He had no genuine care for Thelma, for the flesh-and-blood Thelma! I often thought that if I could find a way to keep him continually aware of his death and the clearing that death effects, I could help him make some major changes in the way he related to life and to other people. Only the deepest despair could have generated an illusion with the strength and the tenacity to have endured for eight years. I learned, at follow-up, that Penny was falling prey to this dynamic: she had grown fearful about her sons driving, was reluctant to lend them her pickup, and adamantly refused to allow either of them to buy a motorcycle. I had never before seen her play. I could have, for example, given more serious consideration to Thelmas twenty years of psychiatric care! Thelmas life was saved only by heroic medical efforts. What had they experienced when Chrissie was dying? He was going to kill it soon anyway, with drugs, with AIDS. In choosing to enter fully into each patients life, I, the therapist, not only am exposed to the same existential issues as are my patients but must be prepared to examine them with the same rules of inquiry. But I also felt chagrined at his having to remind me that people in distress dont necessarily think logically. Everything, Betty replied. His uncle, a coarse, brusque man whom Saul had rarely mentioned, procured him a spot near a subway entrance and dropped him off every morning at five-thirty and retrieved him three hours later to deposit him at schoolno matter that Saul was invariably late by ten or fifteen minutes and began every school day with a reprimand. We talked about work. I hadnt asked who would leave it ajar if he were confined to bed. But she simply smoothed out her long denim skirt, sat back down, and asked if she could smoke. In our last months of therapy, Betty seemed interested more in resolving the issues we had already opened than in uncovering new ones. If only I had a son, I might through him spew myself into the future past the death line.. You exist without my thinking or writing about you, just as I keep existing when you arent thinking of me. For stripping away my sweet illusion and revealing its base of fleshflesh on the rampage? Im only asking for time, Saul. And what could be worse for Harry than for his wife to cry last week and share nothing with him? This may seem like scholastic hairsplitting, yet something was about to happen in Marges therapy that forced me to be very clear about how I wanted to relate to her or, for that matter, to any patient. And yet every time I talk about whats happened, I have a miserable week. In that instant of confession, my entire construct of Jay exploded. My God! (Later we were to explore, also with minimal impact, the reverse of that formulathat it was because of the impoverishment of her life that she embraced the obsession in the first place.). His health restored, Saul was ready to terminate immediately but agreed to come in twice more the following week and one month hence. Its four years now. As we approached our ninth, and last, hour, I sacrificed the rest of my credibility and offered to see Penny three additional hours, right up to the time of my sabbatical departure. Shortly afterward, at a party, I met a young man who had just returned from the Stockholm Institute. My secretary said she always could tell by my smile that I had seen Elva that day. Youre exactly the same person now as you were then!. Her image took up housekeeping in my mind and defied all my efforts to dislodge it. Nonetheless, I felt convinced that I could resolve this whole crisis in one or two sessions. You cant blame me for being on guard, can you?. Students have told me they were more willing to plod through dry theory knowing there would likely be an interesting tale just around the bend. . 4445 n 36th st, phoenix, az 85018. ct classic plates benefits; Another possibility was to give a simple outright gift to the Stockholm Institutea gift that would appear to be unrelated to anything else. I had secretly hoped that her appearance would be offset in some way by her interpersonal characteristicsthat is, by the sheer vivacity or mental agility I have found in a few fat womenbut that, alas, was not to be. After Matthew finished talking, she began to stare out the window. In most other ways he is very self-sufficient. In another dream, her father gave her a horse called Shes a Lady. She had always wanted a horse from him, and in the dream not only was that childhood wish fulfilled but her father officially christened her a lady. One night she had two dreams about a lost twin brother. I hoped that my reputation in the field would intimidate him into cooperating. I then instructed him to say to her, punctually every two hours, phoning her if he were at work, these words precisely: Phyllis, please dont leave the house. Hed foul himself as much as me. Afterward, I mused about the hour we three had shared. For a brief time I felt a wave of eerie nausea, as though I were peering through a rent in the fabric of reality, at something forbidden, at the raw ingredients, the clefts and seams, the embryonic cells and blastulas that are, in the natural order of things, not meant to be seen in the finished human creature. His having forgotten the content of our last session troubled me little. Furthermore, it would be difficult to complete a revision by international mail: face-to-face collaboration was necessary. Its so self-punishing, so perverselike grinding an aching tooth. I had also, I told her, compared myself unfavorably with others on many occasions. I really want the group to be helpful to you, and I think it best that we do it this way: Ill be glad to store the letters in a safe, locked place for as long as you wish, provided that you agree to tell the group about our bargain.. You and Matthew are both innocent bystanders. Neither of you were really relating to the other but to some fantasy of the other. Consider the first, when Mike suggested that Marie seek more information from her oral surgeon, Dr. Z. Rather, love is a way of being, a giving to, not a falling for; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person. I want to add to my collectionsmaybe theyre my substitute for childrenstamps, political campaign buttons, old baseball uniforms, and Readers Digests., Next, I explored Marvins