Lying on the Couch (30 page)

Not only was Ernest pleased with his day's work, but he had received a special bonus: patients had described to him two chilling dreams that, with their permission, he might use in his book on death anxiety. He still had five minutes before Carolyn was due to arrive, and he turned on his computer to enter the dreams.

The first was only a snippet:

/ came to your office for an appointment. You weren't there. I looked around and saw your straw hat on the hat rack — it was all filled with cobwebs. An oppressive wave of great sadness came over me.

Madeline, the dreamer, had breast cancer and had just learned that it had spread to her spine. In Madeline's dream the target of

death shifts: it is not she who is faced with death and decay but the therapist, who has disappeared and left behind only his cobweb-filled hat. Or, Ernest thought, the dream might reflect her sense of loss of world: if her consciousness is responsible for the form and shape and meaning of all "objective" reality—her entire, personally meaningful world—then the extinguishing of her consciousness would result in the disappearance of everything.

Ernest was accustomed to working with dying patients. But this particular image—his beloved Panama hat encased in cobwebs— sent a shiver down his spine.

Matt, a sixty-four-year-old physician, supplied the other dream:

/ was hiking along a high cliff on the Big Sur coast and came upon a small river running into the Pacific. As I got closer I was amazed to see that the river was flowing away from the ocean, running backwards. Then I saw an old stooped man, who resembled my father, standing alone and broken in front of a river cave. I couldn't get closer to him since there was no trail down, so 1 continued following the river from on high. A short while later I came upon another man, even more stooped, perhaps my grandfather. I couldn't find a way to get to him, either, and woke up unsettled and frustrated.

Matt's greatest fear was not of death per se but of dying alone. His father, a chronic alcoholic, had died a few months previously and, though they had had a long, conflicted relationship. Matt could not forgive himself for allowing his father to die alone. He feared that his destiny, too, would be to die alone and homeless, as had all the men in his family. Often, when he was overcome with anxiety in the middle of the night. Matt soothed himself by sitting next to his eight-year-old son's bed and listening to him breathing. He was drawn to a fantasy of swimming in the ocean, far from shore, with his two children, who lovingly help him slip beneath the waves forever. But, since he had not helped his father or his grandfather die, he wondered if he deserved such children.

A river flowing backward! The river, carrying pine cones and brown brittle oak leaves, running uphill, away from the ocean. A river flowing backward to the golden age of childhood and the reunion of the primeval family. What an extraordinary visual image

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for time turned backward, for the yearning for an escape from the fate of aging and diminishment! Ernest was full of admiration for the latent artist in all his patients; often he wanted to doff his hat in homage to the unconscious dream-maker who, night after night, year after year, spun masterpieces of illusion.

In the waiting room on the other side of the wall, Carol wrote also: notes of her first therapy session with Ernest. She stopped and reread her words:

FIRST SESSION Feb. 12, 1995

Dr. Lash — inappropriately informal. Intrusive. Insisted, over my protests, that I call him Ernest . . . touched me in the first thirty seconds — my elbow, as I entered the room . . . very gentle — touched me again, my hand, when he handed me a tissue . . . took history of my major problems and my family history . . . pressed hard for repressed sexual abuse memories in first session! Too much, too fast —/ felt overwhelmed and confused! Revealed his personal feelings to me . . . tells me it's important that we get very close . . . invites me to ask him questions about himself. . . promises to reveal all about himself. . . expressed approval of my affair with Dr. Cooke . . . ran ten minutes over the hour . . . insisted on giving me a good-bye hug . . .

She felt satisfied. These notes will come in very handy, she thought. Not sure how. But someday, someone — Justin, my malpractice attorney, the state ethics board — will find them of great interest. Carol closed her notebook. She needed to get focused for her session with Ernest. After the events of the last twenty-four hours, she wasn't thinking too well.

She had come home yesterday to find a note from Justin taped to the front door: "/ came back for my things." The back door had been pried open, and he had taken everything that she had not yet destroyed: his racquetball racquets, clothing, toiletries, shoes, books, as well as some jointly owned possessions—books, camera, binoculars, portable CD player, most of their CD collection, and several pots, pans, and glasses. He had even pried open her cedar chest and taken his computer.

