Lying on the Couch (39 page)

Ernest had encountered other patients with an erotic transference, but none who expressed it so explicitly and none who stirred him so much. He sat silently, perspiring, weighing his options, and mightily focusing his will on not getting an erection.

"You asked me to speak honestly," Carol continued, "to say what I was thinking."

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"And so I did, Carolyn. And you're doing exactly what you should be doing. Honesty is the chief virtue in the realm of therapy. We can, we must, speak about, express, everything ... as long as we each stay in our own physical space."

"Ernest, that doesn't work for me. Speaking and words aren't enough. You know my history with men. The distrust runs so deep. I cannot trust words. Before I saw Ralph I saw a number of therapists, each for one or two sessions. They followed procedure, followed the formula to the letter, adhered to their professional code, remained correctly remote. And every one of them failed me. Until Ralph. Until I met a real therapist—someone willing to be flexible, to work with where I was, what I needed. He saved my life."

"Aside from Ralph, none offered you anything useful?"

"Just words. When I walked out of their office, I took nothing with me. It's the same now. When I leave you without touching you, the words just disappear, you disappear, unless I have some imprint of you on my skin."

I've got to make something happen today, Carol thought. Got to get this show on the road. And over with.

"In fact, Ernest," she continued, "what I really wish today is not to talk but to sit next to you on the couch and just feel your presence next to me."

"I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that—that's not the way I can best help you. We've got too much work to do, too many things to talk about."

Ernest was growing more impressed with the depth and power of Carolyn's need for physical contact. It was not, he told himself, a need from which he had to retreat in terror. It was a part of the patient that had to be taken seriously; it was a need that had to be understood and treated like any other need.

During the previous week Ernest had spent time in the library reviewing the literature on eroticized transference. He had been struck by some of Freud's cautionary words regarding the treatment of "women of an elemental passionateness." Freud referred to these patients as "children of nature" who refused to accept the spiritual instead of the physical and were amenable only to the "logic of gruel and the argument of dumplings."

Pessimistic about treating such patients, Freud claimed that the therapist had only two, unacceptable choices: returning the patient's love or being the target of the mortified woman's fury. In either case,

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Freud said, one must acknowledge failure and withdraw from the case.

Carol was one of these "children of nature," all right. No doubt about that. But was Freud right? Were there only two possible, equally unacceptable, choices for the therapist? Freud reached those conclusions almost a hundred years ago while immersed in the Zeitgeist of Viennese authoritarianism. Perhaps things might be different now. Freud might not have been able to imagine the late twentieth century—times of greater therapist transparency, times when patient and therapist could be in truth with each other.

Carol's next words pulled Ernest out of his reverie. "Could we just move to the couch and talk there? It's too cold, too oppressive, talking to you from this distance. Try it for a few minutes. Just sit next to me. I promise not to ask more of you. And I guarantee that it will help me talk and get in touch with deeper currents. Oh, don't shake your head; I know all about the APA codes of behavior, and standardized tactics and conduct. But, Ernest, isn't there a place for creativity? Doesn't the true therapist find a way to help every patient?"

Carol played Ernest like a violin: she chose all the perfect words: "American Psychiatric Association," "standardized," "treatment manuals," "codes of professional conduct," "rules," "creativity," "flexibility." Like waving red words before an iconoclastic bull.

As Ernest listened, some of Seymour Trotter's words came to his mind: Formal approved technique^ Abandon all technique. When you grow up as a therapist^ you will be willing to take the leap of authenticity and make the patient's needs — not the APA professional standards — your therapy guide. Strange how much he had been thinking lately of Seymour. Perhaps it was simply comforting to know a therapist who had once trod this same path. For the moment, Ernest had forgotten, however, that Seymour never found his way back.

Was Carolyn's transference getting out of hand? Seymour had said that it cannot be too powerful. The stronger the transference, he had said, the more effective a weapon to combat the patient's self-destructiveness. And God knows that Carolyn was self-destructive! Why else would she stay in a marriage like that?

