Awakenings

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

Anatole France

Most of my life I have felt like I have been poking around in a dark room. Much of the time I have been able to make extremely thoughtful assessments of why I do the things I do, but almost always after the fact, and often when it was just a little too late.

In the grand accounting of difficult conversations I have had in my life, today was absolutely at the top of the list. I heard and confronted some things about myself today that cut very deep into the core of my deeply-flawed self.

The crux of what I discussed today in therapy was about Tommy, my actions with his father, and my subsequent actions arising from his case. After all my protests, all my rationalizations, and all my anger, the session reached its climax when I was asked by my therapist, point blank, just which little boy I was trying to save, Tommy or myself.

This question found its mark. I sat in stunned silence for what seemed like several minutes and truly contemplated everything I had done over the last couple days regarding this case. To react with the level of anger that I did was indicative of a far greater reaction than simply protecting a child, I knew this. Somehow Tommy’s father, in one moment became for me a representation of all of the powerful objects I have been unconsciously fighting with for my entire life.

Facing this was important. When one accepts the responsibility of becoming a psychologist, it is a virtual certainty that we will hear stories of some of the darkest and most sinister actions people are capable of. Our job is to listen with empathy and compassion and build affective relationships with the people who put their trust in us. This demonstrates the power that can occur when two people truly and honestly connect. We are not avenging angels and it is not our duty to set things and people right.

And yes, this even means not striking child-molesting monsters despite the fact that our every instinct tells us to do so. This is a fantasy most people would love to indulge, but by the very nature of my position I am not entitled to do so. It’s not what I’ve signed on for.

As to my desire to save Tommy, I clearly see a number of parallels between his life and mine. He is angry and he is confused and he has a terrible secret, and life has brought the two of us together to deal with these problems. Ultimately a psychologist has only one thing to use in therapy and that is himself. This is only entirely possible if we have really examined our own issues and learned how to put them to rest. Those of us who have not done this allow our emotional difficulties to seep into our work, and when this happens therapy is just not that effective.

I go home totally drained. One thing I don’t seem to want anymore is a drink. I’ve been through to much to surrender to such a petty and temporary solution to my problems. No the real battle is now with myself, and deep down I know it always has been.

In this battle honesty is my best ally. With the help of my therapist I am learning to truly examine how, in my case the child has truly been the father of the man. I’d like to learn to examine my own behavior in the moment. My whole life I’ve always been a half step behind, and this one half step has dramatically affected my ability to find happiness.

Sychronicity

“We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.”

Ben Okri

I saw Tommy again today and am continually amazed at how well he seems to be holding up. I realize that a great deal of the damage that has been done to his psyche is still buried deep inside of him, but he has begun to talk about it, and if we can talk about it I can reinforce in him that it wasn’t his fault. If he can begin to internalize this, the intense guilt and shame most victims of sexual abuse feel may be at least partially neutralized. Much good came of his talking about what happened so soon after it happened, as now we can process this “secret” and not allow it to become buried deep in his unconscious and destroy his life.

There is much work still to do, perhaps a lifetime’s worth but we have started, and he is incredibly resilient. His strength has made me strong, and I hope he has also drawn something from me. I am beginning to feel responsible for him, and he is pulling a very strong paternal, nurturing feeling from me. This is dangerous. Although he absolutely needs a strong, familiar presence in his life right now, I have to be careful not to create a relationship based on dependence, for him or for me.

Later that night I go and see Darren, my patient who is a musician play a big show he has been looking forward to for quite some time. He told me it would mean a lot if I came to his show and so I came, but this too is problematic. Perhaps I am becoming to attached to my patients in the absence of any significant substance in my own life. This is something I want to think over and consider.

The issue here is one of boundaries. In a therapist’s office two people discuss some of the most intimate moments in a person’s life. The job of the therapist is to first build a powerful relationship with this person, and model, through this relationship, skills that the person can then take back to their lives. The therapist is not supposed to literally return with the person to his life.

