Love's Executioner (43 page)

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Authors: Irvin D. Yalom

Tags: #Psychology, #Movements, #Psychoanalysis, #Research & Methodology, #Emotions

BOOK: Love's Executioner
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She turned back to me. “Marvin’s told you that he tells me about the things the two of you have been discussing. I’ve been in therapy once removed. Some of the topics shook me up, they apply more to me than to him.”
“For example?”
“For example, regret. That idea really hit home. I have a lot of regret about what I’ve done with my life or, better, what I haven’t done.”
My heart went out to Phyllis at that moment, and I desperately wanted to say something helpful. “If we stare too hard into the past, it’s easy to be overcome with regret. But now the important thing is to turn toward the future. We’ve got to think about change. What must
not
occur is that five years from now you look back with regret over the way you’ve lived these coming five years.”
Phyllis responded after a short pause, “I started to say that I’m too old to do things differently. I felt that way for thirty years. Thirty years! My whole life’s gone by feeling it was too late. But watching Marvin change over the last several weeks has been impressive. You may not realize it, but the mere fact that I’m here today, in a psychiatrist’s office, talking about myself is in itself a big, big, step.”
I remember thinking how fortunate it was that Marvin’s change had spurred Phyllis to change. Often therapy doesn’t work that way. In fact, not uncommonly therapy places strain on a marriage: if a patient changes and the spouse stays locked in the same position, then the dynamic equilibrium of the marriage often disintegrates. The patient has either to forego growth or to grow and jeopardize the union. I was very grateful that Phyllis demonstrated so much flexibility.
The last thing we discussed was the timing of Marvin’s symptoms. I had satisfied myself that the symbolic meaning of retirement—the existential anxiety underlying this important life marker—was sufficient explanation for the onset of his symptoms. But Phyllis supplied additional explanations for “Why now?”
“I’m sure you know what you’re talking about and that Marvin must be more upset than he knows at the idea of retiring. But, frankly,
I’m
disturbed at the idea of his retirement—and when I get upset, upset about anything, Marvin gets upset. That’s the way our relationship works. If I worry, even if I keep it completely silent, he senses it and gets upset. Sometimes he gets so upset, he takes my upsetness away from me.”
Phyllis said all this with such facility that I forgot for a moment the great strain she was under. Earlier she had been glancing at Marvin every couple of sentences. I wasn’t certain whether it was to obtain his support or to reassure herself that he could tolerate what she had to say. But now she was engrossed in her own words, holding her body and her head absolutely still as she talked.
“What about Marvin’s retirement disturbs you?”
“Well, for one thing, he feels retirement means travel. I don’t know how much he has told you about me and traveling. I’m not proud of it, but I’m having a lot of trouble leaving the house, let alone traveling halfway around the world. Also, I’m not looking forward to Marvin’s ‘taking over’ the house. For the last forty years he’s run the office and I’ve run the house. Now, I know that it’s his house, too. It’s his house mainly, you could say—his money bought it. But it’s very upsetting to hear him talk about remodeling rooms so he can display his various collections. For example, right now he’s trying to get someone to build a new glass dining-room table which will display his political campaign buttons. I don’t want to eat on top of political buttons. I just fear we’re heading toward trouble. And——” She stopped.
“You were going to say something else, Phyllis?”
“Well, this is the hardest thing to say. I feel ashamed. I’m afraid that when Marvin begins staying home, he will see how little I do each day and lose respect for me.”
Marvin simply took her hand. It seemed the right thing to do.
In fact, throughout the session he remained deeply empathic. No distracting questions, no jocular clichés, no struggling to stay on the surface. He reassured Phyllis that travel was important to him, but not so important that he couldn’t wait until she was ready. He told her explicitly that the most important thing in the world to him was their relationship, and that he had never felt closer to her.
I met with Phyllis and Marvin as a couple for several more sessions. I reinforced their new, more open mode of communication and instructed them in some fundamentals of sexual functioning: how Phyllis could help Marvin sustain his erection; how she could help him avoid premature ejaculation; how Marvin could approach sex less mechanically; and how he could, if he lost his erection, bring Phyllis to orgasm manually or orally.
She had been housebound for years and now rarely ventured forth alone. It seemed to me that the time was ripe to interrupt that pattern. I believed that the meaning, or at least one meaning, of her agoraphobia was now obsolete and could be influenced by paradox. I first obtained Marvin’s agreement to help Phyllis overcome her phobia by promising to follow any suggestions I gave him. I then instructed him to say to her, punctually every two hours, phoning her if he were at work, these words precisely: “Phyllis, please don’t leave the house. I need to know you are there at all times to take care of me and prevent me from being frightened.”
Phyllis’s eyes widened. Marvin looked at me incredulously. Could I possibly be serious?
I told him that I knew it sounded crazy, but persuaded him to follow my instructions faithfully.
They both giggled the first few times Marvin told Phyllis not to leave the house: it seemed ridiculous and artificial; she had not left the house in months. But soon irritation replaced the giggle. Marvin was irritated with me for making him promise to keep repeating the same stupid statement. Phyllis, even though she knew Marvin was following my instructions, grew irritated with him for ordering her to stay at home. After a few days she went to the library alone, then shopping, and in the next few weeks ventured farther than she had for years.
I rarely employ such manipulative approaches in therapy; usually the price is too high—one must sacrifice the genuineness of the therapeutic encounter. But paradox can be effective in those instances where the therapeutic foundation is solid and the prescribed behavior explodes the meaning of the symptom. In this case, Phyllis’s agoraphobia was not
her
symptom but
their
symptom, and it served to maintain the marital equilibrium: Phyllis was eternally there for Marvin; he could venture forth into the world, provide for their security, yet feel secure in the knowledge that she was always there waiting for him.
There was a certain irony in my use of this intervention: an existential approach and a manipulative paradox ordinarily make bizarre bedfellows. Yet here the sequence seemed natural. Marvin had applied to his relationship with Phyllis the insights he had obtained from a confrontation with the deep sources of his despair. Despite the discouragement (depicted in his dreams by such symbols as being unable to rebuild a house at night), he had nonetheless proceeded upon a radical reconstruction of his relationship to his wife. Both Marvin and Phyllis now cared so much for the other’s growth and being that they could genuinely collaborate in the process of wrenching a symptom from its socket.
Marvin’s change initiated an adaptive spiral: liberated from a restricting role, Phyllis underwent enormous change in the space of a few weeks and continued and solidified that improvement in individual therapy with another therapist over the next year.
Marvin and I met only a few more times. Pleased with his progress, he had realized, as he put it, a good yield on his investment. The migraines, his reason for seeking therapy, had never returned. Though his mood swings still occurred (and were still dependent on sex), their intensity had diminished considerably. Marvin estimated that the mood swings were now approximately the same as they had been for the previous twenty years.
I, too, felt satisfied with our work. There is always more that can be done, but overall we had accomplished far more than I could have anticipated at our initial session. The fact that Marvin’s anguished dreams had stopped was also reassuring. Though I had received no messages from the dreamer for the last several weeks, I had not missed them. Marvin and the dreamer had fused, and I spoke to them now as to a single person.
I next saw Marvin one year later: I always schedule patients for a one-year follow-up session—both for their benefit and for my own edification. I also make it a practice to play for the patient a tape recording of part of our initial session. Marvin listened to ten minutes of our initial interview with great interest, smiled at me, and said, “Who is that jerk, anyway?”
Marvin’s quip has a serious side. Having heard the same reaction from many patients, I have come to regard it as a valid marker of change. Marvin, in effect, was saying, “I’m a different person now. I hardly recognize that Marvin of a year ago. Those things I used to do—refusing to look at my life; trying to control or intimidate others; trying to impress others with my intelligence, my charts, my thoroughness—they’re gone. I don’t do that any more.”
These are no minor adjustments: they represent basic modifications in personhood. Yet they are so subtle in character that they generally elude most research-outcome questionnaires.
With his usual care, Marvin had come prepared with one-year follow-up notes which reviewed and assessed the tasks we had addressed in therapy. The verdict was mixed: in some areas he had maintained his changes; in others he had done some backsliding. First, he informed me that Phyllis was doing well: her phobia about leaving the house remained much improved. She had joined a women’s therapy group and was working on her fear of attending social functions. Perhaps most impressive was her decision to address adaptively her concern about her lack of education—by enrolling in several college extension courses.
As for Marvin? He had no further migraines. His mood swings persisted but were not disabling. He was still periodically impotent but brooded about it less. He had changed his mind about retirement and was now working part-time, but had switched fields and was doing more real estate development and management—work that he found more interesting. He and Phyllis still related very well, but at times he found himself aggrieved at her newfound activities and felt ignored by her.
And my old friend, the dreamer? What of him? Did he have a message for me? Although Marvin had had no nightmares or powerful dreams, he knew there were nocturnal rumblings. The night before our meeting, he had had a short dream which was full of mystery. It seemed to be trying to tell him something. Perhaps, he suggested, I could understand it.
My wife is in front of me. She is naked and standing with her legs spread apart. I am looking through the triangle of her legs off into the distance. But all I can see, far away on the horizon, is my mother’s face.
 
