The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (29 page)

Finally, the messages we were going to send Leon and Joseph from their delusional referents were to be composed in such a way as to be supportive and emotionally gratifying. Above all, they must contain suggestions designed to ameliorate the men's unhappy condition.

[
1
]Theodore M. Newcomb:
Personality and Social Change
(New York: Dryden; 1943).

[
2
]Bruno Bettelheim: “Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations,”
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
, Vol. 38 (1943), pp. 417–52.

[
3
]K. Lewin:
Resolving Social Conflicts
(New York: Harper; 1948); J. Adelson: “A Study of Minority Group Authoritarianism,”
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
, Vol. 48 (1953), pp. 477–85.

[
4
]Lifton and Shein: op. cit.

[
5
]Lifton: ibid., p. 218.

[
6
]“The concept of transference is applied by Freud to schizophrenia in a negative way. According to him, all the libido in the schizophrenic is withdrawn from external objects, and therefore no transference, no attachment for the analyst, is possible. The result is that the patient is scarcely accessible to analytic treatment.” Sylvano Arieti:
Interpretations of Schizophrenia
(New York: Robert Brunner; 1955), p. 26.

[
7
]Strictly speaking, Leon's “uncle” was not completely a figment of his imagination. Early in Leon's stay at Ypsilanti there had been an aide by the name of George Bernard Brown, and this aide, from what Leon told us, had developed an unusually positive relationship with Leon before he left for another job. After his departure, Leon had apparently “canonized” him.

[
8
] Norman Cameron: “Paranoid Conditions and Paranoia,” in S. Arieti (Ed.):
American Handbook of Psychiatry
(New York: Basic Books; 1959), pp. 518–19.

[
9
]Cameron: “The Paranoid Pseudo-Community Revisited,”
American Journal of Sociology
, Vol. 65 (1959), p. 56.

[
1
]Frieda Fromm-Reichmann:
Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Selected Papers
, D. M. Bullard (Ed.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1959), p. 204.

A
CTUALLY
it was Leon who first brought up the subject. One day, back in April of 1960, he had asked: “How much is an 1898 two-dollar bill worth?” and had then gone on to explain that he was expecting a letter from his wife—with an 1898 two-dollar bill enclosed. A week later he announced that the letter was delayed because the mail had been tampered with.

What could these announcements possibly mean? In his classic work,
Dementia Praecox
, Blueler says that schizophrenics use a “double-entry bookkeeping” system, and that they know and can really distinguish reality from fantasy. In our dealings with Leon we sometimes had the impression that this was indeed the case, that although he had complex, difficult-to-understand psychological reasons for all the delusional things he said, he did not really mean them or believe in them himself.
He wanted us to believe he believed when in fact he did not
. On the other hand, it was extremely difficult for us to conceive that Leon, intelligent, shrewd, and sensitive as he was, could possibly make such utterly fantastic statements as, for example, that he was married, and that his wife's name was Madame Yeti, unless he himself really believed these things were true.

Did Leon
really
believe in the existence of his wife? Did he
really
expect to hear from her? And what was the significance of his announcement of what he expected to find in the letter?
Was he “inviting” us to send him money through such devious means, or was he only trying to tell us indirectly how much he needed, and yet despaired of obtaining, even cosmic—as he would say—companionship and care?

It was not until August 1, 1960, some four months later (after we had concluded that the first phase of the research had run its course), that we were able to pursue more systematically the questions raised by this behavior of Leon's, and—at the same time —by the theoretical problem of the nature of reference or authority systems that was raised in the last chapter. In undertaking this new project, we had a twofold purpose: to find out empirically as best we could to what extent Leon really believed in the existence of his delusional wife; and if he did believe, to find out whether changes in his delusions and behavior could be brought about through suggestions emanating from her rather than from us. The events relevant to this second purpose will be described in the next chapter. In the present chapter, I shall describe how we went about determining the psychological reality of Leon's delusional wife.

The Reality of Delusion

August 1. A couple of hours before the daily meeting, an aide delivers a letter to Leon. It is addressed to Dr. R. I. Dung and has no return address. The aide explains that a lady approached him as he was walking down the main street of the hospital grounds and asked him to deliver it to Dr. Dung in Ward D-16. Leon, after thanking the aide, takes the letter and reads it.

The contents, which of course we knew, are as follows:

Leon's initial response is disbelief. Without divulging the contents of the letter, he tells the aide that although he has never seen his wife's handwriting he knows that she didn't write or sign this letter. He says further that he doesn't like the idea of people imposing on his beliefs and that he is going to look into this.

A couple of hours later, during the daily meeting, we notice that Leon is extremely depressed and we ask him why. He evasively replies that he is meditating, but he does not mention the letter. This is the first time, as far as we know, that he has ever kept information from us.

August 4. This is the day Leon's wife is supposed to visit him. He goes outdoors shortly before the appointed hour and does not return until it is well past.

In the next two weeks we made no further attempts either to send messages or to interview Leon about his attitudes or reactions to the letter. After all, we were not even supposed to know that he had received a letter. At all costs we wished to prevent him from becoming suspicious about our role.

Not much happened during this period, except that Leon seemed more depressed than usual and was more openly hostile to the female visitors (Friends Service Committee summer volunteers) who occasionally sat in on the daily meetings; he did not even respond to introductions in his usual polite and often gracious way. He complained that he was tired of having his time taken up with meetings and would rather be left alone to spend it in introspective prayer and silence.