Attending a concert of a patient certainly walks this line. Although we have a very easy-going therapeutic relationship, it is still ethically questionable. I went to this show with the intent of showing support and seeing someone I believe in realize a dream. I have always thought some of the ethical rules concerning this kind of thing were a little rigid and even silly, but at this point in my career I am in no position to be playing cowboy with the rules. I have to make a real examination if I am using my patients to fulfill some of my own needs related to loneliness and a need for companionship. I will give this some serious thought.

But sometimes you also have to throw the book out the window. In the case of Tommy, he needs an advocate, a friend, a surrogate parent, as well as a therapist. I am well aware that I am perhaps over stepping my bounds by trying to be all of these things for him, but I want to at least see him through a few weeks before I start thinking about the implications of this. I know all too well how children can get lost in the system. I myself was lost in the system. The sychronicity of this does not escape me. Tomorrow I will make another appointment to see my therapist.

A day of reckoning

During the twenty months in which I experienced psychotherapy, perhaps one of the major constants was surprise……..This voyage of discovery was the most incredible I’ve ever known.

Roger Walsh

When you’ve worked as a therapist long enough you become a master debater. The process of challenging illogical thinking, offering counterpoints, issuing challenges, and when necessary outright confronting people all make a therapist a verbally agile craftsman in the use of language. I’ve talked my way out of many tight situations over the years, averted crisis after crisis, and untangled myself from more potential messes than I’d care to remember.

All of that ended today. My new therapist saw right through all my cleverness, diversions, and subterfuges, and made me face some hard truths about why I do the things I do. I was amazed at his gall, incredibly irritated, and appreciative that this might be the first person in my entire life who truly holds a mirror up to me in a brutally honest way.

Today we got into the twin demons of my defense structure, humor and intellectualization. I have become highly adept at shifting in and out of these two modes of communication throughout my entire life, and in doing so have managed to wind up exactly where I sit today. In other words they have allowed me to reach a position of some degree of success and even prestige, while also helping walk me right to the brink of the cliff of self-destruction.

The nature of defenses is they protect us from pain. Most people have several, and many of these are adaptive responses to stress and anxiety. Denial is a very common defense, as is rationalization, and I am more than familiar with both in my own life. Defenses become important when they begin to strongly interfere with our everyday functioning.

As was pointed out to me today, I have learned to talk circles around my own drinking problem and explain, rationalize, and expound on it in a myriad of different ways. What I haven’t done is take a long look into the mirror, and admit that what I am doing is utterly destroying me physically, mentally, and spiritually.

As was also pointed out to me today, I constantly deflect problems by telling little jokes, which creates a temporary subterfuge to avoid talking about my own problems. Hard to argue with this one. But hearing it so directly and so bluntly was still aggravating, which was of course because it struck directly on top of a nerve.

When I left today I felt stripped naked. The cardinal rule of stripping people of their defenses is you don’t engage in this process unless you have something else to offer in its place. No such offer was tended to me today. Perhaps he wanted me to experience what is known as “optimal frustration.” Which, according to constructivist therapy is necessary for fostering independence

optimal frustration has these main points:

• “Children, especially young ones, have fundamental tendencies toward being dependent, selfish, and irrational.
• The child must be forced through frustration to develop: a sense of self separate from caregivers; control of emotions and impulses; respect for others; adaptation to reality; and the skills of independent living.
• While caregivers should be sensitive and nurturing (that's the "optimal" part), frustration is the necessary and primary pathway through which children build the cognitive and affective structures of the self.”
• 
  

The difficulty with understanding this, is that, despite the fact that I am in my thirties, I am the child in this scenario. This is known as “reparenting” and today I got some tough love. I’m trying deep down to shake off my anger and fully engage in this process.

Because…..Somewhere there is a real child who is depending on me, and I owe it to him to give him every bit of what I have to give without my personal baggage getting in the way. This is keeping me going right now. So yes, I will be “the child” in therapy if it means I am better able to help a real child who is teetering on the verge of the abyss. I am collecting and integrating myself and gathering strength for him, and for me. This time the stakes are much higher.