"Ernest," Carol repeated, "please sit next to me on the couch. I need it."

Ernest thought of Jung's advice to treat each patient as individu-

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ally as possible, to create a new language of therapy for every patient. He thought of how Seymour had taken that even further and claimed that the therapist must invent a new therapy for each patient. These words gave him strength. And resolve. He stood, walked over to the couch, eased himself into the corner, and said, "Let's try it."

Carol rose and sat next to him, as close as possible without touching him, and immediately began: "Today is my birthday. Thirty-six. And did I tell you that I have the same birthday as my mother?"

"Happy birthday, Carolyn. I hope the next thirty-six birthdays are going to get better and better for you."

"Thank you, Ernest. You are really sweet." And with that she leaned over and gave Ernest a peck on the cheek. Yuck, she thought, lime soda pop aftershave. Disgusting.

The need to be physically close, the sitting on the sofa, and now the kiss on the cheek—all eerily reminded Ernest of Seymour Trotter's patient. But, of course, Carolyn was much better put together than the impulse-driven Belle. Ernest was aware of a warm tingle inside. He simply let it be, enjoyed it for a minute, and then herded his growing arousal into a far corner of his mind, got back to work, and assumed his professional voice: "Tell me your mother's dates again, Carolyn."

"She was born in 1937 and died ten years ago at the age of forty-eight. I've been thinking this week that I'm three-quarters her age when she died."

"What feelings does that bring up?"

"Sadness for her. What an unfulfilled life she had. Abandoned by a husband at age thirty. Her whole life spent in bringing up her two children. She had nothing—so little pleasure. I am so glad she lived till I graduated law school. And glad, too, that she died before Jeb's conviction and jailing. And before my life fell apart."

"This is where we left off last session, Carolyn. I'm struck, again, by your conviction that your mother was doomed at thirty, that she had no other choice but to be unhappy and to die laden with regrets. As though all women who lose their husbands are destined to the same fate. Is that true? Was there no other path possible for her? A more life-affirming path?"

Typical male shit, Carol thought. I'd like to see him make a self-affirming life while stuck with two kids, with no education because he put his spouse through school, and then get no help from the

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deadbeat spouse, and Do Not Enter signs blocking every decent job in the country.

"I don't know, Ernest. Maybe you're right. These are new thoughts for me." But then she couldn't help adding, "I worry, though, about men trivializing the trap most women are in."

"You mean this man? Here? Now?"

"No, I didn't mean that—reflex feminism. I know you're on my side, Ernest."

"I've got my blind spots, Carolyn, and I'm open to your pointing them out—more than that, I'm desirous of it. But I don't believe this is one of them. It seems to me you're not considering any of your mother's responsibility for her own life design."

Carol bit her tongue and said nothing.

"But let's talk more about your birthday, Carolyn. You know we usually celebrate birthdays as though they are occasions for joy, but I've always believed that the opposite is true—that birthdays are sad markers of our lives passing by and that the birthday celebration is an attempt to deny the sadness. Is any of that true for you? Can you talk about thoughts of being thirty-six? You say you're three-quarters your mother's age when she died. Are you, like her, trapped absolutely in the life you live now? Are you really sentenced forever to living in a joyless marriage?"

"I am trapped, Ernest. What do you think I should do?"

Ernest, in order to face Carolyn more easily, had rested his arm along the back of the sofa. Carolyn had surreptitiously undone the second button on her blouse, and now sidled up closer and leaned her head against his arm and shoulder. For a moment, just for a moment, Ernest allowed his hand to rest on her head and caress her hair.

Ah, the creep begins to creep, Carol thought. Let's see how far he'll creep today. I hope I've got the stomach for this. She pressed her head closer. Ernest felt the weight of her head on his shoulder. He inhaled her clean citrus scent. He stared down at her cleavage. And then, suddenly, he stood up.

"Carolyn, you know, I think it's better if we go back to our old seating arrangement." Ernest moved back to his chair.

Carol remained where she was. She seemed on the verge of tears as she asked, "Why won't you stay on the couch? Because I just put my head on your shoulder?"

