Lying on the Couch (51 page)

"No, it's not so much a question of confidentiality—more a question of visibility," Marshal replied. "You have to consider that anyone who's going to be of use to me will have to be analytically trained."

"You mean," Carol interrupted, "no other type of therapist but an analyst could help you?"

"Mrs. ... I wonder if you mind if we go on a first-name basis? Mrs. Astrid and Dr. Streider sounds so stiff and formal, considering the intimate nature of our discussion."

Carol nodded her approval, not failing to remember Jess's comment that the only thing he disliked about his therapist was his for-

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mality: he had snorted at Jess's suggestion of using first names and insisted on being addressed as Doctor. . . .

"Carol . . . yes, that's better . . . tell me the truth—can you see me consulting some flake therapist? Some past-lives specialist, or someone who's drawing diagrams of parent, child, and adult on a portable blackboard, or some young cognitive therapy jerk trying to correct my faulty thinking habits?"

"Okay, for the moment assume it is true that only an analyst could help. Now continue your argument: Why does that present such a problem to you?"

"Well, I know every analyst in the community, and I don't think there's one who could assume the necessary neutral attitude toward me. I'm too successful, too ambitious. Everyone knows I'm on course to become president of the Golden Gate Psychoanalytic Institute and that I've got my sights on national leadership."

"So, then, it's a question of envy and competition?"

"Of course. How could any analyst maintain therapeutic neutrality toward me? Any analyst I saw would secretly gloat about my misfortune. I probably would if I were in their place. Everyone likes to see the collapse of the mighty. And word would get around I was in therapy—in a month everyone in town would know about it."

"How?"

"No way to conceal it. Analytic offices are clustered together. Someone would spot me in the waiting room."

"So? Is it a disgrace to be in therapy? I've heard of people speak with admiration of therapists still willing to work on themselves."

"Among my colleagues, and at my age and level, it would be perceived as a sign of weakness—it would cripple me politically. And keep in mind that I've been highly critical of therapist misconduct: I've even engineered the disciplining and expulsion—a well-deserved expulsion, I might add—of my own analyst from the institute. You read about the Seth Pande catastrophe in the papers?"

"The psychiatric recall? Yes, of course!" Carol said. "Who could miss that flap? That was you?"

"I was a major player in it. Maybe the major player. And, between you and me, I saved the institute's ass—a long and confidential story, I can't go into it—but the point is this: How could I ever again speak up about therapist misconduct when there might be someone in the audience who knows that I accepted a Rolex from a patient? I'd be forced into silence—and political ineffectiveness—forever."

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Carol knew there was something seriously wrong with Marshal's argument, but she couldn't find a way to challenge it. Perhaps his distrust of therapists was too close to her own. She tried another tack.

"Marshal, go back to your statement that only an analytically trained therapist could help you. Where does that leave you and me? Look at me—a totally untrained person! How is it that you consider me helpful?"

"I don't know how —I only know you are. And right now I don't have the energy to figure out why. Maybe all you have to do is just be there in the room with me—that's all. Just let me do the work."

"Still," said Carol, shaking her head, "I'm uncomfortable with our arrangement. It's unprofessional; it may even be unethical. You're spending money to see someone who has no special expertise in the area you need. And it's a good bit of money—after all, I charge more than a psychotherapist."

"No, I've thought all that through. How can it be unethical? Your client is requesting it because he finds it helpful. I'll sign an affidavit to that effect. And it's not expensive if you take into consideration the tax consequences. Moderate medical expenses at my level of income are not deductible, but legal expenses are. Carol, you are one hundred percent deductible. You're actually cheaper than a therapist—but that's not the reason for seeing you! The real reason is that you're the one person who can help me."