A nagging question

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down

Mary Pickford

I met today with my local review board of the American Psychological Association. While in front of them I faced a very serious decision. I could tell them that I felt I was in physical danger from Tommy’s father and acted in self-defense, or I could tell them what really happened. In thinking about this decision I wanted to factor in what the best decision would be for Tommy in this case, and I decided to tell a lie. I realized the seriousness of this decision, and what I would have to live with as a result of it.

With the receptionist corroborating my story, the review board agreed to let me retain my license and practice if I agreed to enter into counseling of my own to discuss any possible issues I may have with excessive anger. I agreed to this stipulation and stepped out into the afternoon sun, basically free to return to my livelihood, which had taken on newfound significance given the seriousness of what had happened with Tommy over the last week.

And the fact is I do have some serious issues to address. This is obvious. The credo “first do no harm” is as relevant to psychology as it is to medicine, and I had nearly killed a man. Whatever this man was, I’m quite sure I could have easily beaten him to death if other people weren’t around.

In the back of my head a sinister and daunting question has been forming that I have been afraid to let crystallize. This question thumps in my mind like a tell-tale heart beating louder and louder until finally I have to stand and face it. The question is “whose father was I beating up, in that moment, Tommy’s or my own?” The question sickens me but I know I have to answer it. There may not be an answer to this question. Perhaps my past and present selves are so intertwined that I’ll never completely untangle them. I know this is likely true. But if I am violent I have to face that. I have responsibilities and people counting on me.

Later that day I make an appointment to see a prominent yet eccentric therapist, who has the reputation as being extremely tough, yet also very kind. Therapy is going to be quite difficult this time around, and I am looking forward to it while also being a little apprehensive. A part of me thinks this might be the last shot to get it right, but I don’t want to get down on myself.

For once in my life

“For once in my life I have someone who needs me
Someone I’ve needed so long
For once, unafraid, I can go where life leads me
And somehow I know Ill be strong

Stevie Wonder “For once in my life”

I saw my friend Tommy today. He is staying with a foster family who seems very nice, and because I am his therapist of record I was allowed to take him out to lunch. He does not know what I did to his father and I’m not sure I want him to know, not yet anyway. For now I want to act entirely in his best interests, and that means not adding any more stress or worry to his life right now.

We had pizza and talked sparingly. It was clear he is incredibly scared and confused, and I realize it may have been better to do this in my office. I know he is still in a great deal of shock, and I don’t want to push him to talk if he isn’t ready. On the other hand I know it is important he does talk about it and for me to let him know that whatever it is he is feeling it is ok for him to feel like that. He is, quite literally, being attacked by guilt and shame right now, and I want to let him know that he can tell me anything and have it be OK.

Halfway through our meal he says he likes it with his new family and how nice they have been to him. I am again amazed at his strength and resilience and tell him how proud I am of how strong he has been which makes him smile. We switch into a conversation about the Chicago Bears, and I am perfectly OK with this. Although I have been ostensibly trained to deal with these situations, I am terrified of saying the wrong thing. In this moment, I am trying to operate simply out of human kindness, and be there for him if and when he is ready to talk.

As I dropped him off, he looked up at me with sad eyes, and asked when we’ll see each other again. The truth is I don't know. Although I haven’t officially been suspended or reprimanded, I know that there will be some serious questions I have to answer before I go back to work. I explain to him that I’ll see him as soon as possible, but this doesn’t seem to satisfy him. It is an evasive answer and for someone who has been lied to as much as he has it’s a poor choice of words. Still, I really don’t know.

“I love you,” he says as he opened the car door, anxiously looking at me to see what my response would be.

And in this moment I am truly at a loss about what to say. Clearly the response he craves very badly is, “I love you too”, but this may be a dangerous thing to say. I’m not sure what his definition of love is given his history, and am afraid of evoking any confusing feelings. On the other hand, this is a human being badly in need of reassurance. His pain is likely of a magnitude I haven’t even come close to experiencing. I look down and he was still looking at me with expectant eyes.

