Once upon a time, in a small village in England, there was a poor boy who lived with both his parents and his grandparents in a small run down house that closely resembled a shack.

Charlie had something of a sweet tooth and one day while munching on his Wonka Chocolate bar, he found a golden ticket inviting him and a guest of his choosing to tour Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with Willy Wonka Himself.

However, Charlie was not the only one who was invited on this wondrous tour, the other children include, Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee, Augustus Gloop and Violet Beauregarde. Each had very distinct personalities with a few obvious quirks, Veruca enjoys being ridiculously pampered and feels that she should always be the center of attention, Mike Teavee breaks all sorts of things but never feels like it is wrong to do so, Augustus Gloop has had a significant downturn in mood and has learned to cope by constant eating, and finally Violet Beauregarde who, despite warnings, feels compelled to do various odd actions.

Upon arriving at the factory, the children are greeted by none other than Willy Wonka himself. While wringing his hands and nervously checking over his shoulder, he lays down one simple rule, to not touch anything. He also notifies the children that at the end of the tour he will choose one of them to receive a magnificent prize. Let the Tour Begin!

The first to go was Augustus. He went into one of his downward mood swings when Mr. Wonka notified them of his rule not to touch any of the candy, and so, as he had already conditioned himself to eat when he was down trodden to make himself feel better, he automatically without much thought, leaned over the side of the bank to slurp up some of the liquid chocolate river and fell in. Mr. Wonka forbade anyone to help him, because he feared that it would further contaminate his chocolate.

Next they entered the colorful bubbles room where Violet was overwhelmed with the obsessive and compelling thought to chew the piece of gum that was at the end of the colorful bubbles machine, she felt that if she didn’t chew the gum, that something very bad would happen, unfortunately, her chewing the gum is what made something very bad happen, Violet turned into an extremely large human blueberry.

After hearing her constantly brag about herself, it was Veruca’s time to go. She felt that she, more than anyone else, deserved a squirrel for herself and demanded that Mr. Wonka give one to her. Mr. Wonka refused, but once again his warning was disregarded, and Veruca walked onto the working floor, where the squirrels judged her as a bad nut and she was taken away.

Now all that’s left is Mike and Charlie, but not for long. After entering the TV room, Mike spontaneously breaks the rules and teleports himself into a TV, but along with that he is also made TV size, which is very small indeed. Mike’s father is instructed to take miniature Mike home until they possibly can find a way to make him life sized again. So now all that’s left is Willy Wonka, Charlie and Charlie’s grandfather. And upon noticing this, Willy Wonka takes it upon himself to award Charlie the prize he promised at the end.

On the magical elevator ride, Mr. Wonka explains why Charlie is the only one left. “You see my boy, Mr. Gloop had quite sever depression and had conditioned himself to cope by eating, which ultimately lead him to falling into the chocolate river, Violet had serious OCD and was obsessively compelled to eat the gum, which lead her to poof up like a blueberry, Veruca was extremely narcissistic and felt that everything was owed to her which caused her to attempt to take what was not hers and ultimately being judged as a bad nut and being trashed, and finally Mike, who had Anti-social Mood disorder, where he did not feel he had done anything wrong when he was breaking things and had no regard for anyone’s safety.

I am almost exclusively a behavioral therapist, which means that I would treat almost all of these with some form of classical or operant conditioning. Some form of positive and negative punishment and reward set on either a fixed or variable ratio schedule, although I much prefer the Variable Ratio schedule, due to its effectiveness of postponing extinction as long as possible. Now as for me, I have General Anxiety Disorder which you may have noticed as I was wringing my hands and constantly sweating, and I will be soonishly taking time off to get help, which is why, as my last gift to you Charlie….

My Chocolate Factory!

THE END!