Lots of stars. Part of my attention was still with her, and I had to spur myself to give Marvin the attention he deserved. I see some people trying to rebuild a house at night. First, however, it was necessary to establish to Thelmas satisfaction that the obsession had to be eradicated. While there, I wrote the title story of Loves Executioner, as well as In Search of the Dreamer and If Rape Were Legal . Lets try to understand this together. On several occasions I refused social invitations, some even from Dr. K., because I would not leave the library.. This insight could have been a turning point in our therapy: for the first time, Thelma identified and took responsibility for a specific problem. What I find are two baby kittens who have not yet opened their eyes. This must have been an unusual event: Marvin had told me he initiated sex almost all of the time. At any rate, I wish to dissociate myself from the work.. Every severely obsessional patient has a core of anger, and I was not unprepared for its emergence in Thelma. Its his house mainly, you could sayhis money bought it. But I might as well have been talking to the wind. I could scarcely think of a single person with whom I less wished to be intimate. In that one hour, Elva moved from a position of forsakenness to one of trust. I do hate groups. Sarah thanked me and said she needed time to think about it. I understand why the letters are important to you, Dave, and I also feel good that Im the one youre willing to entrust with them. Careful, I thought. It was black and patent-leather shiny. But the work seemed to be going well. In our discussion of her sons, I felt I had to tread carefully and to content myself with helping her to appreciate from their perspective the consequences of Chrissies death. Sorrow for Dave, for his isolation, for his clinging to illusion, for his want of courage, for his unwillingness to face the naked, harsh facts of life. Though these tales of psychotherapy abound with the words patient and therapist, do not be misled by such terms: these are everyman, everywoman stories. For several months I had attempted to challenge her belief that life, real life, can only be lived if one is loved by a man. A sign of too much male hormone. But she interrupted and told me I had misunderstood: she felt no guilt but was instead overcome with regret that she had waited until she was forty-four to relinquish her control and let some real feelings out. She undressed me and then took off all her clothes.. Conquer was his word. Betty was horrified, and visions of her fathers baldnesshe had been shaven for his brain surgeryreturned to her. He was the one who knew the most about what was happening in her face and mouth. He took over the hour: first with the silly business of the glasses, and then with his determination to stick that chart in my hands whether I wanted it or not. At one point I tried to get beneath the forced hale fellow heartiness. Since Ive known you, the times youve been most persistently depressed are the times youve broken your connections to everyone and been really isolated. She then said her goodbyes to old friendsher last Granny Goose Hawaiian-style potato chip, her last Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookie, and, toughest of all, her last honey-glazed doughnut. Hence, I was uncomfortable with accepting Maries protection of my professionalism. His publisher for this book and every one of his subsequent books is Basic Books with whom he has had a long and excellent relationship. It was actually doing something for the patient. The hypnosis helped her to tolerate the pain until, after three months, her fractured jaw had healed, her dental work had been completed, and the facial pain had subsided. She hated what was happening, and she hated Dr. Z., but my every suggestion was met by but or yes, but. She was a yes, but-er (also referred to in the trade as a help-rejecting complainer) of considerable prowess. In spite of my curiosity, I decided to let Saul tell the story in his own way, and at his own pace. Besides, human service professionals have always practiced on the living patient. Yet Ive often thought about that crime. Maybe Ill give up science. Once again, Saul proposed to do 95 percent of the work. Despite my best efforts, Betty denied any personal contribution to her unhappy life situation. I took the Buddhist credo of universal oneness and egolessness very literally. Those whom he tries to restore to reality ultimately turn against him and re-enter the life of illusion. Which is good. It seemed best to act without consulting him, and to inform his children of his condition. Imagine, then, how pleased she was, a year after their last meeting, to run into him late one Saturday afternoon at Union Square in San Francisco. Daves request for me to keep the letters had to be seen in this context. Instructors praise his group therapy text because it is based on the best available empirical evidence. Were I my own patient (or my own therapist), I would say, Imagine the letters gone, destroyed or lost. Why think about death? I was very grateful that Phyllis demonstrated so much flexibility. I want to go about it in an adult manner.. Forty-five years? I can take other guesses. Ten? Pleased with his progress, he had realized, as he put it, a good yield on his investment. Every sexual rush, colored red, was reduced to a five-point scale according to Marvins performance: premature ejaculations were separately coded, as was impotencewith a distinction made between inability to sustain an erection and inability to have one. Years ago I told him that I briefly saw Matthew once by chance. The welfare agency said I was an unfit motherthey were right, I guessbut I refused to give em up and tried to take care of them but, after about six months, they took them away. I went through the ritual of telling her that I was available as a therapist should she ever change her mind. Although Marvin had had no nightmares or powerful dreams, he knew there were nocturnal rumblings. It would be a delicate procedureafter all, people change, and love never staysbut still, perhaps, it is within the realm of possibility. A comment stating that the therapist has been thinking