“I love you too kiddo” I said, “And I want you to know that you can count on me to stand by your side, whenever and whatever you need, okay?” I ask.

“Okay”, he says and heads to the house with a faint smile. As I pull away I see him turn his head back towards the car and wave, and I wave back as I pull away. I look in my rearview mirror and see that I have begun to cry again, and I pull over and try and make a fair assessment of my feelings. The universe has thrown me a very difficult challenge, and I need to reach deep inside myself and rise to this extremely difficult task. For the first time, perhaps ever, I’ve come to understand what it is to be truly needed by another human being.

Lost innocence continued

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Ernest Hemingway

When the dust settled, the parents of the boy I was seeing were both arrested. The boy had bruises all over his legs and private parts, and he was convincing enough for the district attorney to press charges. Should this case go to trial, I may have lost my chance to testify given the magnitude of the violence I inflicted on the boy’s father. The DA was very disappointed in me, lectured me sternly, but in the end pressed no charges. I had dodged that bullet.

But…. My partners felt it would be best if I took a couple of weeks off while the American Psychological Association sorted out what to do with me. I didn’t object.

Although my professional life literally hangs in the balance, something inside of me has changed. I feel powerful and I feel strong. I have conquered some kind of demon that has been dormant inside of me and become a man of action. For the first time in quite some time, I have no urge to have a drink. It would be an insult and a dishonor to a little boy who proved to me what real courage really means.

Philosophically I have to come to terms with what I’ve done. As a psychologist I have been deeply habituated to believe that problems have non-violent solutions, and that violence is the very antithesis of what we do. I have always subscribed to Edmund Burke’s idea that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” For me this fight has thus far consisted of summoning all of my reason and compassion to help people along the way. Until yesterday. Yesterday, sensing that I was in the presence of pure evil, I returned to the most primal method of conflict resolution known to man.

Which brings us to the question of evil. Is there such a thing? A great debate between Rollo May and Carl Rogers took place on this issue, and I’ve always leaned towards Dostoyevsky’s view that “If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”

Gilbert Ryle thought of evil as the “ghost in the machine.” Basically he suggested that as man has evolved, he has retained some of his primal urges which can override the higher brain and lead people to do hateful and evil things.

Over the last couple of days I have searched my mind for possible alternative explanations as to how someone can molest their own child for years in conjunction with their spouse. I have worked with sex offenders, have heard their stories, and tried to understand how their twisted logic develops. I understand that many of these people were themselves molested and the developed a very maladaptive view of human sexuality. I’ve seen it and I’ve tried to help these people.

But….. to take a child who came out of your womb and to hurt and destroy him sexually, and for the father to respond by molesting him as well? There is no explanation for this except pure unadulterated evil that makes any kind of sense to me. Perhaps this is still my anger talking. But truly, beyond whatever forces twist and distort a person’s sexuality, there is a moment when they look into the eyes of a crying and terrified child and have a choice, and when they make the choice to satisfy their own needs at the sake of this terrified child, that is evil…….

Can evil therefore be learned? I guess it can. Perhaps this is even predominantly the source of evil in the world. Perhaps children who are neglected, abused, scorned, and ridiculed by those who they are supposed to trust the most learn to simply act on all of the anger that is inside of them. Freud said “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” Maybe betrayals of this magnitude are what gives birth to evil, I’ve certainly seen it happen.

Which brings us to the real point of what it is I’ve done. Somewhere there is a little boy sleeping in a strange home who is terrified to death. Without the right assistance this little boy may very well turn into an evil person. He has been betrayed very badly, been used for others pleasure, and has likely got some very confused ideas about what love might mean between a parent and a child.