And so Carol was persuaded to continue her meetings with Marshal. She had no difficulty spotting Marshal's problems—one by one he spelled them out for her. Like so many excellent attorneys Carol took pride in her beautiful penmanship, and her meticulous notes on legal-sized paper soon contained a cogent list of issues. Why was it so impossible for Marshal to turn to anyone else for help? Why so many enemies? And why so arrogant, so judgmental, about other therapists and other therapies? He was omnivorously judgmental; he spared no one, not his wife, not Bat Thomas, not Emil, not Seth Pande, not his colleagues, not his students.

Carol couldn't help insinuating a question about Ernest Lash. Under the pretext that one of her friends was considering entering therapy with him, she asked for his recommendation.

"Well—and, remember, this is confidential, Carol—he's not the first person I would recommend to you. Ernest's a bright, thoughtful young man who has an excellent background in drug research.

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In that area he's top-notch. No question. But as a therapist . . . well . . . let's just say he's still developing, still undifferentiated. The main problem is he's had no real analytic training aside from limited supervision with me. Nor, I think, is he sufficiently mature yet to undertake proper analytic training: too undisciplined, too irreverent and iconoclastic. And even worse, he flaunts his unruliness, attempts to dignify it under the name of 'innovation' or 'experimentation.'"

Unruly! Irreverent! Iconoclastic! As a result of these accusations, Ernest's stock rose several points in her estimation.

Next on Carol's list, after distrust and arrogance, came Marshal's shame. Deep shame. Maybe arrogance and shame went together, Carol thought. Maybe, if Marshal weren't so judgmental of others, he wouldn't be so hard on himself. Or did it work the other way? If he weren't so hard on himself, might he be more forgiving of others? Funny, now that she thought of it, that was exactly the way Ernest had put it to her.

Actually, in many ways she recognized herself in Marshal. For example, his rage—its white heat, its tenacity, his obsession with revenge—reminded her of the meeting she had had with Heather and Norma that awful night after Justin left. Had she really entertained the idea of a hit man, a tire-iron beating? Had she really destroyed Justin's computer files, his clothing, his souvenirs from his youth? None of it seemed real now. It happened a thousand years ago. Justin's face was fading from memory.

How had she changed so much? she wondered. The chance meeting with Jess, probably. Or maybe just getting away from the strangulation of the marriage? And then Ernest crossed her mind . . . could it have been that, despite everything, he had managed to bootleg some therapy into their sessions?

She tried to reason with Marshal about the uselessness of his rage, and pointed out its self-defeating character. But to no avail. Sometimes she wished she could transfuse some of her newly developed temperateness into him. Other times she lost patience and wanted to shake some sense into him. "Let it go!" she wanted to yell. "Don't you see what your idiotic rage and pride are costing you? Everything! Your peace of mind, your sleep, your work, your marriage, your friendships! Just let it go." But none of these approaches would help. She remembered only too vividly the tenacity of her own vengefulness just a few weeks ago, and so could easily empathize with Marshal's anger. But she didn't know how to help him let it go.

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Some of the other items on her Hst—for example Marshal's preoccupation with money and status—were alien to her. She had no personal concourse with them. Nonetheless she appreciated their centrality to Marshal: after all, it was his greed and ambition that had gotten him into this mess.

And his wife? Carol waited patiently hour after hour for Marshal to speak of her. But scarcely a word, other than to say that Shirley was away on a three-week Vipassnia retreat at Tassajara. Nor did Marshal respond to Carol's questions about their marriage other than to say that their interests had diverged and that they had been going their separate ways.

Often while jogging, while researching other clients' cases, while lying in bed, Carol thought about Marshal. So many questions. So few answers. Marshal sensed her disquiet and reassured her that merely helping him to formulate and discuss his basic problems was sufficient to ease some of his pain. But Carol knew it wasn't enough. She needed help; she needed a consultant. But who? And then one day it occurred to her: she knew exactly where to turn.

TWENTY-SEVEN

/y/n Ernest's waiting room, Carol decided she would devote ^r her entire therapy hour to getting advice about how to ^^_^ help Marshal. She made a checklist of the areas in which she needed help with her client and planned how best to present them to Ernest. She knew she had to be careful: Marshal's remarks made it clear that he and Ernest knew one another and she would have to bury Marshal's identity very deeply. That didn't daunt Carol; au contraire, she moved easily and cheerfully in the halls of intrigue.

