The Analyst

by Peter Stickland

  If someone is not ready to engage in the process of emancipation, if he isn’t ready to take responsibility for his fear, then he must put up with the suffering. He doesn’t want to confront his sadistic superego, so he is willing to accept and remain loyal to his repressive instincts. He prefers to be a slave to his old well-known belief system than change anything about it. This in real terms means, being loyal to his father by not being as good as his father and not fighting him.

  I don’t identify with Mr A on this. I fought my father to the bitter end, but I identify with Mr A’s enchantment. He causes me to be concerned about myself. As Clive suspects this is like me becoming familiar with him. It is possible that my connection with Mr A breaks the fundamental rule of binding-autonomy. This edict about strictly limiting therapist/client intimacy is too important to play around with.

  In these notes Stefan was referring to the fact that an intimate relationship with a client is inevitable. It is the therapist’s job to remain separate and if a therapist’s autonomy or their warranted distance is compromised it is impossible to continue. So certified detachment is crucial, but it is not a thing that comes naturally, it takes practice and needs to be consciously performed. There is also the constant danger of slippage. Stefan suspected that Mr A inspired some slippage in him.

  The question for Stefan was this; did he, like Mr A, have a sadistic superego that he had not confronted and was it, as Clive suggested, initiated by his father? To be clear about these terms, a sadistic superego is like an irritating back-stage manager who subtly gnaws away at self-esteem and initiates feelings of shame when it should be celebrating successes. It is ‘shame’ that makes it impossible to engage with conflicts and fix boundaries. That is what Mr A and Stefan are hopeless at – they cannot set limitations. In relation to women, both Stefan and Mr A swing between fear and fascination, between attraction and repulsion. Both conditions are dysfunctional. Neither achieves a mature relationship and neither resolve issues. They would go to any lengths to avoid conflict.

  Stefan continued with his writing for the whole evening.

  Shame is interesting. It always raises its head when issues of boundaries in relationships occur, because relationships are by definition intense cultures that demand growth. When we have too much inside us, we become full; we can’t take any more. Too much shame is very painful. A sadistic superego prefers to tolerate masochistic submission, or it wants to avoid having relationships altogether, rather than engage in a liaison that introduces too much confrontation. Relationships create the worst kind of conflict because we must deal with shame at the very moment we should be expressing our feelings. Shame can be a healthy generator, but only when it occurs at the right moment in the right amount.

  This is why Mr A needs his father to be better than himself, why I need Clive to be better than me. I want to have faith in him, but I don’t quite believe him. When I was distraught he stopped asking questions and covered his eyes. Was that his own shame he was feeling? Is he also afraid of conflict? Is he afraid to allude to the critical aspects of his anxiety? We are all are caught in similar traps; we all fall asleep when the going gets tough, we are all resistant and avoid conflict. We must discover how we can confidently declare that the father is not better than we are.

  And what of Mrs X? She acts out a role she can’t stop playing. She is deeply attracted to her game with men, but manages to draw the line before anything actually happens. Is this her way of protecting herself; sensing very quickly that a situation could become too disruptive to sustain or control. Maybe her problem is that she can’t let go, she can’t get immersed in something; living a shallow existence in which she’s always pretending the surface is more than adequate. To substantiate this she would have to lie and try out everything, but only in the lightest possible way. I’ll call it “Femme fatale light” or “diet-sadomasochism.” This is for women who are attracted to their fathers, but who are deeply suspicious and afraid of anything that hints of an incest-wish.

  At this point Stefan admitted to himself that he was certain of nothing. He had an urgent desire to speak with Kathy and sent a text informing her that he had taken on Mr A’s case. He asked again if they could meet for lunch. Kathy replied instantly.

  “Are you worried about him?”

  Stefan said he was worried, but he insisted that the real reason for his text was to find an opportunity for them to meet before too much time had passed.

  “I am in need of kind conversation,” he wrote.

  They agreed on a date and Stefan went to bed with the feeling that he had steadied his nerves that day.

  A particular invitation

  Stefan’s view took another turn after reading, “Holding back,” an article that appeared in an arts magazine. It was a conversation between the actor Zara Williams and the portrait painter Aisha Bhatnagar. The title, ‘Holding back’ intrigued him and once he had been introduced to the notion that an artist might need to create a certain distance between herself and the subject she was working with, Stefan was hooked. The notion of stepping back lent a certain support to the intuitive leap he had taken when he went in search of the presence of metaphor in dreams.

  Zara Williams opens the discussion.

  “We have agreed to talk about the relationship between an artist and their audience. This subject strikes me as a strange subject for you, because as a portrait painter you don’t have an audience; at least, not while you paint. I, on the other hand have an audience while I’m acting.”

  “That’s true, but I still have a relationship with my sitter.”

  “What kind of relationship?”