My final message from the dreamer:
“My vision is bounded by the women of my life and imagination. Nonetheless, I can still see far into the distance. Perhaps that is sufficient.”
 
AFTERWORD
 
On Rereading
Love’s Executioner
at Age Eighty
 
When I agreed to write a postscript for
Love’s Executioner
, I had no idea of the
emotional adventure ahead of me. I wrote this book twenty-five years ago and, since then, had not once read it in its entirety. This view backward to the writing of an earlier self was thrilling and poignant, but also dismaying and embarrassing. The flush of pride I first experienced quickly gave way to a sense of deflation: “This guy writes a lot better than I can.”
At first I thought I would be encountering myself as a very young man, but a bit of arithmetic led to the realization that I was no sapling when I wrote this book: I was in my mid-fifties! That was surprising since the writer seems so youthful, energetic, and often unrestrained and sophomoric. And outrageously active—often charging at a patient’s defenses with a battering ram! I wish I could have supervised him and settled him down.
And yet there are so many things I like about this younger self. I like the way he avoided diagnosis or categorization. It was as though he were seeing for the very first time each particular set of complaints and personality characteristics, as though he truly believed each individual was unique and required a unique therapy approach. And I liked his willingness to put up with uncertainty and to undertake the laborious task of inventing a different therapy for each patient. I felt sorry for the discomfort he experienced in each course of therapy. He lacked the confidence provided by an established school of thought, a professional home such as a Freudian, a Jungian, a Lacanian, an Adlerian, or a cognitive-behavioral one with an all-embracing explanatory system. But I was pleased he never believed he knew unknowable things.
And such audacity. His amount of self-disclosure was outrageous twenty-five years ago and set most therapists’ teeth on edge. And still it seems outrageous. I personally feel shocked. How dare he disclose so many of my private matters? My secret cache of love letters, my compulsive work habits, my inexcusably unkind, judgmental attitudes toward obese people, my love obsession that prevented me from being fully present at a family beach vacation. Despite such behavior, I am nonetheless proud of his putting nothing in the way of forging a true therapy encounter; I would do exactly the same today. I remain convinced that a therapist’s judicious self-disclosure facilitates the course of therapy.

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