about the patient outside of their scheduled hour has never, in my experience, failed to galvanize the latters interest. More and more frequently did I hear criticisms of therapy. Marvin listened attentively to what I said, but his facial expression was so frozen that I had no hint of what he felt. Far from wanting to take back her freedom from Matthew, she had a lust for . I wrote this book twenty-five years ago and, since then, had not once read it in its entirety. She was sexually abused and has been in therapy for 23 years and has a split personality. Its a fantastic turn-on to think of Sarah getting screwed. I need some time to digest all this. Words permit one to cross into the life of the other, but Thelmas tone of voice contained no invitation to come closer. (The dream interpretative work was successful, but the patient died. Yet this womans appeal was strong, almost irresistible. She continued in a derisive, gloating manner: You could have her in therapy for thirty years, but Id still win. Thanks to my thoughts, it still lives. Hypnosis works for stupid people or people with weak wills. I am overtaking her and realize that death is inevitable. For stripping away my sweet illusion and revealing its base of fleshflesh on the rampage? Ill talk all right! Other hopeful dreams followed:I am at a wedding, and a woman comes up and says she is my long- forgotten daughter. I thought that now she was closer to ripping or gouging than to crying. I was excited for him. Shes not that short. I dont want to make Dr. Yalom look bad.. No, we were not off to a good start. She had told me she was thirty-five, a lab technician; that she had been in therapy for ten years with a psychiatrist who had just relocated to another city; that she was desperately alone; and that sooner or later, it was just a matter of time, she would kill herself. This section starts with a woman named Thelma who is severely depressed. He was up front, he told me exactly what was troubling him as best he could. This moment, this brief interval between obsessions, was the crucial time for us to workbefore Thelma re- established her equilibrium by latching onto something or someone. I grew more disturbed. After six years of teaching trigonometry, Marvin felt stuck. But why? At first he was a man without insight: he could not, would not, direct his sight inward. Others, and among them I include myself, marvel that anyone can take diagnosis seriously, that it can ever be considered more than a simple cluster of symptoms and behavioral traits. During one of her depressed periods, she had a vivid dream. You knowholding it up to the light, feeling its weight, trying to guess how many pages it had. Perhaps I was premature, perhaps the abscess hadnt pointed yet. Theres no such thing as a lifetime guarantee. Even the word disillusion, with its negative, nihilistic connotation, should have warned me. If I kept the letters, they could act as a guy line: he couldnt simply float away and disappear. To meet other obese peoplemake some friends, get some dates?, Yeah, I remember. True or False? This led naturally into the other primary reason I found Betty so boring: she was acting in bad faith with mein our face-to-face talks she was never real, she was all pretense and false gaiety. This macabre thought, Betty suspected, was echoed in the dream image of retrieving her friends dead body from the tunnel. I believed that the meaning, or at least one meaning, of her agoraphobia was now obsolete and could be influenced by paradox. Or mine. Penny had never finished school, and Chrissie was going to do it for both of them (and was also going to attend Stanford for both of them). An illustration of an audio speaker. Getting inundated with emotion was likely what happened to the others, to the therapists who couldnt help her. I wondered what position I should take about the fifty thousand dollars? Im meeting with him tomorrow, and Ill work on it hard. She ultimately concurred and arranged residential care for her father in Mexico. How had that happened? First, your call would alienate him from me. After Harry left my office, I sat there tired and stunned and angry. Where was his curiosity that his life had changed so dramatically, that his sense of direction, his happiness, even his desire to live was now entirely dictated by whether he could sustain tumescence in his penis? Thus one sheds anxiety but loses oneself. She continued, with forced cheerfulness, to tell me that the good news was that for the past week she had felt less guilty and less involved with Chrissie. Thats what really blows my mind. I did not think through my decision clearly and, even after I decided to accept him in therapy, remained unsure about appropriate and realistic treatment goals. Nine years before, Marie and Charles, her husband, had obtained a dog, an ungainly dachshund named Elmer. He was concerned about my depression. I hoped to show her that another person could know her fully and still care for her. My daddy was the only man who ever held me in his arms. My husbands been dead for a year now, but things arent getting any better. I had respect for the way that, despite her suffering, she had always given to others and maintained her commitment to community service. But we have to expect that. I have to find a way to live out my time. Nothing to do but live out my time.. However, the journal would be delighted to reconsider the article if it were updated, the basic accent altered, the conclusions and recommendations reformulated. Everything was going well. He insisted that he had asked me to keep the letters at this time for one reason only: his wife was now doing a major housecleaning and working her way steadily and surely toward his study, where the letters lay hidden. After that we got along famously. Our next appointment was the day following the next group meeting. There is almost no chance hell say what I hope hell say. I dont believe, I simply cant believe that Matthew really cares about what happens to me. Her words were directed neither to Matthew nor to me but to some point between us in the room. In college she had initially elected a premedical curriculum but gave it up for fear of being in contact with cancer patients.