They stayed up all night together talking and laughing and holding each other, and John could feel the bond between them growing considerably stronger. He knew that there was a very chemical component to falling in love, and tried to strike a balance between enjoying the feeling and holding on to a realistic view of where they were going. He had always been cautious with the idea of “soul mates” and an overly romanticized version of love, but what he felt for Stephanie was much stronger than anything he had ever experienced.

He thought it was probably a good idea to see Dr. Paul this week and talk some of this over. He was especially interested in hearing his opinion on the approach he was taking with Kim, and the possible ethical implication of modeling a nuclear family for her. He wanted to get back into a familiar routine with all of his patients, but suddenly realized he was without any viable means of transportation.

After talking with his new friend Mildred at Dr. Paul’s office, he set up an appointment for that evening after he was through seeing his own patients. He decided he would rely on Chicago’s cab drivers to get around for the next few days, and ordered one to pick him up in an hour. He knew it would take him a little more time to get ready this morning attending to his various injuries.

It felt good to be back at work, and he found that the worry and concern his patients had felt for him when he was hurt strengthened the bonds he had with them considrably. In between sessions he thought of something one of his favorite therapists Heinz Kohut said about narcissism. In an effort to explain narcissism he used the metaphors of an agonizing toothache and being in love. When a person has the agonizing toothache they are unable to focus on anything or anyone besides their own problem. He hypothesized that that was how a narcissist saw the world.

Conversely he talked about seeing the world like a person in love sees it. The person in this case is so significantly affected by being in love that they are unable to examine the world with any kind of critical eye.. Now that he was personally experiencing being in love, he was beginning to understand what Kohut meant.

On a deeper level he thought about a conversation he had with Dr. Paul about how feeling a deep sense of love for someone affected a person’s larger sense of empathy for other people. John had always suspected that Dr. Paul’s sense of empathy began when he had found such an intense sense of love in his marriage. When his wife died this sense of empathy seemed to grow, and although a kind of sadness enveloped him when it happened, he seemed to be honoring her memory with a much deeper sense of love and compassion for his fellow human beings.

John felt much more in the moment the entire day in therapy, and for the first time felt a shift in the way he conducted himself professionally. Although he knew he was a competent therapist, a part of him always listened to people’s stories with a bit of a selfish ear. Much of what he heard in therapy eventually became material for the books that he wrote, and although he always took great pains to protect people’s privacy, he was beginning to see how this may have detracted from his effectiveness as a therapist.

He had always wondered why Dr. Paul had never published anything as a therapist, and had even mocked him at times for his relative anonymity. Now he was starting to understand. For Dr. Paul his patients were his novels, and seeing people make changes in their lives was more than enough to gratify him.

John’s last patient of the day was a middle-aged woman who had lost her husband the previous year He did very little traditional therapy with her, and was mostly a voice of support and empathy when she was feeling down. She had been married to her husband since she was 17, and had talked often about how she would never experience anything like the love she felt for him again. As the session came to a close, John decided he needed to talk about with her.

“You know Cindy, there’s something I want to say to you,” John said as he leaned forward. “We’ve sat together all these months and I’ve tried to convince you that it was possible you will find love again and that you can and will have all kinds of new experiences. But you know what, I’m not sure I was doing my job, which is in a large part to make you feel understood. I think I get what you were saying all these months. Daryl was your life, and all of your love was invested in him. I’m sorry if I haven’t fully grasped what you were trying to tell me, but recent events in my life have I hope made me a better listener.”

As John finished his speech, Cindy came over and patted his hand. “I appreciate you saying that doctor. You’ve been a fine therapist and I’ve grown rather fond of you over this time we’ve known each other. You’ve been the one person in my life I felt I could truly talk to about Daryl, and it’s meant more to me than you know. So as your friend, I hope you don’t mind me saying something to you.

“What is it?” John asked with great curiosity.

“If I didn’t know better,” she replied with a big smile “I would think that somebody was in love.”

Damn, John thought to himself as she slowly ambled out of the room. Was he that obvious?