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28 March 2024

Crazy World: Naked therapist helps bare all

Published
By Staff & Agencies

Naked therapist helps men bare all

(AGENCY)

She's 24, she's pretty, and she never takes her glasses off. The rest of what she's wearing is a different matter.

"I am a naked therapist," say Sarah White, a resident of New York. "I do talk therapy and I undress throughout the course of the session."

Ms White conducts most of her sessions online on Skype. Demand for appointments has been high after she appeared in the iPad-only newspaper The Daily  last week.

Her story was quickly picked up and has been repeated around the world.

In between her busy schedule, she agreed to an online interview with The Courier-Mail to explain her work.

Ms White, who studies psychology but is not a registered psychotherapist, admits she does not fully understand how removing her clothes increases the mental well-being of her clients.

"It helps get men to therapy," she says. "But I'm still trying to figure it out. As far as the thrust of it, I'm not quite able to explain. I know it helps people open up more.

"I'm not saying naked therapy is better than other kids of therapy, but for some people, it is better for them. Yeah, it does assist with their problems."

All right then. How? "Nakedness establishes a relationship between myself and my client that is immediately intimate and open. People respond to nakedness in different ways. Some people it makes them more calm, relaxed."

She says some men use her sessions to learn how to behave in the presence of women. Which is slightly troubling because if the behavior they exhibit during her sessions was taken to the wider world, they'd be arrested.

Ms White admits - and there's no way to put this politely - that some of her clients engage in self-abuse.

"Um, the patients are free to react in the way they would like to react," she says. "When I first see a client it's usually with a one-way cam, so I don't necessarily know. Even in a two-way cam experience, I reserve the right to look or not look as I would like."

In other words, most would engage in what those in the aviation industry might call "solo flight"?

"I wouldn't say the majority do," Ms White says. "Or potentially, the majority don't. I don't know."

Ms White explains that people talk through their problems while she, for the most part, listens.

"I'm usually clothed and about half way into the session I start taking off my clothes. Though not all of the time - there are a few people I don't do it for, they don't want it."

They'd be the real weirdos, then?

Ms White says: "That's funny."

She says she's been attacked by registered therapists since word about her service got out last week.

"I have definitely had critics," she says. "I've had therapists emailing me, quite angry. I've also had people with quite severe mental illnesses who say you shouldn't be doing this kind of thing.

"My response to that is there are different therapies for different people. Each person has their own pathway."

I suspect Ms White downplays what's really going on here: that for men, this is more about the lower brain than the upper one. And it raises the question whether this is a form of prostitution.

"No, there's no touching between me and the client and prostitution usually involves sex. So no it's not, it's therapy. I believe I'm assisting people and in fact I know it. It's a positive and powerful therapeutic technique."

During sessions, which cost US$150 for the hour, Ms White says she does not simply sit there listening.

"I sometimes move around, have a drink, I'll sometimes turn around."men are statistically four times more likely to attend therapy than men, so one very good thing I'm doing is addressing what you could call a mental health crisis. They need to be talking more about their feelings."

In the last week, Ms White says her practice has doubled. "There's been a stream of articles, online and in newspapers all over the world."

You're probably wondering whether in the course of our on-line interview Ms White removed her clothes. My answer to that is that I don't require therapy. At least, not today.

Woman trying to pet moose in Alaska park gets kick

Don't mess with the moose.

That's the warning police in Anchorage, Alaska, are repeating after one of the animals kicked a woman in the chest and shoulder at a city park. She was checked by medics Monday afternoon and didn't have to go to a hospital.

The Anchorage Daily News reports the moose had been in Town Square Park most of the day feeding on trees. The woman in her 20s was attacked when she tried to pet it.

Police spokeswoman Anita Shell says the moose is not a threat unless provoked, so people need to give it space.

Don't mess with the moose.

That's the warning police in Anchorage, Alaska, are repeating after one of the animals kicked a woman in the chest and shoulder at a city park. She was checked by medics Monday afternoon and didn't have to go to a hospital.

The Anchorage Daily News reports the moose had been in Town Square Park most of the day feeding on trees. The woman in her 20s was attacked when she tried to pet it.

Germans beat Brits at tea, sell "KaTEA" bags

(AGENCY)

Hamburg company has beaten the Brits at their own game- a cup of tea- by selling "KaTEA" tea bags featuring Prince William and his bride-to-be Kate Middleton.

The bags feature the faces and torsos of the future royal couple with extended arms that drinkers can hang over the rim of their cups. They are the idea of Donkey Products, based in the northern German port city of Hamburg.

The bags are filled with German-grown black tea. They are being sold for a limited time as a pair, with in a greeting card.

Cheeky nude cyclists headed to Brisbane

(AGENCY)

140 cyclists have shown a bit of cheek on the Melbourne leg of the World Naked Bike Ride.

Organiser Dallas Goldburg said smiling onlookers applauded the riders and some newlyweds even invited them to pose for pictures in the central business district.

The cyclists left Edinburgh Gardens, North Fitzroy, at 3.30pm on Sunday and made their way through the city.

Mr Goldburg said the event aimed at raising issues such as fuel dependency.

"It's a good bike-awareness thing,'' he told AAP.

"It's a chance to remove that lycra and not have people have a prejudice on why people are bike-riding.

"The cycling phenomenon is just getting bigger and bigger with the price of petrol going up.''

The World Naked Bike Ride will travel to Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle and Daylesford in country Victoria next Saturday and Canberra on March 20.

Tiger kills lion in zoo

Who’s the king of the jungle? The age-old question about inter-species conflict has been answered in a rather unfortunate way.

A Bengal tiger has killed a lion at Ankara Zoo in Turkey after finding a gap in the fence separating their cages, zoo officials have said.

According to BBC, zoo officials said the tiger killed the lion by severing its jugular vein with a single swipe of his paw, leaving the animal dying in a pool of blood.

The zoo has six tigers and two remaining lions, and officials insist it is still safe to visit, denying local media reports that the tiger had broken down the fence during the incident last September.