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Struggling Adam Dunn talks to (and golfs with) a psychologist

Adam Dunn

Adam Dunn gives a thumb up as he looks around U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, Friday, Dec. 3, 2010. Adam Dunn has agreed to a four-year Major League Baseball deal worth 56 million dollars with the Chicago White Sox. Dunn, 31, hit .260 with 38 home runs and 103 RBIs last season for the Washington Nationals. The 6-foot-6 first baseman/designated hitter is a career .250 hitter with 354 home runs and 880 RBIs in 1,448 games with Cincinnati, Arizona and the Nationals.(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Nam Y. Huh

In an effort to shake a season-long slump that includes a .173 batting average and 100 strikeouts in 67 games Adam Dunn recently spent some time with a psychologist named Jeffrey Fishbein.

Here’s what Dunn told Doug Padilla of ESPN Chicago about the experience:

I talked to him a little bit. It works for different people. I don’t know if it works for me, but you know, I have talked with him and I even golfed with him. I like him. I’m not giving up, I promise you. I just need to go back to basics and quit thinking. It’s not me. I’m not a thinker. Have to quit thinking. That’s not me. I’m not a thinker. I have to see it, hit the damn thing and not make it so complicated.

“I’m not a thinker” is definitely one of my favorite out-of-context quotes of the season, but Dunn is probably right. He’s been so productive for so many seasons--topping an .800 OPS in every year of his career prior to signing with the White Sox--that I’d bet on his eventually getting on track. Whether or not that means he can be worth anything close to $56 million to the White Sox over the next four years is another issue, of course.

Asked if Fishbein is a good psychologist, Dunn replied: “I don’t know what’s a good one. Yeah, sure. I don’t know, it’s my first run-in with one.”

Fishbein probably won’t be putting that quote on any promotion materials any time soon.