system of thoughts and attitudes, antithetical toward self and cynical toward others, that is at the core of the individual’s maladaptive behavior.  You are not entirely convinced your preoccupation with carwashes is a kind of maladaptive behavior.  The sexy carwash is, after all, a cultural institution.  Indecent exposure is a crime (poor Savage), but there is nothing otherwise amoral about your desire.  You want to be inside a woman inside an automatic carwash and if anything is maladaptive behavior it is your monomaniacal refinement of the fantasy; you have not stopped indulging it long enough to muster the courage to try it and for that paralysis you feel more or less completely ashamed. 

Voice Therapy requires expression of the voice through Second Person in order to dissociate from negative thoughts: If you allow yourself to go into as much detail as possible in stating and elaborating your self-criticisms, you may be surprised to hear how hostile your inner critic can be toward you…if this exercise feels too upsetting after you begin, you should discontinue it and talk to a supportive friend or loved one.  You haven’t even started the therapy and already a great need for hugs is on the horizon.  You hate hugs (with family they feel too obligatory and with friends or acquaintances they are too awkward and with lovers it’s a piss-or-get-off-the-pot kind of thing). 

Firestone’s Voice Therapy as Applied to Problems in Sexual Relating chronicles one of his sessions with a troubled couple, Valerie and Mark: 

Valerie: Before we start to make love I have an affectionate feeling toward you, Mark, but it doesn’t last into the sexual situation. 

Therapist: What are you telling yourself at the time?  Say it in the form of a voice.

Valerie: It’s a little hard for me to put a voice on that, but as we start to be sexual it’s like, Don’t touch him there.  That’s disgusting! [pauses for a few seconds] I’m really embarrassed by what I’m thinking right now.