To one of the Friends volunteers Leon explains the meaning of
duping
, saying that things would be different after the final shaking off, which was imminent. “Mr. Cassel will get what he's asking for; that is, his transfer and discharge from the hospital. He wants to be himself and so do I.”

August 18. Meeting. After the usual song, and aide comes in to say that Leon is wanted on the telephone. Joseph wonders aloud who could be calling him. Leon returns shortly and when asked who it was says it was a woman who accused him falsely of not being in the ward. He doesn't go for falsehood, he says, but he isn't sure whether it was his wife or not. “It will get straightened out,” he concludes.

After the meeting adjourns, we interview the aide who overheard the telephone conversation. After Leon hung up, the aide tells us, he asked Leon who it was. Leon replied that the phone call came from a special person and that if it was who he thought it was he would be happy to see her.

That afternoon Leon stays in his room meditating and praying for almost two hours. He then goes outdoors but, since curfew time is near, returns shortly.

August 19. Leon informs an aide that his wife's maiden name is Ruth and that he is sorry he missed her on Thursday, when she had come to visit him.

August 20. At the meeting, Leon says that he misunderstood the woman on the telephone, which is why he claimed to be in the ward when in fact he wasn't. He says that, since he had waited for his wife the “previous Thursday” instead of Thursday, August 4, she was speaking the truth. He adds that he is glad his wife is interested in him.

August 23. At the meeting, the research assistant tells Leon he would like to meet his wife. Would Leon let him know when she's coming?

“No, I will not let you know. You're the one that's interfering with—Mr. Rokeach and the rest of the cohorts.”

—
Will Joseph get to meet her?
—

“He knows my wife. He sees her cosmic image.”

“I don't know your wife,” Joseph says. “I'm not interested in you or your wife.”

Later, the aide notices Leon sitting quietly alone in his sitting room, smoking and meditating. When the aide asks if he has heard from his wife again, Leon replies that he has not, but that he expects to soon; he has asked Almighty God to let her appear to him in any form.

August 24. Leon receives another letter:

At the meeting we say that the aide told us he had delivered a letter to Leon a few hours before. Leon comments that there might be an infringement on his emotional life, and that he has to wait to find out whether this was really his wife or whether the aide is only trying to amuse himself. He says he is disturbed because she hasn't come right out and spoken to him; therefore, he has thrown away the cigarette holder.

But, apparently reconsidering the matter, he shortly afterwards retrieves the cigarette holder from the wastepaper basket.

August 26. Leon approaches the aide who delivered the letter and tells him that he saw his wife on the grounds today. He apologizes to the aide for having wrongly accused him of trying to dupe him, stating that it was definitely his wife that the aide had seen.

August 27. At the meeting, Leon says he saw his wife yesterday on the hospital grounds but did not speak to her because of interference.
He tells us that she is in her fifties but looks to be in her forties. When we try to probe further into his reactions to the letters, he becomes reluctant and says it's personal. He accuses me of using interference, and thus of being responsible for preventing him from speaking to his wife.

Leon goes on to say that he was killed on August 18 (the day he received the phone call) and that on this day he received a merciful gift: a body.

I ask Joseph what he thinks about all this, and Joseph replies: “If he says he's got a wife, he's got a wife.”

Turning once again to Leon, I remark that I have always believed that his wife is merely an invention of his imagination. But, I say, I am amazed and frankly at a loss to understand the phone call and the letters. May I see the letters as proof? Leon replies that he doesn't have the letters, that he flushed them down the toilet so they could be “processed into truthful-idealed dung.”

Thus far, the results seemed inconclusive. We could not tell with any degree of certainty whether Leon believed or disbelieved, whether he accepted the messages as genuine or rejected them as a hoax. There appeared to be some ambivalence in his reactions. But after all, the messages themselves had not required Leon to do anything out of the ordinary, and this fact in itself might have been responsible for our inability to come to any firm conclusions about his attitude toward them. We therefore decided so to phrase the next message that it would require him to respond with behavior rather than with words. We recalled that Leon, who had no use for money, never went to the employees' store, which was also open to the patients. Suppose his wife were to suggest they have a rendezvous there?

August 31. Leon receives the following letter:

After reading the letter, Leon tears it up into small pieces and throws it into the wastepaper basket. Later, at the meeting, he says that he received it today. He adds that he is going to take a bath, so that if he kisses his wife she won't fall over. He says she is very understanding but that she can be very strict.

That afternoon Leon takes a shower, and says he is going to see his wife at the store. A few minutes later an aide sees him entering the store. After wandering around as if looking for someone, he finally leaves and returns to Ward D-16. There he asks the aide where the employees' cafeteria is and, on being told, exclaims: “O, gee whiz! I went to the wrong place. I went to the store instead!” He then tells the aide that he was supposed to meet his wife there. He seems quite upset, and says he will see her tomorrow night instead.

September 1. Leon goes to the cafeteria for the second appointment, and arrives a few minutes late. One of the employees notices him looking about, and asks if he can be of help. Leon declines the offer and quickly takes his leave. When he returns to the ward he is visibly upset and angry. He tells an aide that he is very angry with his wife because she was in the back of the cafeteria having relations with a Negro.