But Ernest had quite a different agenda. As soon as she entered the office, he opened the hour.

"You know, Carolyn, I feel that the last session was unfinished. We ended in the middle of something important."

"What do you mean?"

"It seemed to me that we were in the midst of a more searching look at our relationship and you began to get agitated. You practi-

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cally bolted out of here at the end of the hour. Can you talk about the feelings you experienced on your way home from our session?"

Ernest, like most therapists, almost always waited for the patient to begin the hour. If he ever broke that rule and introduced the first topic, it was invariably for the purpose of exploring some issue left hanging from the last session. He had learned from Marshal long before that the more therapy sessions flow from one to the other, the more powerful did therapy become.

"Agitated? No." Carol shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't remember much about the last session. Besides, Ernest, today is today and I want to talk to you about something else. I need some advice about a client I'm seeing."

"In a minute, Carolyn, first let me follow through with this for a few minutes. There are some things that feel important to me that I want to say."

Whose therapy is this, anyway^ Carol mumbled to herself. But she nodded amiably and waited for Ernest to continue.

"You remember, Carolyn, that in our first session, I told you that nothing was more important in therapy than for us to have an honest relationship? For my part, I gave you my word that I would be honest with you. Yet the truth is that I haven't lived up to that. It's time to clear the air, and I'll start with my feelings about the erotic . . . there's been a lot of that in our relationship and that's been disturbing to me."

"What do you mean?" Carol felt concerned; Ernest's tone made it clear this was not going to be an ordinary hour.

"Well, look at what's happened. From the first session forward, a great deal of our time has been devoted to your talking about your sexual attraction to me. I've become the center of your sexual fantasies. Again and again, you've asked me to take Ralph's place as your lover-therapist. And then there are the hugs at the end of the hour, the attempts to kiss me, the 'couch time' where you want to sit close to me."

"Yes, yes, I know all that. But you used the word disturbing.""

"Yes, definitely disturbing—and in more ways than one. First, because it was sexually arousing."

"You're disturbed because I was aroused?"

"No, that / was. You've been very provocative, Carolyn, and since the name of the game here, and especially today, is honesty, I'll tell you honestly that it's been disturbingly arousing to me. I've told

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you before that I consider you a very attractive woman; it's very difficult for me, as a man, not to be affected by your seductiveness. You've entered into my fantasies, as well. I think about seeing you hours before you come in, I even think about what to wear on the days I see you. I've got to own up to this.

"Now, obviously, therapy can't go on like this. You see, rather than help you resolve these . . . these—what shall I say?— powerful but unrealistic feelings toward me, I believe I've colluded in them, I've encouraged them. I've enjoyed hugging you, touching your hair, having you sit next to me on the sofa. And I believe you know I've enjoyed it. You shake your head 'no,' Carolyn, but I believe I've fanned the flames of your feelings to me. I've been saying 'no, no, no' all along but, in a softer but audible voice, I've also been saying, 'yes, yes, yes.' And that has not been therapeutic for you."

"I haven't heard the 'yes, yes, yes,' Ernest."

"Maybe not consciously. But if I feel these feelings, I'm certain you've sensed them at some level and been encouraged by them. Two people locked together in an intimate relationship—or a relationship that is trying to be intimate—always communicate everything to each other, if not explicitly, then on a nonverbal or unconscious level."

"I'm not sure I buy into that, Ernest."

"I'm sure I'm right on this. We'll come back to it again. But I want you to hear the gist of what I've said: your erotic feelings toward me are not good for therapy, and I, with my own vanity and my own sexual attraction to you, must take the responsibility for encouraging those feelings. I have not been a good therapist for you."

"No, no," Carol said, shaking her head vigorously. "None of this is your fault—"