It struck me as wonderfully funny and I started to laugh, and laughed until my eyes filled with tears. Her silly commentary was equally offputting. Let me start by giving, you the reader, a summary of Thelma who is the client in "Love's Executioner". Our next session started uneventfully. I needed something stronger. To read the exact words would only tear open the wound even more.. It feels scary, like Ill need you too much. I must not make that error. She probably would never marry. Furthermore, it is difficult for me, as for most therapists, to form a relationship with a patient who has fallen in love. Such death awareness is a terror that comes rarely, sometimes only once or twice in a lifetimea terror that Marvin now experienced night after night. But the moment Saul arrived at the Stockholm Research Institute, the moment he was greeted by Dr. K., he felt strangely convinced that his goal was within his grasp, that there was hope for some final peace. He told me that about six months ago he, for the first time in his life, began suffering from headaches. And another pleaded, I want the parents, the childhood I never had, as he agonized over three letters he could not bring himself to open. Dont question me more about my dog. There was silence for a short time until Matthew punctured it. In other words, even though his body was imperiled, he himself, his vital essence, was intact. He knew I would disagree. Use an excuse, any excuse: my time all filled, leaving the country for a few years, embarking on a full-time research career. Thats what you think Im worth., Marge, I apologize for that. 2 These differing visions were later published as Every Day Gets a Little Closer: A Twice-Told Therapy (New York: Basic Books, 1974). Her facial expression was frozen, as well as her imagination, her body, her sexualitythe whole flow of her life. His thoughts really cant change the kind of person you are. Shes had it for years and years. A few years ago, while preparing a research proposal on bereavement, I placed a brief article in a local newspaper which ended with this message:In the first, planning stage of his research, Dr. Yalom wishes to interview individuals who have been unable to overcome their grief. I then instructed him to say to her, punctually every two hours, phoning her if he were at work, these words precisely: Phyllis, please dont leave the house. And still it seems outrageous. When her two daughters were sick, the family doctor made a house call. But if you had just answered my question the way I first put it, I would have gotten the answer to the question you just asked., You mean you would have learned my opinion about how psychiatry, in general, feels about the treatment of the average elderly patient, and then you would have assumed that that was the way I felt about treating you., But thats so roundabout. But once I married Harry, love was over. I want! We know that. But they didnt help. Ive taken up seventy-five percent of the meeting already, and I know that others want some time today., Reluctantly, we left Dave and turned to other matters in the group. And how did they feel about seeing Chrissies last will and testament on the refrigerator for the past four years, attached with a magnetic metallic strawberry? I want you to answer me honestly: Are you satisfied? His amount of self-disclosure was outrageous twenty-five years ago and set most therapists teeth on edge. She didnt make friends easily, she pointed out: no obese woman does. But I never found anyone. Bettys mood now fluctuated wildly, and I grew increasingly concerned for her. Perhaps one hundred spurts would fill a cupthats only fifty seconds. Aside from two or three brief periods when she lost forty or fifty pounds on crash diets, she had hovered between two hundred and two hundred fifty since she was twenty-one. So I tried to deal with it on my own. Instead, I used the dream material to explore themes that had already emerged in our work. After three or four weeks my hallucinations returned, and I had to re-enter the hospitalthis time for six weeks. Carlos readily agreed to meet with me. But this type of interpretation would be totally useless now: he was far too closed and defensive. Very few men (though there were some) were brave enough to love meeveryone was terrified of Harry. Weighing all these considerations, I finally chose my response. I was giving a lecture with great success. The actress and the statue traded places. No, that would not work. It took me a week, until our next session, to realize that the litany was depression-spawned propaganda. Lets try to understand this together. (Yalom, 2010. p. 149). Its just that Ive been so hurt by Matthew that Im not going to make myself vulnerable again to another therapist., Youve got good answers for everything, but what it all adds up to is Dont get close. You cant get close to Harry because you dont want to hurt him by telling him your intimate thoughts about Matthew and suicide. Talking treatments have never helped. Tell me more about what youre struggling with in your life, I asked. That was an improvement on Dr. Farber., The second reason is that I could understand how you felt. I had developed a variety of hypotheses about his behavior, but I was not remotely prepared for the story I had just heard. But she simply smoothed out her long denim skirt, sat back down, and asked if she could smoke. Do you want to think some more about it, Thelma, and well schedule another meeting next week?. I knew that he had not injured his back (he often avoided unpleasant confrontations by malingering), and he knew I knew it; but the crisp tone of his voice signaled unmistakably that I no longer had the right to comment on it. It had rear windows with a kind of filter that slid up and down but it was stuck. Only a couple of weeks ago, she had grumbled that she was tired of being hadthat is, being sexually aroused and then left unsatisfied. And suppose one of them mistakenly thought her experience was the same as his?. The second, alternatives exclude, is