  “We’re physically close, yet there’s a distance between us, so I desire proximity; I seek to increase the intimacy between me and my sitter. When I am close to someone it’s always their uniqueness that’s surprising. Their difference and separation from you are always greater than you can imagine. Even when you know someone well, their independence is always a thing that’s unexpected. I enjoy being in my own world. Generally I seek distance rather than intimacy, but not when I am painting. In daily life, being evasive and withdrawn is something I regard as a luxury; but I like it when others want to intervene.”

  “Do you like the space between you and your sitter?”

  “Yes; I love it; it’s a very attractive space. It’s intangible; the kind of space that often exists when two people are alone. Sometimes I want to make it tangible, but I think the invitation for this is more attractive than the reality.”

  “So there is an invitation between an artist and a sitter?”

  “Yes. I think the resultant painting reveals this. It is never easy to categorise the positions of the two participants though. I’m not just the active producer while the sitter is the passive subject. They have responsibilities too and they know this because one day the portrait will be displayed.”

  “So you try to be clear about your relationship?”

  “No; I don’t look at things clearly. I spend most of my time avoiding things or looking at them askance. Tone and light are my main players and they are in a state of continual flux, to the point that being clear is rarely an option. My words might be clear, but my ambition is to record things optically. In painting, little can be trusted and you can’t expect anything to reveal more than half-concealed contradictions and enigmatic gestures. An artist is just one example of the kind of person who is brave enough to keep trying to grasp things under adverse conditions.”

  “This sounds very risky”

  “Yes, for a painter, every brush stroke is a risky business. At any point you can fail abysmally and you need to know how to recover quickly. The surface of a canvas never stays the same. Sometimes we surprise ourselves delightfully and at other times we produce startling intrusions and horrid deformities. The hazards are many and portraiture has more problems than most. It demands some form of naturalism and with this you have to be prepared for failure. Thoughts about being in control are impossible to retain.�
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  “So do you see painting as a game of artifice in which painters play with a range of skills or tactics that they have up their sleeve?”

  “No, painting can’t put up with so much planning. Everything happens too fast. Each time my brush touches the canvas I am engaged in a gesture of description. Nothing I do can rely on thoughts, or cause and effect. All decision-making is mechanical. You might have tactics for acting, but they could not resemble the tactics of a painter.”

  “Surely the brush strokes speak of cause and effect.”

  “Not as such; not on the basis of thinking about them at least. Later, when I look at the work from a distance, I study it and then I might think about conceptual continuity. Then I desire to find it in the painting; I want it to talk to me. When engaged in the act of painting there is not a lot that holds things together. Are conditions similar for you when acting?”

  “There is of course improvisation, but I also think long and hard about the shortest of sentences and the smallest of gestures; it’s the detail that helps me find a character’s personality. Small things hold the secret about a character more than the big things. Details initiate profound thoughts in a way that ‘big ideas’ never can. I try to ensure that my gestures and the way I inhabit a space are very precise, but at the same time I want my performance to emerge as an effortless activity. I want to appear relaxed so my audience could suspect that I’m slightly naïve or not over concerned about my acting. If they feel a little edgy about my lack of drama then I imagine they are building some sort of anticipation for it. Of course, it is possible that I am under some sort of illusion here, but even if my artifice goes unrecognised I still want to pare everything down to its essential components. It’s as though I want to offer my efficiency to the audience as a feast.”

  “So you invite your audience to see your performance as detached, because you want to surprise them in an unexpected and dramatic fashion?”

  “Yes, this tactic of appearing not to care when you care deeply is employed unconsciously by lovers. It increases the tension. One can never be sure of the success. There are no rules to the game, only an inclination and a vague strategy to play it out in an exciting way.”

  “So you too rely on what a gesture looks like.”

  “I suppose so. I like acting when it looks like an absence of acting. If you are watching someone carry out an everyday action, like washing the dishes, when you know that the deepest kind of drama is unfolding before you, then tension begins to play. The best actors often obscure or deny the potential for dramatic occasions. They do this to avoid being over theatrical and to increase the tension. When they are supposed to get angry they keep the audience waiting for a sign of it and this standoff between the opposites initiates a kind of void, a vacuum that offers a new potential. They may even fill this void by employing gestures of a completely different nature to those associated with anger. This is where the detail comes in. When the anger is recognised it is observed in a hand movement or a head turn that is directly pertinent to the character and the dramatic occasion. Gesture is everything and dramatic or angry scenes are nothing. I have dreams like that; small gestures, never the operatic kind. The way I place a cup to dry or turn on the tap could be crucial for carrying the meaning of my anger, but only if the action is already charged and it appears to be a product of the moment. When it’s working well, it’s the improvised gestures that take responsibility for dramatic development.”

  “All this could of course be your invented fiction.”

  “It’s true and you also have to be crazy to add uncertainty and contradiction to an already complicated set of conditions, but we all employ fictions to keep ourselves alive don’t we. This way of acting is mine. It’s a very functional fiction. It gives me independence and helps me avoid the tyranny of repeating what I already know. It happens in the back of my mind.”

