The Analyst

by Peter Stickland

  “But you can’t get what you want, so you’re frustrated.”

  “I have made a pact with myself - no more dead things. If you play with dead rules and guidelines it will bore me. Its dead rules I want to break, not beautiful women.”

  “What are dead rules?”

  “When someone constructs a set of rigid principles and expects others to faithfully follow them; that’s a dead rule. Almost any prescribed activity is dead. Only those who question the way things grow from the bottom up know how to support activity that can live.”

  “I thought that is what we were doing; questioning things.”

  “You’re just playing by the book. You’re like popular culture; dead, but still trying to sell itself as successful. Novels, movies, musicals; they’re dead. Life has to be in the tiniest thing you do or it simply isn’t there at all. I have a friend who makes earrings. She’s a poet, a maker and a philosopher; all because she fills her tiny daily actions with life. I’m not just criticizing conservative institutions. There are plenty of so called radical ones that are dead; stifled by stupid principles and bureaucratic procedures. What happened to risk taking? What happened to cause everyone to go back to religion? They are all scared of living. You have to find out how to make it happen for yourself if you want to live any kind of life that isn’t dead. Do you know people like that? How about you? Are you dead?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll tell you what then, if you’re certain you’re alive, I’ll stop this stuffy therapy and you and I can become friends. I’d like you much better if we were friends.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why, because it’s against the rules?”

  “No, because it creates too many dilemmas.”

  “That’s life then.”

  “Are you formally withdrawing from therapy?”

  “Yep. We will never meet again.”

  “It’s not inevitable that we will make good friends.”

  “How will you know if you don’t give it a try? Name a time and place and I’ll see you there.”

  To Stefan’s great surprise, he named a time and a place and then he spent the remainder of the day thinking carefully and long about his actions. By the evening he could not qualify anything he’d done on this day.

  The virtual client

  “We are engaging in metaphor when we see, or think we see, one thing in the light of another; it is an instance of perspective, not necessarily of resemblance……In reading a metaphor, there is nothing to prevent us from going back on our tracks rather than sticking to the apparent official direction. This raises the possibility that while a metaphor is a double entity, the duality might be turned into a higher, richer unity…”

  Denis Donoghue.

  Stefan’s decision to be friends with Alex brought him days of nervousness. He needed to find his feet, yet he felt driven to rehearse all the possible scenarios and each one seemed to be more complex than the last. He couldn’t eradicate his concerns or his fear about the dynamic twists that might yet occur, but he could distract himself from worrying about them. He needed a soothing balm for his ragged feelings and he found it in a book called Metaphor by Denis Donoghue. It invited him to a place where he could stay peacefully with his thoughts without questioning if they were right or significant. Slowly he translated his concerns into the simple, yet multifarious relationships described in this book.

  At the outset of his supper with Alex, Stefan’s worse fears were fulfilled. Alex, after a single sip of wine, said he had an admission to make and, without introduction, he delivered his surprise with boyish charm.

  “All that stuff I wrote about Mrs X wasn’t real,” he began, “I invented it. Mrs X doesn’t exist. She’s a character in a story I made up. I didn’t know what to do with the story; the thought of pretending she was a real person only occurred to me when I decided to explore therapy.”

  “I see,” Stefan said, without knowing what he saw and without any real idea how best to respond. He offered a smile to show he was not upset, but he was not certain that Alex was telling the truth.

  “Did you create her by chance,” he asked. Alex looked confused. “Did you invent the tale in the way you invent your other stories or was it born of some reality?”

  “Yes I used the same process I employed for The Rain of the Dancers. I began the story after reading a book by a psychoanalyst. I started with a therapist and his client and then added a few things - a sweet little text from a film script, some phrases from tweets and a few snippets from poems by Elizabeth Jennings; I must credit her with the meaningful ending. All that was left for me to do was to invent a character to hold all these things together and out came Mrs X. The rest came about while I was editing it.”

  “So you thought it would work well as a starting point for your discussions with a therapist?”

  “Yes. I enjoyed talking about it with your colleague, she was wonderful. I found the opportunity of creating a false account of myself very liberating. I felt free. It was like a game of espionage. But in truth I did become rather intrigued by Mrs X once I started talking about her. It’s the first time I have reacted like this to one of my characters.”

  “Why did you give up on involving me in the charade?”

  “Once I had to change therapists the sport of deception lost its shine. I found it difficult starting the pretence with someone new; with you in particular. Maybe I could have kept up the charade with someone else, but we were already friends, or acquaintances at least. I didn’t want to dupe you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I know what you are going to say now though. It doesn’t make any difference whether I invented the story or not. My fantasy expresses my psyche and I should account for it.”

  “It’s easy to get lost if we don’t have some basis in reality.”

  “I suppose too many virtual clients would upset your rules of engagement.”

