IndyCar driver conflicts signal new direction in couples therapy

The world of behavioral psychology was rocked this week by the revelation that indirect, passive-aggressive taunting and criticism proved to be the quickest route to reconciliation in situations of interpersonal antagonism - not the face-to-face dialogue that virtually every therapist has recommended since, I don’t know, forever.

This controversial new theory is the brainchild of Dr. Carl Turkeybaster, a heretofore unknown voice in the counseling community. His 24,000 page case study was published in this week’s edition of Nutball Quarterly, a progressive journal on the subject of couples therapy.

"It’s a landmark finding," says Dr. Turkeybaster, who holds a PhD in psychology from DeVry University. "We’ve discovered that face-to-face communication does not allow for the proper agonizingly long interval between insult and reconciliation required to give individuals proper closure. It sets decades - even centuries - of psychological thought on its ass."

Dr. Turkeybaster cited the recent and ongoing online feud between IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Ryan Briscoe and Graham Rahal - which has been expressed on the Twitter microblog service as well as in a recent article written by Rahal for SPEEDTV.com - in his case study as "the ultimate expression of passive-aggressive indirect conflict precluding a rapid and satisfying resolution to the detriment of all parties involved."

"Essentially, this method allows each person in the conflict to channel their inner Jessi Slaughter," Dr. Turkeybaster continues. "It is so much healthier to post a Twitter message saying that someone else is a no-talent hack who can’t hold down a full-time IndyCar ride or, perhaps, to post a YouTube video saying that you want to pop a Glock in someone’s mouth to make a ‘brain slushie.’

"This process - which I have called ‘Jerseyfication’ - provides plenty of time for those involved to run through the entire gamut of human emotion, appropriate or otherwise, before finally approaching a sense of shame and embarrassment over being a sniveling little rat-faced git that is so intense that making direct peace is the only option that stops them feeling like complete wankers."

Dr. Turkeybaster’s case study does have its share of critics, including famed actor and functionally insane Australian Mel Gibson. "THAT F***ING ***WIPE SHOULD COME OVER TO MY HOT TUB SO I CAN BEAT THE S**T OUT OF HIM AFTER HE BLOWS ME," Gibson said in a prepared statement.

But Dr. Turkeybaster stands by his research. "Sometimes you just have to channel your inner 13-year-old girl," he claims. "Look how well it’s worked for Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan and Spencer Pratt."

The Indiana chapter of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) could not be goaded into commenting for this story.