The Schopenhauer Cure (31 page)

Gill, too ashamed to face the others, concentrated his attention on Julius and replied in a chastened tone. "I guess it was the risky revealing in the last couple of meetings--beginning with Pam and Philip and then Rebecca and Stuart--I'm pretty sure that was why I could say--"

"How long?" interrupted Rebecca. "How long have you been an

alcoholic?"

"Creeps up on you, you know, so I'm not sure. I always liked the booze, but I guess I started meeting all the criteria about five years ago."

"You're what kind of an alcoholic?" asked Tony.

"My favorite poison is Scotch, cabernet, and black Russians. But I don't turn down anything--vodka, gin--totally ambidextrous."

"What I meant was 'when' and 'how much,'" said Tony.

Gill showed no defensiveness and seemed prepared to answer any question. "Mostly after hours. I start with Scotches as soon as I get home (or before I get home if Rose is giving me a hard time), and then I work my way through good wine the rest of the evening--at least a bottle, sometimes two, until I pass out in front of the TV."

"Where's Rose on this?" asked Pam.

"Well, we used to be big wine buffs together, built a two-thousand-bottle cellar, went to auctions. But she's not encouraging my drinking now--now she rarely has a glass at dinner and wants no part of any wine-related activities, except for some of her big social wine-tasting events."

Julius tried again to buck the current and bring the group back to the here-and-now. "I'm trying to imagine how you must have felt coming to meeting after meeting here and not talking about this."

"It wasn't easy," Gill admitted, shaking his head.

Julius always taught students the difference between vertical and horizontal self-disclosure. The group was pressing, as expected, for vertical disclosure--details about the past, including such queries as the scope and duration of his drinking--whereas horizontal disclosure, that is, disclosure about the disclosure, was always far more productive.

This meeting was vintage stuff for teaching, Julius mused, and he reminded himself to remember the sequence of events for future lectures and writing. And then, with a thud, he recalled that the future had no relevance for him. Though the poisonous black wart had been carved out of his shoulder, he knew that somewhere in his body lethal colonies of melanoma remained, voracious cells that craved life more than his own fatigued cells. They were there, pulsating, gulping oxygen and nutrients, growing and gathering strength. And his dark thoughts were always there also, percolating under the membrane of consciousness. Thank God for his one method of stilling his terror: entering into life as forcefully as possible. The extraordinarily intense life being lived in this group was very good medicine for him.

He pressed Gill, "Say more about what passed through your mind during all those months of group meetings."

"What do you mean?" said Gill.

"Well, you said, 'It wasn't easy.' Say more about that, about those meetings and why it wasn't easy."

"I'd come here all primed but never could unload; something

always stopped me."

"Dig into that--the something that stopped you." Julius rarely was so directive in the group, but he was convinced that he knew how to move the discussion in a beneficial direction that the group might not take on its own.

"I like this group," Gill said. "These are the most important people in my life. I've never been a real member of anything before. I was afraid I'd lose my place, lose any credibility--exactly like what's happening now. Right now. People hate drunks...the group will want to boot me out...you'll tell me to go to AA. The group will judge me, not help me."

That was exactly the cue Julius had been waiting for. He moved quickly.

"Gill, look around the room--tell me, who are the judges here?"

"Everyone's a judge."

"All identically? I doubt it. Try to discriminate. Look around the group. Who are the main judges?"

Gill kept his gaze on Julius. "Well, Tony can come down on you pretty hard, but no, not on this--he likes his booze, too. That what you want?"

Julius nodded encouragement.

"Bonnie?" Gill continued to speak directly to Julius. "No, she's no judge--except of herself and, once in a while, of Rebecca--she's always gentle with me. Stuart, well, he's one of the judges; he definitely has a self-righteous streak. Pretty goody-goody sometimes. And Rebecca, for sure--I hear a lot of directives: be like me, be sure, be thorough, be dressed right, be washed, be neat. That why I felt released when Rebecca and Stuart showed so much vulnerability: that made it possible for me to open up. And Pam--she's the judge. Chief justice. No doubt about it. I know she thinks I'm weak, unfair to Rose, you name it, everything about me is wrong. I don't have much hope of pleasing her--in fact, I don't have any hope." He halted. "Guess that's it," he said, scanning the group.

"Oh yes, Philip." He spoke to Philip directly, unlike the other members.

"Let's see...I don't think of you judging me, but I'm not sure if that's entirely a compliment. It's more that you wouldn't get close enough or involved enough with me even to bother judging me."

Julius was well pleased. He had defused the nonconstructive moan of betrayal and the punitive grilling of Gill. It was a matter of timing; sooner or later the details of his alcoholism would be aired, but not at this moment and in this manner.

What's more, Julius's focus on horizontal disclosure had yielded a bonus--Gill's ten-minute gutsy go-round was a bonanza of data--enough there to fuel a couple of good sessions.

Turning to the group, Julius said, "Reactions anyone?"

There was hesitation--not, he imagined, because there was so little to say but too much. The agenda groaned with its own weight: the members had to have reactions to Gill's confession, to his alcoholism, and his sudden toughness in the last few minutes. He waited expectantly. Good stuff was on its way.

He noted that Philip was looking at him, and, for a moment, their gazes met--that was unusual. Perhaps, Julius thought, Philip was signaling his appreciation of the finesse with which he had conducted this meeting. Or perhaps Philip was pondering Gill's feedback to him. Julius decided to inquire and nodded at Philip. No response. So he said, "Philip, your feelings so far about this meeting?"

"I've been wondering whether you were going to participate."

"Participate?" Julius was astounded. "I've been wondering if I were too active, too directive today."