an important key to understanding why decision is difficult. But consider the effect of that on the other person. Synopsis: In these compelling true-life tales of therapy, Irvin Yalom not only gives us a rare glimpse into . One day Jay surprised me and the other members by announcing (confessing was his word) that everything he had ever said in the grouphis feedback to others, his self- revelations, all his angry and caring wordseverything, had really been said for my benefit. Rationally, Elva knew Albert was gone, but still she lived her routine, everyday life behind a veil of illusion which numbed the pain and softened the glare of the knowing. But you must promise me one thingthat you wont call Matthew without my permission.. (I remember it well, I think, because it was the only remotely personaland the most helpfulthing she said in my six hundred hours with her.) Afraid of what Id say. Good try, Doc! Although Thelma's love obsession with her therapist, and her subjective experiences on life of what is preventing her from living in the present, Yalom attempts to treat a 70-year-old woman only to learn that being love executioner more complicated as he had anticipated. Impossible, I insisted, and posed the same question many different ways. Remembering I hadnt wanted to take the lid off such primitive feelingsat least not this early in treatmentI switched from murder to sex. His mother was outside. Time was running out. I tried to describe to her how I had seen things differently, and how, in my view, Matthew had been warm to her and had gone into lengthy and painful detail about why he had broken off with her. Dr Yalom has learned something that fiction . I can tear down a years work in a day. As she left my office, I thought that even if she decided to talk about her own issues with someone else, I would still try to meet with her later when she settled down to see if we could make this a learning experience for her as well. Youve got to make a place where she can live: thats what fathers dothey build a world for their children. I was very excited by what Marge said. She had continued to live as ifas if the world were safe, as if Albert were there, back in the workshop next to the garage. You and I are very much alikein one way, at least. I shook his hand before and after each hour and usually put my hand on his shoulder as he left the office. As long as Matthew and I were alive, we always had the chance to return to it. Her tight shoulders relaxed, her face loosened, her head turned ever so slightly toward me. He was, by far, the best therapist she had ever had, and she had grown fond of him, very fond, and for those twenty months looked forward all week to her therapy hour. From time to time, I had to prod myself to remember that the dreamer was Marvin, that the dreamer provided an open channel to Marvins central nucleusthat whorl of the self which possesses absolute wisdom and self-knowledge. I soon learned that over the last twenty years she had been chronically depressed and in psychiatric treatment almost continuously. She had never allowed herself to believe that Chrissie would die. Ill answer all your questions.. People who feel empty never heal by merging with another incomplete person. (He was a member of a half-dozen churches because he believed they provided him with ideal pickup opportunities.) Marvins told you that he tells me about the things the two of you have been discussing. There was yet another component in this decision. I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit. Carlos didnt seem to listen. She suffered now, not because she had forgotten the events surrounding Chrissies death, but because of the way she had neglected her two sons. Complete silence.. Because of my vindictive feelings toward Matthew, I was not displeased with Thelmas words. This question was particularly painful for Betty who, by that time, had visited a gynecologist and been told that she had an endocrine disorder that would make it impossible for her to have children. I was a latchkey kid when I was ten., O.K., begin with why you wanted to see me immediately. It was clear that a direct appeal would be of no value. Only one thing had been changed: Penny took Chrissies bed into her own room and slept on it every night. There was a gypsy camp forming right in the front lobby of my office. I recalled waiting at a palm-edged Caribbean airport for a plane to land for my lover to join me. . I wanted to linger with the dream but had to return to the needs of the moment. Ive never met anyone who wouldnt cut you dead for a dollar, a job, or a cunt. He had been married only briefly and had had no other significant relationships with women. And think of how they must have resented her attempt to keep Chrissies memory alive by continuing, for example, to celebrate Chrissies birthday every year! Almost like shell find out about it., You give her a lot of power. Much as I love to do group therapy, the format has one important drawback for me: it often does not permit the exploration of deeper existential issues. I wanted him to continue, and I just waited. Sex is at the root of everything. I feel little charity for the irresponsible professionals and have urged many patients to report sexually offending therapists to professional ethics boards. In our first session Penny had said to me, Just get me started. The other group members would proceed to request and then demand more. I posed questions, at first gentle and gradually more challenging. He mentions that Carlos had grown up as an only child in Argentina, but never refers back to this again. Betty was boring precisely because she stifled her wishes, and others grew weary of supplying wish and imagination for her. Try it. Since patients tend to resist assuming responsibility, therapists must develop techniques to make patients aware of how they themselves create their own problems. All my tension disappears. We cant do anything about it! I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. That concern gradually