The couple enters the consulting room.\u00a0 They are my last appointment on Saturday.\u00a0 I am tired having already seen eight patients, and I am ready to start my weekend.<\/p>\n
As they sit down, the woman makes a reference to her late husband, who I had treated years ago.\u00a0 I hear the comment, but it doesn’t apparently register.<\/p>\n
Then she makes another reference to her late husband.\u00a0 Again I hear the words, but they don’t apparently register.<\/p>\n
Except.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Except.<\/p>\n
Except…. My body starts to shake and convulse.\u00a0 I have no idea what is going on.\u00a0 I am lost in whatever my body is trying to scream at me.\u00a0 What is going on?\u00a0 What has impacted me?\u00a0 What the hell is going on with me?\u00a0 Is it my tiredness?\u00a0 Is it something going on with me personally that has nothing to do with these patients?\u00a0 I can’t grasp it.\u00a0 I can’t make sense of this shock\/surprise.\u00a0 There are no words, images or anything to connect the experience with.\u00a0 I try to listen to what the couple is saying looking for clues as I try and tolerate what is happening to me.<\/p>\n
The shaking continues throughout the session.<\/p>\n
The session ends and the couple thanks me.\u00a0 They feel it was a good session.\u00a0 But I am still shaking.<\/p>\n
The male patient and I have to use the restroom.\u00a0 In the restroom he tells me that he knew the late husband’s family.\u00a0 Again, I hear the words but they don’t register.\u00a0 I just want to go home and maybe the shaking will stop.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t.<\/p>\n
It stays with me for hours.<\/p>\n
Finally as I am trying to go to sleep, half in and half out of this world, the name of the late husband comes to my mind and the shaking stops.\u00a0 I finally got it I think.\u00a0 Now I remember the opening comments of the woman and the closing comments of her male companion.<\/p>\n
I am upset with myself because I couldn’t put this together during the session.\u00a0 Apparently I was sensing\/feeling\/experiencing\u00a0something connected with\u00a0the late husband.\u00a0 Something that had not yet been conceived or thought–something unthinkable.<\/p>\n
I write my thoughts to the woman.\u00a0 I wonder if she will think I am crazy.\u00a0 She sends a polite response thanking me for being of assistance during the session.<\/p>\n
This was an odd experience for me-just an unconnected pure bodily sensation.\u00a0 Odd in the sense that I frequently will sense things in a session-a thought or image of a person.\u00a0 Whatever this is, it does not appear to be connected to what the patient is discussing.\u00a0 I usually muster the courage to inquire of the patient about what I am sensing, and usually it turns out to be accurate.\u00a0 Something that was there in the patient but had not yet been conceived or thought about so it could not be put into words.\u00a0 I have come to trust this “sense” in me, but at times I do wonder if I have gone over the edge and I am just deluding myself.\u00a0 Perhpas I am just tired, seen too many patients, lost my mind?\u00a0 But I don’t think so.<\/p>\n
The rational explanation I give myself for this “sensing” is that one of Freud’s great discoveries was the unconscious.\u00a0 Something unknown which could only be inferred yet exists inside each of us and can control our thoughts and actions.\u00a0 Freud wrote ” …one must cast a beam of intense darkness so that something which has hitherto been obscured by the glare of the illumination can glitter all the more in the darkness”. And then W.R. Bion conceptualized what he termed “O”.\u00a0 “O” is unknowable, ineffable and represents the ultimate truth or reality waiting to be experienced, but can never be\u00a0known.<\/p>\n
Recently I was attempting to describe what I do to a friend.\u00a0 I was explaining that I try to not listen to the words that the patient is saying, but to what is not there.\u00a0 She commented, “the empty spaces”.\u00a0 Which is precisely it.<\/p>\n
New patients frequently assume that therapy works like going to see a medical doctor.\u00a0 They tell the doctor what their symptoms are, the doctor diagnoses the problem and treats it.\u00a0 But therapy ain’t like that.\u00a0 So after a new patient finishes telling me what their symptoms\/problems are and they look at me with that expectant look that I am going to diagnose their malady and fix\/cure them, I usually shock\/ surprise them and say something like, “That’s what you know\/think is the problem. But if you knew what the problem is then you wouldn’t be in my office.\u00a0 The problem wouldn’t exist.\u00a0I am more interested in what you don’t know about this”.<\/p>\n
After the shock has worn off, or perhaps in the midst of it, I attempt to convey that therapy is not like going to see a medical doctor.\u00a0 That we are not dealing with physical ailments. We are dealing with the human mind.\u00a0 And the mind is not sensible.\u00a0 Thoughts, feelings can’t be seen, touched, heard, etc., only sensed and experienced.<\/p>\n
Some patients can tolerate this shock and decide to continue working with me in search of the unknown, the unthinkable, the empty spaces.<\/p>\n
Others only want my answers to solve their problems.\u00a0 They usually don’t continue with me but find another therapist to diagnose their ailment and tell them how to fix their problem.<\/p>\n
I remember another patient.\u00a0 He was an older gentleman.\u00a0 He called me one day and told me he wanted to see me because he was depressed.\u00a0 He came to his sessions in an electric wheelchair having been physically ill for some time.\u00a0 We did some work together and his depression was lessening.\u00a0 His medical state had stabilized.\u00a0 One day, I do not know why, I sensed that I had to discuss dying with him.\u00a0 The issue had never been discussed, and there was no apparent reason for my doing this.\u00a0 We had the discussion, and he felt relieved.\u00a0 He died several days later in the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Brody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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