Daphne Merkin's article in the New York Times Magazine "My Life in Therapy" (
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/magazine/08Psychoanalysis-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1) (8/8/10) inspired this post. (The original thread on this Board devoted to Daphne Merkin's piece can be found at
http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php?topic=9595.0)
My second and last therapist, was a pleasant, warm man some fifteen years older than I who came highly recommended. The one reservation I had was the fact that he was a psychoanalyst—I was no longer a believer after years of doctoral and post-doctoral training in the theory and practice. Still, the most qualified therapists of his age had gotten psychoanalytic training, so my options were limited. When I saw him the first time, I made a point that the leather couch in his office made me uneasy and I told him, in brief, why. That was ok with him, and he indicated that it shouldn’t stop us from working together.
Over the months that we worked together, I talked about my thoughts and feelings about psychoanalytic therapy somewhat reluctantly for fear that it would interfere with our relationship. But it was something we both knew a lot about—and it was part of our professions so there was no avoiding it. He told me he had edited a book on psychotherapy, and there was a chapter in it that I might particularly appreciate. And of course, I told him I had just started a web site (hmmm, what would that be?) and done some writing myself. He said he was not much of a web person, so I don’t think he ever got to the Voicelessness site.
Of course, I bought his book, and the chapter he wanted me to read (not written by him) was ok, but still too tied for my tastes to psychoanalytic theory—and after some self-deprecating joke about my critiquing ability, I went into specifics with him about the article. Even so, I thought to myself: does he really want to hear this? And: is it ok that I tell him ? But then I said to myself: this is what I’m supposed to do in this office. This is what therapy is about—the freedom to speak one’s mind.
Then I had the first of two dreams that I remember from the therapy: my therapist and I were walking together on a central street near my house. We hugged and then he left me to go into a restaurant. When I looked up and read the name on the restaurant sign it said: “Little League”. The meaning of the dream was painfully obvious to me, and I was not sure whether I should tell him. I wished for intimate contact so that I would feel less alone in the world—but then he went off by himself into the “Little League Restaurant” which to me was the psychoanalytic therapy world. When I (reluctantly) told him the dream, to my surprise he was ok with it.
Perhaps he had a different, more benign interpretation of the dream, or perhaps he saw if as a projection of how I saw myself (as a little leaguer). Anyway, his response gave me just enough courage to tell him the second dream which occurred a couple months later:
I was sitting in his office with his daughters, his wife, and himself in a circle. There was nothing unusual or uncomfortable about the circumstance. My eyes went first to his daughters who were sitting closest to me, then to his wife, then to him. When I saw him, however, he had a woman’s hat on his head, and he was wearing shiny red/brown leather women’s high-heeled boots which went almost to his knees.
Before I had a chance to even offer an interpretation (or associations), he looked at me with fierce eyes and angrily snapped: “You’re trying to ridicule me!”
I had no idea how to respond. I knew what the dream meant (at least to me). My wish was to be viewed as part of his family, at least as much as possible. His role in this task, I largely viewed as feminine.
But what was interfering, in my mind, were the gaudy, self-important leather boots—which symbolized to me the psychoanalytic world and its practitioners. Somehow, my sleeping brain had transformed the leather couch into leather boots.
I wasn’t trying to ridicule him. I was trying to fit into his world, but something substantial (his psychoanalytic beliefs with which I disagreed) was getting in the way.
My first thought was to protest: "But it was a dream! A dream! I didn’t choose to have it!"
But the words wouldn't come out of my mouth. Instead I made a vague apology--and we never talked about the dream again. By rejecting the fundamental way he had of looking at human nature, in his eyes, I was rejecting him. But in my view, I was trying to tell him that his psychoanalytic viewpoint got in the way of human contact with him. And it was that human contact and a resultant attachment that was going to make me feel less vulnerable and alone in the world. My dreams laid the matter out simply and crudely.
I left therapy shortly thereafter, and I suspect he was not unhappy to see me go.