relationship with his wife which he insisted was extremely harmonious. Yalom is a turd. Pennys emphasis began to change. She was a quintessentially active personI thought of her careening down the highway after the drug dealersand one of the most difficult things to face during Chrissies death was her own helplessness. On the negative side, I can think of several possibilities. After all, if death is some pursuing entity, then one may yet find a way to elude it; besides, frightening as a death-bearing monster may be, it is less frightening than the truththat one carries within the spores of ones own death. I guess you could say I didnt give therapy much chance since I made a decision to protect Matthew by never mentioning him or my affair to any other therapist., You mean that in eight years of therapy youve never talked about Matthew!. I was wondering when youd get around to that! Psychoanalysis, to take the most catholic of the psychotherapy ideological schools, always posits such strong convictions about the necessary technical proceduresindeed, analysts seem more certain of everything than I am of anything. He really admired Dr. K but decided to write another article without crediting him as a source. I couldnt point out to Betty that Carlos was a special case, that he needed it. Now I was really worried but, again, decided not to comment on his withdrawal. Why does an attractive, presumably accomplished young man select a sixty-two-year-old woman who has been lifeless and depressed for many years? He had been a roofer, an auto mechanic, a general handyman, a contractor; he could fix anything. I dont think I could take being patronized. Marvin mentioned that the strongest dream of all was that first dream, six months ago, of the two gaunt men, the white cane, and the baby. But be careful, he suspects you of playing a cat-and-mouse game.. All this rich reality had been blotted out by my obsession. I keep looking for him when I walk down the street. Phyllis wants you out of their lives. His face fell, she reported, when he first caught sight of her, but, to his everlasting credit, he acknowledged that he was indeed George and then behaved like a gentleman throughout dinner. He mentions that Carlos had grown up as an only child in Argentina, but never refers back to this again. But she apparently never again developed an appetite for my type of treatment, and I did not hear from her again. Everything weighed against it: he was too resistant; in the trade language, he had simply too little psychological mindedness.. I was unnerved by the image of this woman screaming like a wounded animal, and took a few moments to clear it from my mind. She uttered all these things in a gay chatty tone, as though she were talking about someone else, or as though she and I were college sophomores swapping stories in a dorm some rainy Sunday afternoon. For an hour, I slipped into a reverie in which the entire plot of Three Unopened Letters came to me. I care about you. When I retire, I think it will bring home to me more clearly than Ive ever known that life has a beginning and an end, that Ive been slowly passing from one point to another, and that I am now approaching the end., My work is about money. She ended the hour by saying, Youre the only person who knows this., Mixed. Those letters must weigh ten pounds. I could see she liked talking about Matthew. Nietzsche carries a lot of weight with me, and that citation gave me pause. Marie came in to see me for some minor crisis every few months for the next four years; and, after that, our lives never crossed. Irvin D. Yalom, quote from Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy "Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. His blood pressure (he had told me earlier) had risen to one hundred ninety over one hundred twenty; and six years before, at a time of stress, he had had a severe, nearly fatal coronary. On my way to Sauls house the next day, I felt cheerful. I saw that in last Sundays paper. Dave said, Shoot! I had always had warm feelings toward my father and would have welcomed the opportunity to invite him to live in my home. Since she was phobic about seeing doctors (because of her shame about her body, she rarely permitted a physical exam and had never had a pelvic exam), it was hard to reassure her about her health. Carlos had been intrigued by this construct. Volunteers who are willing to be interviewed, please call 555-6352. Then two hundred, a fifty-pound loss! I had my worst migraine ever this week and had to go to the emergency room night before last for an injection., The headaches are killing me. Its never worked for me when Ive been in therapy. I knew I was taking a risk. They did know that he was growing deeply depressed and seemed to have no one to whom he could turn for support. I have always felt drawn to patients who struggle with the same issues I do. Where was she in all this?, Like Ive told you beforeway, way in the background. They chose that part of the dreamthe theme of secrecythat was most relevant to the way Dave related to them, and they whacked away at it beautifully. Perhaps others would evaluate her very differently from the way I would. Her purse was stolen, which she believed would never happen because she perceived that the late Frank protected her. ! It was hard to remember that less than a year before it had been difficult for me even to look at Betty. With so many promising leads I didnt know which to choose. No, a therapist helps a patient not by sifting through the past but by being lovingly present with that person; by being trustworthy, interested; and by believing that their joint activity will ultimately be redemptive and healing. Elva conceded that three packets of Kleenex and twelve pens (plus three pencil stubs) were indeed superfluous, but held firm about two bottles of cologne and three hairbrushes, and dismissed, with an imperious flick of her hand, my challenge to her large flashlight, bulky notepads, and huge sheaf of photographs. (Sociopaths often present themselves well, I thought.) The facts are obvious. I felt strongly that Thelmas fear of aging and death fueled her obsession. That was good. I told her of my own difficulties in coming to terms with death; that, though the fact of death cannot be altered, ones attitude toward it can be vastly influenced.