"It's like I'm my own shrink"

The other night, I watched an interview that George Stromboulopoulos -- the CBC television star we memorably encountered at LaGuardia last fall, en route home to Toronto from our whirlwind chicks' weekend in New York City -- recently did with Randy Bachman, classic rock guitarist extraordinaire for both the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive -- and, I might add proudly, a fellow Manitoban :)  (albeit now living on Saltspring Island in British Columbia).  Bachman hosts a weekly radio program on CBC radio called Vinyl Tap, where he plays classic rock records and tells stories about the people behind them. He's written a memoir & a collection of stories from his show, and was on Strombo to promote a second story collection, Tales From Beyond the Tap.

The entire half hour is worth a listen if you're a fan of Bachman or his bands, or classic Canadian rock, or just classic rock generally. The man is a great storyteller, and he has some wonderful stories to tell and observations to make, about a lot of names you will recognize, Canadian & otherwise.

But if anything, just listen to the first five minutes. As a blogger (and before that, someone poured her heart out on various online forums -- and who attended and then facilitated a support group for 10 years, where we encouraged members to tell their stories every time they attended as a way of healing), I was fascinated by both George & Randy's observations about the cathartic and healing power of storytelling, and the new perspective you can gain by doing so -- so much so that I went back & transcribed their conversation, starting around the 2:10 mark [emphasis mine]:   

George: You're in an interesting place now, because you spend much of your time telling stories of stuff that's happened to your or experiences you've had...so you're really living in this... you're not living in the past, you're reliving your own history, and I wonder what you think the impact is on you?  

Randy: (pause) Umm... it's cathartic... it's like I'm my own shrink! (laughs) These are my shrinks (gestures to the audience) -- every Saturday, Sunday, I talk to them,  and I tell them when I met certain people and huge, fun, great things that happened, and also some disappointments that happened. So it is cathartic -- I found in doing this book and the previous book, I felt compelled ... I was sleepless at nights, because when you relive a story and when you write it down, it's quite different than telling it... and a lot of (word?) will say "Write it down, you've got to write down what happened." And I found myself calling a lot of people -- and apologizing for what I did...  

George: ...that's interesting!  

Randy: ...10, 20, 30 years ago, that I didn't realize their side of it. And then I read it in their book. Hopefully they read it in my book. Because when there's this thing and you break up with a girl or a guy or a band or a team or your family, you leave home, you don't really know what they're saying, and they don't know what you're saying after you leave. And you don't know what brought you there, even.  

George: And you don't know what they're feeling on any level.  

Randy:  No...

What do you think? Is telling your story -- through blogging, or otherwise -- cathartic? Is it like being your own shrink??