"I meant participate in the sharing of secrets, " said Philip.

Will the time ever come, Julius thought, when Philip will say

something even vaguely predictable? "Philip, I'm not evading your question, but there are some pressing loose ends here." He turned to Gill: "I'm concerned about where you are now."

"I'm on overload. My only issue is whether you'll allow me to stay in the group as an alcoholic," said Gill, whose forehead glistened with perspiration.

"Sounds like this is the time you need us most. I wonder, though, if your bringing it up today indicates that you're gathering resolve to do something about it. Perhaps entering a recovery program?"

"Yep. After this meeting, I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I may need to call you for an individual session. Okay?"

"Of course--as many as you'll need." Julius's policy was to honor requests for individual sessions with the proviso that members share the details of those sessions at the following group meeting.

Julius turned back to Philip. "Back to your question. There's an old therapist trick which provides a graceful evasion of embarrassing questions, and that is to reply, 'I wonder, why are you asking that question?' Well, I am going to ask you that, but I'm not going to evade you. Instead I'll offer you a proposition: I promise to answer your question fully if you agree first to explore your motivations for asking it. Do we have a deal?"

Philip hesitated, then responded. "Fair enough. My motivation for the question is not complicated. I want to understand your approach to counseling and, if possible, integrate any parts that might improve my own counseling practice. I work very differently from you: I don't offer an emotional relationship--I'm not there to love my client. Instead I am an intellectual guide. I offer my clients instruction in thinking more clearly and living in accord with reason. Now, perhaps belatedly, I'm beginning to understand what you're aiming for--a Buber-like I-thou encounter..."

"Buber? Who?" asked Tony. "Hate to keep sounding like a jerk, but I'm damned if I'm going to sit here and not know what's going on."

"Right on, Tony," said Rebecca. "Every time you ask a question, you're doing it for me too. I don't know who Buber is."

Others nodded agreement. Stuart said, "I've heard the name--

something about" I-thou "--but that's it."

Pam jumped in: "Buber's a German Jewish philosopher, died about fifty years ago, whose work explores the true encounter between two beings--the 'I-thou,' fully present, caring relationship--as opposed to the 'I-it' encounter that neglects the 'I-ness' of the other and uses rather than relates. The idea has come up a lot here--what Philip did to me years ago was to use me as an it."

"Thanks, Pam, I got it," said Tony, and then turned to Philip. "Are we all on the same page?"

Philip looked at Tony in a quizzical manner.

"You don't know what that means?" said Tony. "Gotta get you a dictionary of twentieth-century talk. Don't you ever turn on your TV?"

"I don't have a TV," said Philip in an even, nondefensive tone. "But if you are asking, Tony, whether I agree with Pam's response about Buber, the answer is yes--I could not have said it as well."

Julius was fascinated: Philip uttering Tony's and Pam's name?

Philip complimenting Pam? Were these merely evanescent events, or might they be heralding a momentous change? How much he loved being alive, Julius thought--alive in this group.

"You still got the floor, Philip. I interrupted you," said Tony.

Philip continued, "So I was saying to Julius...I mean, I was saying to you"--he turned to Julius--right?"

"Right, Philip," Julius replied. "I think you're going to be a fast learner."

"So," Philip went on, speaking in the measured tone of a

mathematician, "First proposition: you wish to have an I-thou encounter with each client. Second proposition: an 'I-thou' consists of a fully reciprocal relationship--by definition it cannot be a unilateral intimacy.

Third: in the last couple of meetings people here have revealed a lot about themselves. Hence my entirely justifiable question to you: are you not required to reciprocate?"

After a moment of silence Philip added, "So that's the conundrum. I intended only to observe how a counselor of your persuasion handles a client's request for parity."

"So, your motivation is primarily a test of whether I'll be consistent in my approach?"

"Yes, not a test of you, personally, but of your method. "

"Okay, I appreciate your position that the question is in the service of your intellectual understanding. Now just one further query and then I'll proceed to answer you. Why now? Why ask this particular question at this particular time? "

"First time it was possible. That was the first slight break in the pace."

"I'm not convinced. I think there's more. Again, why now ?" Julius repeated.

Philip shook his head in confusion. "This may not be what you're asking, but I've been thinking of a point Schopenhauer made to the effect that there are few things that put people in a better humor than to hear of another's misfortune. Schopenhauer cites a poem of Lucretius"--"first centuryB.C. Roman poet," Philip said in an aside to Tony--"in which one takes pleasure from standing on the seashore and watching others at sea struggle with a terrible storm. 'It is a joy for us,' he says, 'to observe evils from which we are free.' Is this not one of the powerful forces taking place in a therapy group?"

"That's interesting, Philip," said Julius. "But entirely off the point.

Let's stay focused now on the question of ' why now? '"

Philip still appeared confused.

"Let me help, Philip," Julius prodded. "I'm belaboring this for a reason--one which will provide a particularly clear illustration of the differences between our two approaches. I'd suggest that the answer to ' why now? ' is intimately related to your interpersonal issues. Let me illustrate: can you summarize your experience in the last couple of meetings?"

Silence. Philip appeared perplexed.

Tony said, "Seems pretty obvious to me, Professor."

Philip looked at Tony with raised eyebrows. "Obvious?"

"Well, if you want it spelled it out, here it is: you enter this group and make a lot of deep-sounding pronouncements. You pull some things out of your philosophy bag that we all dig. Some people here think you're pretty wise--like Rebecca and Bonnie, for example. And me, too. You supply all the answers. You're a counselor yourself, and it looks like you're competing some with Julius. Same page?"

Tony looked questioningly at Philip, who nodded slightly,

indicating that he should continue.