OPRAH'S
Will Oprah make Toronto psychotherapist a star?
December 4, 2009
Ben Rayner
FEATURE WRITER
Dr. Anne Dranitsaris is not allowed to talk about the Rumour.
The savvy observer might thus deduce that, yes indeed, there probably is something to the recent rumblings that Oprah Winfrey has taken a very strong interest in helping the Toronto psychotherapist get her ideas out to the public.
Oprah has already done that, in a way. The response to a quiz entitled "Who Am I Meant To Be?" that Dranitsaris adapted from her own 30 years of work in the realm of self-actualization therapy for the October edition of Winfrey's O Magazine has been so tremendously positive that she's already following it up with another piece for the January issue. Publishers have suddenly started nosing around for a book. And, of course, there's the Rumour, hatched by the New York Post's Page Six column on Monday, that Winfrey has set her sights on turning Dranitsaris into a household name in the vein of Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz.
The diminutive Dr. Anne's contract with O forbids her from discussing what Oprah adventures might lie ahead, she says, but she's grateful for the attention.
"I like having it come to me," says Dranitsaris, 59, a wife, mother of four and grandmother of three. She's perched in the home office off the Danforth where she conducts her practice. "When you're a therapist and an introvert, you like it to come to you. You don't like having to go out in the world. It takes much more energy to do that.
"I've sent out my book proposal before and one publishing house was interested and 29 said, `Thanks, but no thanks.' I have to learn to write better proposals, obviously."
The whole experience has been "very validating," she says, not least because her unconventional approach to psychotherapy – which combines Dranitsaris's extensive education in the traditional sciences of the mind with her profound interests in astrology, meditation, spiritualism and the more abstract reaches of Jungian philosophy – is often pooh-poohed by establishment types who get uncomfortable when people start talking about "energies."
All the buzz is well timed, too, since Dranitsaris has lately been pondering how she might find a forum for her ideas as her 60th birthday approaches.
"Generally, throughout my life, every 10 years I do a major," she says. "I try something else. I've decided that for my 60s, I'm going to get my message out, put out there what I've collected over the years in a different way through my writing, through books, through whatever medium I can. In Jungian terms, for women, this is the time of the `crone,' or the `sage' if you're a man – if you're a man, you get a much nicer name. This is the time to really share your accumulated knowledge and give it back in the form of wisdom on a greater scale."
So does this mean if Oprah Winfrey comes calling Dranitsaris to TV Land, she'll bite? Not necessarily, she says.
"The reality is I'm very introverted ... If you put me in front of a camera, I can do it, but it's exhausting. So this is my form. I like to write. It's not my ambition to go out on a TV show."
Toronto Star