Rick Moody’s famous short story “Boys” begins as generically as possible: “Boys enter the house, boys enter the house.” The repetition establishes a rhythm for a story composed in one long paragraph, with almost every single sentence beginning with “Boys enter.” The story is about a particular family in a particular suburb, sure. But as the repetition and lack of any specific names or physical description reinforce, it’s also about all boys.

A general rule of literature is that the more specific the writer writes, the more universal the content becomes. With a wry wit, Moody is playing with this irony. The plot of the story is as cookie-cutter as they come. Boys cause trouble, grow up, get married, and grieve the loss of their father as they are just becoming fathers themselves: a simple bildungsroman. The story ends, “Boys, no longer boys, exit.” But Moody gets away with a conventional plot by the sheer degree of specificity and rich description he incorporates.

Take, for instance, the pubescent ritual of concocting an absolutely wretched gastronomical thing from leftovers around the house or school lunch table. Moody takes the description to a comical level: “Where boys mix lighter fluid, vanilla pudding, drain-opening lye, balsamic vinegar, blue food coloring, calamine lotion…” The needless excess of the prose mirrors the needless excess of the gastronomical concoction itself. (Pity the poor boy triple-dared to taste it!)

In highlighting the tension between conventionality and specificity, Moody reminds us that there are only so many stories to tell. In fact, the common writerly adage states there are only two: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. Fortunately for both writers and therapists, there are infinite ways to tell these two stories, as this tension between the universal and the specific is present in therapy as well.

A diagnosis is a kind of ultra-generic story. Depression or anxiety are labels that categorize symptoms, painting a probable portrait of the patient’s daily lived experience. And while such designations can certainly be useful, much of therapy is a slow process of coloring in the rich description that such labels miss or even elide.........

© Psychology Today