In a frenzy Carol had called Justin's parents to tell them she intended to see Justin behind bars and that she would put them in the next cage if they, in any way, aided their felon son. Phone calls to Norma and Heather were of no help—made things worse, in fact. Norma was preoccupied with her own marital crisis, and Heather, in her annoying, gentle way, reminded her that Justin had the right to his own things. No breaking-and-entering charge could be filed— it was his own home and she had no legal right to change the locks or attempt to exclude him in any other fashion without a restraining order.

Carol knew Heather was right. She hadn't secured an order from the court restraining Justin from entering the premises because never—not in her wildest dreams—could she imagine him taking such action.

As if the missing objects were not bad enough, when she dressed that morning she found the crotch neatly cut out of all her underpants. And just so there could be no confusion about how it had happened, Justin had left, in each pair, a small section of one of the neckties she had sliced and thrown back into his closet.

Carol was stunned. This was not Justin. Not the Justin she knew. No, there was no way Justin could do that alone. He didn't have the guts. Or the imagination. Only one way it could have happened . . . only one person who could have orchestrated this: Ernest Lash! She looked up and there he was in the flesh—nodding his fat head to her and inviting her into his office! Whatever it takes, you son of a bitch, Carol resolved, however long it takes, whatever I have to do, I am going to put you out of business.

"So," Ernest said after he and Carol were seated, "what seems important today?"

"So many things. I need a moment to collect my thoughts. I'm not sure why I'm feeling so agitated."

"Yes, I see from your face there's a lot going on inside today."

Oh, brilliant, brilliant, you asshole, Carol thought.

"But I'm having a hard time reading you, Carolyn," Ernest continued. "Somewhat perturbed, perhaps. Somewhat sad."

"Ralph, my late therapist, used to say there were four basic feelings ..."

"Yes," Ernest rushed in quickly, "bad, sad, mad, and glad. That's a good mnemonic."

Good mnemonic^ This field is a real brain trust — a one-syllable

profession, Carol thought. You fuckers are all alike! "\ guess I've been feeHng some of each, Ernest."

"How so, Carolyn?"

"Well, 'mad' at the bad breaks of my life—at some of the things we discussed last time: my brother, my father, especially. And 'bad'—anxious—when I think of the trap I'm in now, waiting for my husband to die. And 'sad' ... I guess 'sad' when I think of the years I wasted on a bad marriage."

"And glad?"

"That's the easy one—'glad' when I think about you and about how lucky I was to find you. Thinking about you and about seeing you today was the main thing keeping me going this week."

"Can you say more about that?"

Carol took her purse out of her lap, placed it on the floor, and gracefully crossed her long legs. "I'm afraid you're going to make me blush." She paused, demurely, thinking: Perfect! But slow, play it slow, Carol. "The truth is I've been having daydreams all week about you. Sexy daydreams. But you're probably used to your women patients finding you attractive."

Ernest was flustered at the thought of Carolyn having daydreams, probably masturbatory fantasies, about him. He considered how to respond—how to respond honestly.

''''Aren't you used to it, Ernest? You said I should ask you questions."

"Carolyn, there's something about your question that makes me uncomfortable, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think it's because it assumes that what happens here between us is something standardized—something predictable."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Well, I consider you unique. And your life situation unique. And this meeting between you and me unique. Therefore, a question about what always happens seems off somehow."

Carol screwed her eyes into a starry-eyed gaze.

Ernest savored his own words. What a great answer! I must try to remember it — it'll fit right into my Hn-betweenness' article. Ernest also realized, however, that he had steered the session into abstract, impersonal territory, and hastened to correct that: "But, Carolyn, I'm getting away from your real question . . . which is . . . ?"

"Which is how you feel about my finding you attractive," replied Carol. "I've been spending so much time thinking about you this past week ... of what it might be like if we had, by chance—perhaps at

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one of your readings—met as man and woman instead of as therapist and client. I know I should talk about it but it's hard . . . it's embarrassing . . . maybe you'll find it—I mean me —repugnant. I feel repugnant."