"It's not the way I feel I can best be useful to you. I think I need to keep some space and distance to be able to work with you."

Carol reluctantly moved back to her chair, took off her shoes and folded her legs beneath her. "Perhaps I shouldn't say this—maybe it's unfair to you—but I wonder if you would feel differently if I were a really attractive woman."

"That's absolutely not the issue." Ernest tried to compose himself. "In fact, it's the other way around; the very reason I cannot stay in close physical contact with you is that I do find you attractive and arousing. And I can't be erotically attracted to you and be your therapist at the same time."

"You know, Ernest, I've been thinking. I told you, didn't I, that I went to one of your readings at Printer's Inc. bookstore about a month ago?"

"Yes, you said that was when you made the decision to come see me.

"Well, I was watching you there before the reading, and I couldn't help noticing that you were coming on to that attractive woman sitting next to you."

Ernest shuddered. Shit! She saw me with Nan Carlin. This is a goddamn quagmire. What have I gotten myself intof

Never again would Ernest take therapist transparency so lightly. There was no longer any point in his trying to think of how Marshal, or other mentors, might respond to Carolyn's statement. He was so far out on a limb, so far beyond what traditional technique decreed, so far beyond acceptable clinical practice, that he knew he was entirely on his own—lost in the wilderness of wildcat therapy. His only choice was to continue being honest and to follow his instincts.

"And . . . your feelings about that, Carolyn.^"

"How about your feelings, Ernest?"

"Embarrassment. To be honest with you, Carolyn, this is a therapist's worst nightmare. It's extremely uncomfortable to be talking to you, or any patient, about my personal life with women—but I'm committed to working in truth with you, and I'll try to stay with you on this, Carolyn. Now your feelings?"

"Oh, all kinds of feelings. Envy. Anger. Unfairness. Unlucky."

"Can you go into these? For example, anger or unfairness."

"It's just all so arbitrary. If only I had done what she did—moved and sat next to you. If only I had had the nerve, the courage, to speak to you."

"And . . . then?"

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"Then everything might have been different. Tell me the truth, Ernest, what would have happened if I had approached you, if I had tried to pick you up? Would you have been interested in me?"

"All these conditional questions—these 'ifs' and 'would haves'— what are you really asking, Carolyn? I've mentioned more than once I consider you an attractive woman. I can't help wondering—are you wanting to hear me say that again?"

"And I'm wondering if you're avoiding my question with your question, Ernest."

"Whether I might have responded to your advances? The answer is, it's very possible I might have. I mean, yes. I probably would have."

Silence. Ernest felt naked. This was such a wildly different type of discourse than he had ever had with a patient that he was seriously considering whether he could continue treating Carolyn. Certainly not only Freud, but the consensus of the psychoanalytic theorists he had been reading during the week, would have decreed that a patient with an eroticized transference like Carolyn was untreat-able—certainly by him.

"So, what do you feel now?" he asked.

"Well, this is exactly what I mean by arbitrary, Ernest. A slightly different toss of the dice and you and I might be lovers now, rather than therapist and patient. And I honestly believe you could do more for me as a lover now than as a therapist. I wouldn't ask much of you, Ernest, just meet once or twice a week—to hold me and get rid of this sexual frustration that's killing me."

"I hear you, Carolyn, but I am your therapist and not your lover."

"But that is purely arbitrary. Nothing is necessary. Everything could be otherwise. Ernest, let's roll back the clock—go back to the bookstore and toss the dice again. Become my lover; I am dying with frustration."

As she spoke, Carol slipped off her chair, glided over to Ernest, sat on the floor next to his chair, and rested her hand on his knee.

Ernest once again placed his hand on Carolyn's head. God, I like to touch this woman. And her burning desire to make love to me — Christ knows I can empathize. How many times have I been overcome by lustf I feel sorry for her. And I understood what she means about the arbitrariness of our meeting. It's too bad for me, too. I'd rather be her lover than her therapist. I'd love to crawl off this chair and take off her clothes. I'd love to caress her body. And who