  “Yes it would, but more importantly, it might upset you. When you write, you devise your characters with a literary strategy, but I’m not sure it’s possible to do this in life; you can’t create an extended metaphor to live in.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You have replaced your world with an imagined one; it’s what one expects from a child not a man, unless he’s crafting fiction. In life it’s a dangerous game.”

  “I think we do it all the time. We all live by our stories.”

  “Only to a limited extent. If we over-engage with them we lose our sense of reality. I have read two of your stories. One in which the man is terrified by love and the other in which the man is obsessed by love with a particular woman. I know you say that the subjects in your stories arrive by accident, but I want to ask which of these two men are closest to you.”

  “Maybe I am both. I could also be Mrs X. I’m like a cubist painting. I look at me from every possible angle and each of the projections I see is me.”

  “So you were never rejected by a woman and became obsessed with her?”

  “Yes, many times. I have also been on the receiving end of too much attention more times than I can remember.”

  “But can you live with yourself? Can you be happy being an amalgam of accidents? Don’t you want to feel whole?”

  “I am whole. I am simply in the habit of giving my love away to stories rather than to other people. This is how I keep my love safe. I don’t want any harm to come to it. There are ancient tribes who hide their soul in a tree for safe keeping. It’s because they can never be certain what danger will befall their precious soul if they travel around with it.”

  “So you are afraid what will happen to your love.”

  “Maybe that is putting it too strongly.”

  “The ancient practice you refer to is called participation mystique. The term is derived from the work of Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind of psychological connection with objects, where the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object because he is bound to it by a d
irect relationship. This kind of projection is generally found in ancient peoples who have an undeveloped or partial identity. So, you either have problems with your identity or you simply want to hide so that others won’t call you to account.”

  “But if it’s a functional survival technique what’s wrong with it? The only problem occurs when I’m in therapy.”

  “I think you are in therapy because you are afraid to love and you realise how lonely it is when you hide it in stories. I don’t think anyone comes to therapy unless they need it.”

  “I came to therapy because Mrs X said I should. I believed her, or maybe I just wanted to follow up on her idea.”

  “So you are a product of your projections then. That doesn’t sound too good to me. Tell me how you imagine Mrs X; this woman who starred in your story.”

  “I would say she’s a curvaceous, seductive fake; all show and no action. Beautiful, but impossible. I didn’t say very much about her. I would have to develop her a little more if she were in one of my novels, but I am not certain I know how to do this. Maybe she would be forever shifting her position. Maybe she is intent on haunting me one minute and then trying to intrigue me the next.”

  “Would you be happy develop her like this?”

  “Maybe I would turn her into a voluptuous ghost.”

  “Did you feel pleased with her when she appeared?”

  “Maybe. Perhaps I wanted to spice up my life a bit by inventing a buxom opponent to spar with.”

  “Why did you want to create an adversary?”

  “Possibly to beat someone who seemed to be unbeatable. I did once meet a woman who was unbeatable. She worked in the office where I worked. It was my first job. She was older than me. We didn’t have an affair. I just watched the way she moved about the office and gained the attention of men.”

  “So tell me about her.”

  “Mmm… she had to have absolute control over all aspects of the office. I figured she controlled her life and everyone else’s. She did it in an obvious way and also in a devious, disconcerting way. She had to be the focus of attention and she always said things that sounded tantalising. Men stood no chance when she decided to charm them. She did this to dominate men, to control their emotions. She needed male attention, but she didn’t actually want the male. No-one ever went out with her – that would have been a hindrance to her well controlled life. She lived for the thrill she got from making men respond to her. She was a performer. She could dance, but she could not possibly engage with real emotion. I would never know where I was if I was in a relationship with a woman like that. I hate the idea of being hopelessly attracted to a woman.”

  “You make her out to be a dominating, scary woman.”

  “Well, she must have had some admirable qualities too. A friend told me a short while after I left the office that she too had left. She went off to run a little hotel in Greece. It seemed so unlike her. Far too relaxed. Maybe she changed. I must admit I was intrigued by the news. Maybe a Greek hotel gave her opportunities to flirt with the locals. Greek men like a shapely woman. I can’t imagine her getting on with the Greek women though. They wouldn’t trust her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, they could read her. They would be sceptical about the way she used her charms on the men.”

  “So you would avoid having a relationship with her?”

  “For sure. She’s too old for me. Anyway, why would I want to be with someone who feels the need to repeatedly shift character; sexually overt one minute, a punishing harridan the next?”

  “But you said this is how you’d develop Mrs X if she was in your novel. Have you met any other women like this?”

  “No. Well, not exactly. In my statement I said Mrs X and I attended the meetings of a local trust. Well, I do actually go to committee meetings concerning our communal garden and a woman who attends there also has a flirtatious manner; though I must admit, she’s not a harridan.”

  “So this woman is like Mrs X?”

  “No, she’s not curvaceous like Mrs X is. I’m attracted to women with a strong form. I don’t know why.”

