After an hour in the bar the frizzy haired bartender had told him half of her life story, and was on the verge of tears. Jesus I really do have the magic touch, John thought to himself. People had always told him their stories very easily, which was in a way rather surprising as he had always had a terribly big mouth, which was not exactly a blue ribbon quality in a therapist. He was trying not to think about what Dr. Paul had said about his wanting to be a “celebrity” therapist, and it stung a bit thinking how much he knew he had been right. He didn’t even really need to see patients anymore between his books, teaching, and other sources of income, and he had thought for a long while of cutting down to 4 or 5 patients a week. Now the pull to go back to doing therapy had gotten stronger. Why now? He kept repeating it over and over again. It was one of the first and most fundamental questions in therapy, and John knew that he had to answer this question for himself before he could begin to figure out some of what he was going through.
He left the bar after leaving a big tip and giving the bartender his card. Jesus his ethics were getting shaky. Although he couldn’t cite the exact ethical code, he was pretty sure it wasn’t kosher to pick up new clients while drinking at a bar. He tried to put it out of his head and think about what problem he was trying to solve, which was another fundamental question he always asked of his patients. Why a woman? Why now?
Taking refuge in a coffee shop later that evening, John thought a lot about the women in his life, and how the question of intimacy affected both his role as a therapist and as a potential life partner. He understood the mother template, every therapist has some understanding of this idea, but exploring his relationship with his own mother didn’t offer any immediate clues. Sure they had had their problems growing up, but now they had a very close relationship where they laughed often and shared a number of insights about where it was they had come from. His mother had some intimacy problems, and he was sure some of that had rubbed off on him, but it was something he had worked on very hard when he was a patient in therapy.
He had always subscribed to the idea in one of his favorite old movies called A Bronx Tale that a person got to have 3 great loves in their life. He had a difficult time counting his number, but upon serious reflection concluded that his number was probably zero. Sure he had been in relationships, even long-term, but a true, intimate, totally honest exchange of feelings? No, not really.
So was that his answer? Find a woman to settle down with and all of these painful feelings would go away? It sounded too easy to him and he knew it was short-sighted. He had a cynical view of love as a result of being a therapist, having heard so many stories of betrayals, heartbreak, and depression, as well as seeing the broken families, and the broken lives. He had never seen a couple in therapy he had felt hopeful about, not one, and like many therapists who treat couples, he had some serious doubts about its efficacy. Even the most optimistic statistics said it worked in only about 50 percent of the cases, and this was a number he personally viewed with a great deal of skepticism.
He regarded his own thoughts with a bit of disappointment, knowing if he kept thinking and talking to himself like this about love, that he was creating a loveless reality for himself. It was the one area of his life where his reason constantly wrestled with his emotions. He wanted to share his life with someone, but saw the ugly flip side of the coin on a daily basis. Who was he to defy the odds? Did anyone? Besides his freedom afforded him a tremendous opportunity to write, travel, and do exactly what he wanted to do with his time. Was he ready to give that up? After an hour of this flip-flopping he began the walk home to what he was sure would be a rather sleepless night.
That night he dreamed of being on a massive lake with water surrounding him in every direction. Tiger Woods was his companion, and eggs were hatching all around him on the water. He woke up confused, and immediately wrote down as many of the details of the dream as he could. Tiger Woods, he laughed to himself. Nice touch. He had been in the news a number of times recently for his various infidelities, and John assumed that this was his subconscious presenting him with the cynical side relationship issues.
Eggs? Water? These were different kinds of images however. Rebirth was the theme, and John woke up feeling he was on the verge of some kind of rebirth, although in what capacity he had no idea. He had always paid attention to the feelings that dreams evoked in him, and in this case the clearest feeling he had was one of hope.
He had a very busy day at work ahead of him dealing with the issue of Kim, his young patient who had been molested, and he took a deep breath and prepared to go into battle, not just with a messy bureaucracy but with himself. Kim was now staying with a foster family in a completely different part of town, and he had arranged to meet her at her new house so he could speak with her foster parents and get a sense of how she was holding up emotionally.
Walking up to the porch he again got a very heavy feeling, and tried to sort out exactly what was going on inside of him. Was he feeling Kim’s pain? Was there something dark about this particular foster family he was picking up on? He didn’t know and didn’t want to get to far ahead of himself, as he knew it would distract him from giving Kim his full attention which he was sure she really needed right now.
He knocked on the door and a rather tired looking Black woman in an apron answered the door and beckoned him inside. He immediately got the sense that she was a good woman, but likely also very overwhelmed by taking care of so many children with serious emotional problems. They sat and chatted politely for a few minutes, and the woman explained to John that Kim had thus far been very unresponsive to her as well as to the other children, which they both knew was not particularly surprising considering everything she had recently been through in her life.
He went into the living room and saw Kim sitting there with her arms folded, and once again felt a sharp twist of pain, this time in his lower back. Kim seemed to literally be in another world at this moment, and he knew he had to deal with her very gently, as she was likely experiencing the effects of dealing with a serious trauma.
“Kim?” he said softly. “It’s me John, honey, your counselor, I wanted to talk to you and see if you could tell me a little a bit about how you’re doing here in your new home.”
She looked up and noticed him for the first time since she had arrived as it slowly dawned on him who he was and what he was doing here.
“Do you mind if we get out of here?” she asked hopefully.
“I know a place that has ice cream right down the street, how does that sound to you?” he answered back.
After checking in with her foster mother they began the walk to the store. She seemed disassociated and lost, and he knew these symptoms of post traumatic stress would only get more severe if she was unable to begin to talk about what had happened to her. It was dangerous to push her right now, he knew, and he reminded himself that he could probably be the most helpful to her right now by being a supportive and trustworthy advocate.
“So how do you like it here?” he asked.
“I miss home,” she said after a long pause. “I know I’m supposed to be really mad at my dad right now but I’m not. He loves me and I love him. I miss my brother and my sister. I don’t know any of these kids here and some of them are mean to me. I want to go back home. Why can’t I just go back?” she asked defiantly.
Careful here. He thought to himself. He didn’t want to ruin the trust he had built up with her by invalidating her feelings, but he knew he also had to somehow make it clear to her that what her father was doing was not alright. He new a large part of her knew that, but as is often the case with victims of molestation, the abuse can actually make someone feel good. It was a troubling issue to sort through with children, but he knew if her could even begin a dialogue with her about the subject that perhaps he could begin to try and help her through this.
“The thing is Kim, family members aren’t allowed to have sex with each other, it’s the law. I know it must be weird for you to have to leave your house and have all this trouble happen over something that you thought was between you and your dad. None of this was your fault honey, none of it. I’ve always admired you so much for being able to be honest with me, so I was wondering, if you didn’t think anything was wrong with what was happening, why did you choose to tell me about it.”
As this came out of his mouth we wanted to take it back. He winced as she took the statement in, feeling for a second the wave of self blame that swept over her as a result of his question. Still, it was an important point that needed to me made, and he felt himself teetering on the edge between empathy and confrontation with the hope that he wouldn’t fall over the cliff.