  “Excellent; I am an advocate of staying with what happens in the back of your mind. Say more about your improvisation.”

  “I’m not sure I know more. I know that acting mechanically and not conceptually is very important and that timing is crucial. It’s wonderful if the effect of an action on the audience is like an explosion in the taste buds. They often remember moments of pure description with more accuracy and pleasure than they do the larger components of plot or narrative.”

  Stefan was overwhelmed by his desire to understand how these artists worked. He read and re-read the article, playing his own scenarios in those places where he connected with their ambitions. He saw these women as magical figures performing a ritual to teach him how he might place himself.

  Between the polarities

  When Stefan met Kathy he talked of the article that featured the discussion between the portrait painter and the actor. Kathy enjoyed the synopsis he gave and claimed she would like to spend more time with artists.

  “They teach us to look at the world from a completely different perspective,” she offered, and went on to talk of artists as outsiders. Stefan disliked this categorisation.

  “We cannot designate artists as outsiders,” he insisted, “it detracts from the role they play. If they are outside we cannot learn from them. We have to get close to them and start to understand their close and playful affinity with artifice. Artfulness is an excellent tool for healing. When artists are present in dreams, they are, more often than not, guides who can lead damaged personalities back to health. They can be like archetypal trickster figures. Maybe at first they appear as untrustworthy creatures but then they become the agent who helps the injured psyche find healing.”

  Kathy’s response was that any number of characters could perform this kind of function - it was not reserved for artists. An animated discussion ensued. She told Stefan that he romanticised artists and was always too keen to attribute importance to activities outside his own specialism. Stefan argued that he wanted to expand therapeutic practice and Kathy asked why he found viewpoints diametrically opposed to the therapeutic perspective so intriguing.

  Stefan enjoyed the debate and didn’t mind finding himself on shifting sands with Kathy. She did not threaten him. He even took up arguments he had no chance of winning and some he could not clearly explain. When he insisted that what happens in dreams, relates closely to what happens in art, literature and music, Kathy declared he was on uncertain ground. Stefan only wanted to go further. He asserted that art was the most nourishing food a psyche could have and insisted that art deals with psychosis on a much broader stage than the therapeutic setting allowed. The discussion flowed intensely and seamlessly throughout the meal and neither thought of talking about Mr A.

  Kathy, delighted with Stefan’s company, added an affectionate kiss to her long goodbye.

  Once home, Stefan became preoccupied with trickster figures. Looking through his files for something that might feed his current appetite, he found a remarkable dream a client had once told him.

  I am standing in my garden admiring the beautiful lilies, when my manager reaches out to me. Dressed elegantly in black, he appears to be sleep-walking. His hand signals for my silence and soon I feel drowsy. My manager draws me away from the garden and leads led me through a courtyard into a passage lit with lamps. We pass through a curtain into a second chamber draped in black lace. The oils of precious woods are burning in censers and the odour of ambergris, myrrh and musk float about in clouds. I wake up and ask where I am.

  “At your wedding banquet,” he says.

  I see before me a table laid out with viands and wines, sparkling cups and a service of gold. It is a feast. Suspecting it’s my funeral banquet, I run away as fast as I can. I find myself in an endless sequence of dark tunnels. I’m desperately scraping along when a hand comes out of the wall and pulls me into a side cave. A boy, dressed as if he is about to play tennis, has pulled me from the tunnels. He points with his racket down his side of the cave.

  “On the far side of that passageway there is sunlight.”

  I run in the direc
tion he directs me and I step out into a landscape awash with blazing heat. There are no trees to cast any shade and I stumble over broken rocks and stunted shrubs. I feel depressed and drop to the ground. Soon my ailing spirits are cheered by the sound of gentle running water. It exudes freshness and the cool scent of flowers. I see beautiful hillsides on either side of me. Asphodel and rose bloom in the crevices of the crags and higher up a robe of purple covers the slopes. Before me is an emerald pasture and when I look closer I see that it’s a sea of grass tennis courts. I hear the sound of cheering in the distance.

  The young tennis player, my saviour, appears beside me.

  “Your manager will be here soon and this time he will be wearing jewellery that belongs to you. You must repossess it.”

  Thinking my manager wants to press his evil will upon me, I prepare myself for the worst. Suddenly he is standing before me, still in black, compelling me to gaze at his ring.

  “You are the mistress of this ring,” he insists, trying to lull me to sleep again, but I take the ring and place it on my finger. Suddenly, a great noise rings out. I fly up into the air as if possessed by an extraordinary power and my manager speeds thunder-like behind me. With great shrieks he follows wherever I go, swearing that he will give me the sack. We fight to gain possession of the ring, which is twisting and stinging me as I fly. I am fuelled by anger. I try desperately to hold on to the ring, but in the squabble it drops to a tennis court below. The umpire shouts ‘out; first set to Miss Jones’ and the sound of applause fills the air. My manager disappears and I land on the court. The young tennis player is in the umpire’s chair. I hobble to him.