And he trusts me. If I can’t be a psychologist anymore, then perhaps I too have betrayed him. I couldn’t live with this. I am the only adult that he trusts right now and it is of vital important that I stay in his life right now. For the first time I’ve truly come to understand the magnitude of what it is I’ve been called to do. I must stay in this boy’s life, and to do this I have to get back to work. The existential shock of these events has brought me back to life, A drink is truly the last thing on my mind right now. Someone needs me very badly and I need to keep a clear head.

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”

William Butler Yeats

There’s nothing quite like the tears of a child to take an icepick to even the most frozen of hearts, and today I heard a story that put mine over the edge. It was from a little boy I have been seeing who came in because his parents felt he had “emotional problems”, and yes he certainly does. We have been meeting for several weeks now, and finally, after weeks and weeks of compassionate struggle, he said the words every therapist dreads hearing the most, “my mommy hurt me.”

Those words opened a floodgate of emotion in this child, and between his tears, he told me his dark and horrible secret. His mother had been coming into his room at night for several years and molesting him.

This alone would be cause for powerful shock and sorrow, but indeed the story had gotten even worse. When the child had gone to his father and told him about this, he had molested him as well. He had also told him that if he told anyone about this then he would have to kill him. This was his secret, his guilt, and his shame, and the roots of his “emotional problems.”

How he was able to tell me this story I have no idea. I have seen some tremendous acts of courage in my life, but never, in all my years, have I seen someone summon the amount of bravery that this child did during this one terrible hour. I wanted to hug him and hold him and protect him, but I realized being touched by another adult would send confusing signals. In that moment, all I could do was assure him that he was safe and his parents weren’t going to be doing that to him anymore.

When you hear these stories, your first obligation is to the child. Despite the fact that I was filled with both murderous rage and penetrating sorrow, I had to summon my rationale powers and follow protocol. I called DCFS who sent someone to my office to pick up the child. I cancelled the rest of my appointments for the day and accompanied him to their office so he could be with a familiar face for the rest of the day. I knew he would have to tell his story at least one more time, and when he did I wanted him to know I would be with him.

He was terrified and he was in shock, but the composure that little boy showed over the next several hours was truly astounding. It made me ashamed to think that my little problems kept me running towards the bottle when an 8 year old boy could show this kind of courage and resilience. At then end of the day as we parted company he hugged me. It was perhaps the most incredible act of trust I had ever witnessed from another human being considering where this little boy had been. I assured him I would do everything in my power to be with him in every way I could as we sorted out how we were going to keep him safe.

When I stepped out of the office I began to cry, softly at first, and then an open and torrential cascade of tears. I wept as strongly and as powerfully as I ever had in my life in that moment, and literally sobbed until I had no more tears left to give to this shitty fucking world we live in.

I went back to my office, utterly drained and as discouraged with the human condition as I had ever been in my twisted and pathetic life. As I entered my office I felt a hand come down on my shoulder and I slowly looked up, not fully understanding what was about to happen. And then, the realization of what stood in front of me slowly began to crystallize. Before me was the father of this boy, and he had just put his hands roughly on my shoulders.

In retrospect I don’t fully know what happened next, but I do know that in that moment, every part of my rationale brain had utterly and totally disappeared.

The next thing I remember there were several more hands on my shoulders, but none of them were powerful enough to stop me. I was striking a bloody and mangled man who I now lay on top of over and over and over again. Finally as I began to tire I took stock of my surroundings and began to get some comprehension of what it is I had just done. I had nearly killed a man. Not really a man, but a pathetic excuse for a human being. In that moment, had there not been security guards present, I truly believe I would have taken this man’s life.

When the police eventually came there was a lot of sorting out to do. The receptionist explained to the officer that the man had violently put his hands on me and that I had acted in self-defense, but I knew that this was a lie. I had utterly surrendered to every savage impulse I had inside of me, and given the chance, I would do it again.

So we all went down to the police station, and when they heard the story several cops came and congratulated me. But deep down, somewhere inside of me, I know that much of what I did was for me and not that little boy whose interests I am supposed to be protecting. I am racked with guilt, shame, pride, and intense confusion. It remains to be seen if I am still a psychologist. Time will tell.