  “In your story Mr A says he felt like a man for the first time when he was with her. He wanted her back in his life. Maybe without her he doesn’t feel that he’s a real man. What do you think, could this be you? Could a woman like Mrs X turn you into a real man?”

  “All women make me feel like a man when I’m with them. If I’m with a strong, voluptuous woman, that’s when I find myself in deep water.”

  “Is that why you came to therapy – are you drowning?”

  “Why don’t you give me the story according to you and save me from thrashing about in this deep dark ocean?”

  “I can’t. There are millions of stories. I will now make an admission to you. I too invented a story about Mrs X.”

  “Not my Mrs X, surely?”

  “Yes, the Mrs X you invented. I knew about her because I was the first therapist to read your statement. You were originally referred to me for therapy.”

  “Did you ask Kathy to be my therapist?”

  “No, my supervisor did, but I know Kathy.”

  “Why didn’t you take me on?”

  “I can’t take every case I’m given.”

  “But you were interested or you wouldn’t have written about Mrs X. So you also live in your stories.”

  “I was trying understand her.”

  “You wanted to understand her without meeting her? That’s what I do and you criticize me for it. Can I read what you wrote?”

  “Yes. I’ll send it to you if you wish.”

  “Do you think it is damaging to invent a character to carry your projections? I mean, how dangerous is it?”

  “Well, there are things in your personality that are in need of attention. No one will fling up their hands in horror because you invented Mrs X, a fantasy figure, but they might want to assist you. You didn’t just invent a person, you invented a virtual neurosis for yourself. It’s an obvious way of asking for help. Clearly, you need to deal with something that’s sleeping deep inside you and you shouldn’t have it gnawing away at the enclosure its inhabiting; you should get to know it.”

  “Do you think it could be a problem that occurred in my childhood? Your colleague felt it could have been that.”

  “Who knows? You, my dear fellow, are the inventor of this virtual suffering not my colleague; she simply interpreted the situation. She successfully teased out those things in your early life that may have caused you to suffer. But it is only just recently that you have invented a suitable metaphor for your life’s injury; maybe there was a scar that recently re-opened. There is no reason to doubt your chances of connecting with it if you want to continue in therapy. I will happily refer you to another colleague.”

  “I don’t like the rules that dominate this therapy business; my father was obsessed by rules. Rules weren’t difficult for him; he made them up or changed them when he wanted to. I don’t want to talk about my past life. I want to live now, leaving the rules behind, playing openly and honestly. I like to view what I have at the end of making something, rather than by analysing the hell out of it. I just don’t feel happy in therapy; spending endless hours worrying my angels to death.”

  “OK, so don’t do therapy; you can travel a long way with a friend; particularly if they are the right kind of friend.”

  “And are you that friend? You must be taking a risk by supporting me rather than treating me as your client.”

  “I won’t do therapy, I’ll just talk with you. There is little risk in that. I don’t always want to be a therapist. Besides, risks create interesting detours and precarious situations can teach as well as conventional learning. In truth, I know very little; I just try my best. Sometimes I try too hard. Things would go better for me if I had a little more humour in my life. You were very funny the night we met at the party.”

  “Yes, good. I was having fun. For the most part, we hardly know what humour is, do we? Few admit
to living without it, even when it’s clearly absent from their lives.”

  “It’s the same with love. Few admit they don’t have a clue about it. All we can do is try to know what we have; to be honest about the evidence and not cover it up. Sometimes we need help to do this and sometimes we must jump over the monastery wall, trusting to fate and our imagination.”

  “Why do you imagine I’m living in a monastery?”

  “I don’t,” Stefan replied, and he told Alex the story of the Zen monk who escaped from his monastery. He then revealed that he too was becoming increasingly interested in working outside the therapeutic walls.

  “I feel hemmed in,” he explained. “Sometimes, it is better to accept the healing that life offers rather than rely on the structure of the monastery.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Alex asked, out of the blue.

  “No,” Stefan replied, adding, “not at the moment.”

  He had said this hastily, aware that he had made the absence of a woman sound like an uncommon occurrence.

  “How about Kathy,” Alex asked, “she would surely make a fine girlfriend?”

  Stefan didn’t reply. He was berating himself for lying. He was also afraid about discussing his weakness with Alex.

  “I’m fond of Kathy. Did you know that she now teaches a course at university called mindfulness and awareness?”

  “Good for her. She never spoke to me about this self-awareness stuff. Do you think I could talk to her about it?”

  Stefan shrugged his shoulders. It was doubtful that Kathy would break the therapeutic relationship as he had done. He promised to mention it next time he was with her. The two men ended their evening together convinced that their attempt at friendship had been successful. They arranged another meeting. When he got home Stefan wrote in his notebook.

  Next to Kathy I’m such a small fish. I go round in circles while she has successfully extended the boundaries of her practice and has the confidence to teach it.

  I hate it that I must hide my real dilemmas from Alex; it makes me feel dishonest or even worse. I feel like a fake. Even Alex, for all his complex invention, seems to have more reality about him than I do.