Very, very good, Carol thought. Damn, I'm good at this!

"Well, Carolyn, I promised honest answers. And the truth is it's very pleasant for me to hear that a woman—a very attractive woman, I might add—finds me attractive. Like most people, I have doubts about my physical attractiveness."

Ernest paused. My heart is racing. I've never said anything so personal to a patient. I liked telling her she was attractive — gave me a charge. Probably a mistake. Too seductive. Yet she regards herself as repugnant. She doesn't know she is a good-looking woman. Why not offer her some affirmation, some reality testing, about her appearance?

Carol, for her part, was elated—for the first time in weeks. 'A very attractive woman.' Bingo! I remember Ralph Cooke uttering the same words. That was his first move. And it was the exact words that disgusting Dr. Zweizung had used. Thank God I had enough sense to call him a scumbag and walk out of that office. But both of them are probably still at it with other victims. If only I had had the sense to get evidence, to blow the whistle on those bastards. Now I can make up for it. If only I had brought a tape recorder in my purse. Next time! I just didn't believe he'd be so lascivious so soon.

"But," Ernest continued, "to be fully honest with you, I don't take your words too personally. There may be a little of me in your words but, to a much greater extent, you're not responding to me; you're responding to my role."

Carol was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Well, move back a few steps. Let's look dispassionately at recent events. You've had some awful things happen to you; you've kept everything inside, sharing little with anyone. You've had disastrous relationships with the important men in your life, one after the other—your father, your brother, your husband, and . . . Rusty, wasn't it? Your high school boyfriend. And the one man you felt good about, your former therapist, abandoned you by dying.

"And then you come to see me and, for the first time, take a risk and share everything with me. Given all that, Carolyn, is it surprising that you develop some strong feelings toward me? I don't think so. That's what I mean when I say it's the role, not me. And also

those powerful feelings toward Dr. Cooke? It's not surprising that I inherit some of those feeHngs—I mean, they get transferred to me."

"I agree with that last part, Ernest. I am starting to feel the same feelings toward you as I did toward Dr. Cooke."

A brief silence. Carol gazed at Ernest. Marshal would have waited it out. Not Ernest.

"We've discussed the 'glad,'" said Ernest, "and I appreciate your honesty there. Could we take a look at the other three feelings? Let's see, you said 'mad' at the circumstances of your past—especially the men in your life; 'bad' at the trap in which you find yourself with your husband; and 'sad,' because . . . because . . . remind me, Carolyn."

Carol flushed. She had forgotten her own story. "I've forgotten myself what I said—I'm too agitated to concentrate well." This won't do, she thought. I have got to stay in my role. Only one way to avoid these slips — Vve got to be honest about my self ^except, of course, about Justin.

"Oh, I remember," said Ernest: "'sad' because of the accumulated regrets in your life—'the years wasted,' I think you put it. You know, Carolyn, that mnemonic of 'mad, sad, glad, and bad' is pretty simplistic—you're obviously an intelligent woman and I fear insulting your intelligence: yet it was useful today. The issues associated with each of these four feelings are absolutely core—let's pursue them."

Carol nodded. She felt disappointed that they had moved so quickly away from his comments about her being attractive. Patience., she reminded herself. Remember Ralph Cooke. This is their modus operandi. First they win your confidence; next they make you totally dependent and themselves absolutely indispensable. And only then do they make their move. There's no way to avoid this charade. Give him a couple of weeks. We have to go through it at his pace.

"How shall we start?" asked Ernest.

"Sad," said Carolyn, "sad to think of all the years I've spent with a man I can't stand."

"Nine years," said Ernest. "A big chunk of your life."

"A very big chunk. I wish I had it back."

"Carolyn, let's try to find out why you gave away nine years."

"I've done a lot of rummaging around in the past with other therapists. Never helped. Won't looking at the past take us away from my present situation, my dilemma?"

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"Good question, Carolyn. Trust me, I'm not a rummager. Nonetheless, the past is part of your present consciousness—it forms the spectacles through which you experience the present. If I'm to know you fully, I need to see what you see. I also want to find out how you've made decisions in the past, so we can help you make better decisions in the future."