evaporated and in its place was left a bitter residuea residue expressed by the phrase I never thought it would happen to me. Along with her purse and her three hundred dollars, an illusion was snatched away from Elvathe illusion of personal specialness. Intrapersonal isolation occurs when parts of the self are split off, as when one splits off emotion from the memory of an event. Of course, I didnt reach him, but I told his telephone-answering tape about your proposal, and I said for him to phone me or you andand. Since Ive known you, the times youve been most persistently depressed are the times youve broken your connections to everyone and been really isolated. It was time to finish the job. That would not be uncharacteristic of him. She answered an ad in the personal section of The Bay Guardian, a local newspaper. I was irritated with Marvin. I personally think you judge yourself too harshly. He had loved Sorayaor, at least, she was the only lover (and they had been legion) to whom he had ever said, I love you. He and Soraya had a deliciously clandestine affair for four years. There seemed much work for Penny to do on her relationships with the livingespecially with her sons and perhaps with her husband; and I assumed that would be how we would spend our remaining six hours. How would she have dressed or walked? Is that why youre suggesting it for me?, Marie, how can I persuade you that hypnosis has nothing to do with will power or intelligence? In one meeting when one of the women members pressed him to tell his age, Dave offered an exchange: his secret, his age, for her home telephone number. He was aroused by, compelled by, secrecy, and often courted it at great personal expense. show more content Mike, an expert in this field, began a well-practiced, polished presentation. 1. Bjrn Borgs pulse is fifty, Ive heard. I had a giant auger and knew that I would have to drill down sixty-five feet to save the house. That idea really hit home. Under ordinary conditions Marie could be a difficult patient, but after her accident she was astonishingly resistive and caustic. I grew more aware of his bedroom, as stark as a second-class third-world hotel room, and thought, also, of a description I had read of Wittgensteins bare, whitewashed cell at Cambridge. Perhaps you could say that shes my Valium.. I was on the right track. Anyway, we started making love. But Im not sure. I saw much of myself in Dave, and there are limits to my hypocrisy. Not that I blame youafter all, you guys are running a business and gotta earn a living. 520 It had finally come! Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. It almost killed him when I attempted suicide. Spare me any more psychiatrists home photos!. She also knew that it helped when we carefully examined the incidents that precipitated a depression. When I was sick, she took me to the county hospital and shouted, This orphan needs medical attention!. He was sitting there patientlya short, chubby, bald man with a glistening pate and owl eyes which never blinked as they peered through oversized, gleaming chrome spectacles. Why that day and not another day? I didnt know what Saul was talking about. I informed her that it was important for her to know, before she agreed to proceed, that these were to be research, not therapeutic, interviews. Betty was a good student, attended the state university, went to work for a department store in Texas, and after two years was transferred to the central office in New York. Four more? Love's Executioner offers us the humane and extraordinary insight of renowned psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom into the lives of ten of his patients - and through them into the minds of us all Why was Saul tormented by three unopened letters from Stockholm? Where is that moment now?, Well, where is it? He still experienced fear as he recited it, and shook his head as though he were trying to get the dreams bad taste out of his mouth. Ive decided on a fifty-thousand-dollar gift. Its all I can do to get her into the dentist when shes got a toothache.. I have no childrenhere his voice turned grayno poor relatives, no desires to give it to good causes., You sounded sad when you talked about not having children., Thats past history. Now he realized where this discussion was leading, and began to perspire. Will you open the letters before you mail that letter to Dr. K.? His relationship with his mother had been exclusive, overly intimate, prolonged in its closeness and had disastrous consequences for his relationship with men; indeed, he imagined he had, in some substantial way, contributed to his fathers disappearance. Everything, Betty replied. Jay recapitulated, in the group, his life experiences in his family, where he yearned for his fathers love but had nevercould neverask for it. The kindly family doctor held my hand gently as he examined itthen suddenly, with a heavy book he was holding surreptitiously in his other hand, he slammed my wrist, bursting my ganglion. is a 70-year-old married Caucasian woman who, as a result of a five-month, once-weekly course of therapy . I can understand how fury toward a woman could lead to a crime like that.. Im not sure youll be there for me. We are, all of us, in this together. When she woke up from the blackout in the drugstore, she had the strongest sense that the graduation card in her hand was not for Chrissie (who would have graduated from high school at this time) but for herself. Yet I was uncomfortable with Daves request. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. But most people work on it over and over throughout the years. It was as though he were seeing for the very first time each particular set of complaints and personality characteristics, as though he truly believed each individual was unique and required a unique therapy approach. Carloss improvement increased exponentially. As though hes my child and I have to answer for him. Thelma turned away and looked out the window. I was moved now when she told me how she cried herself to sleep. Every profession has within it a realm of possibility wherein the practitioner may seek perfection. In the next hour she tried several times to come to me again. Marie regarded his behavior as odious and gradually became harsher in her refusals. No. A lover of words (he spoke several languages), he marveled at the transposition of soul and sole. He was so preoccupied with women that he seemed to forget that he had a cancer that was actively infiltrating all the crawl spaces of his body. After shaking hands with me, his first words, while accompanying me down the hall to my office, were to compliment me on my frames and to ask me their make. He freely offered the names of hospitals and his treating physicians if I should want to call. Self-esteem improved and there was corresponding significant improvement on several other scales: anxiety, hypochondriacal, psychoticism, and obsessionalism. I had seen Marvin for the first time only a few minutes earlier when I went out to my waiting room to fetch him. Instead of talking about Chrissies tragedy, she spent the next two hours describing the tragedy of her own life. Then Id wonder whether one hundred and four was good or bad? And I had accepted everything and asked for even more. . Cervantes asked, Which will you have: wise madness or foolish sanity? It was clear which choice Harry and Thelma were making! I enjoyed the joking about your shitty habits. I didnt mention our discussion about the letters because I didnt want to compromise you. But of my hundred hours with her, what should I have shared? If he would call me once a year, talk to me for even five minutes, ask about me, show me his concern, then I could live happily. First of all, she never revealed anything intimate about herself. My psychiatrist finally advised me to sever all contact, to be totally silent. But be forewarned, individual treatment will most likely require many months, even a year or longer, and it will not be a rose garden. Susan Jennings? There was one exceptionhis childrenand when Carlos spoke of them real emotion, emotion that I could join with, broke through. I want to sink into the embrace of some warm daydream. Someone is accusing him of being involved only in the transplantation process and being uninterested in all the messy circumstances of how he got the heart from the donor. If I hadnt kept his secret from my therapists all these years, maybe the dominoes might have fallen differently., I dont understand. For eight years I havent stopped thinking about him. Sometimes he put them in a file cabinet in quirky categories (under G for guilty, or D for depressionthat is, to be read when deeply depressed). She started one sessionour seventh, I believeby reporting two events: a vivid dream and another blackout. Thelma arrived twenty minutes early for the session. ), It was a virtuoso performance. I suggested that we meet six times and then evaluate whether treatment seemed worthwhile. Your life would have been very different?, Let me back up a minute. I told her of my own difficulties in coming to terms with death; that, though the fact of death cannot be altered, ones attitude toward it can be vastly influenced. When I spoke to Dr. Farber on the phone, he did not mention his naps, of course, but he did volunteer that Betty had not been able to learn how to use therapy. One day Betty announced, one hundred fifty-nine, and added that this was virgin territory that is, she hadnt weighed in the one hundred fifties since high school. After this session I had much to think about. She stayed home all day staring out the window; she could not sleep; her movements and speech slowed down; she lost her enthusiasm for any activities. She was convinced he was going to die soon, though the doctors claimed that his prognosis was not hopeless despite his debilitated physical condition and his advanced age (he was sixty-three). In most other ways he is very self-sufficient. Your email address will not be published. I want to accomplish something. Let me get this down. 1. p.38 It was deeply frustrating. She smoked furiously during the session, often taking two or three drags before angrily snuffing out the cigarette, only minutes later to light up another. "Do Not Go Gentle" 7. Why do you surrender your power to Matthew? On a couple of occasions (for example, that time he asked a woman member forty years younger for her phone number), the group had come close, I thought, to calling Dave a dirty old man. I winced for him and was glad that the epithet had not been uttered aloud. So what do I do?. Number three, Matthew will probably tell the truth, but the wording will be patronizing and would be heavily influenced by Dr. Yaloms presence. I ended the session by establishing a contract. I had promised myself to Marge. It becomes numb when it touches your numb cheek, and it can transfer that numbness to any other part of your body.. Betty, whats the danger in letting me matter to you?, Im not sure. It is when these unattainable wants come to dominate our lives that we turn for help to family, to friends, to religionsometimes to psychotherapists. About, for example, the smell of death and the fact that the envelope contains something that is immune to death, decay, or deterioration?, The group was silent for a few moments, and then Dave turned to me and said, What do you think, Doc? I knew I was taking a risk. Id rather give the money now to the Stockholm Institute than have one of my ex-wives snatch it later. It put an end to everything, to all my planning, to any hope of escape. It appears that the therapist successfully employed a pragmatic symptom- oriented treatment plan designed to offer relief rather than deep insight or personality change. It all feels very voyeuristic, not only from peering inside Yalom's office, but also from experiencing his inner dialogue. For the time being, lets leave the opening of the letters out of our discussion ; its clear youll open them when youre ready. I paused, resisting the temptation to make a reference to a months time frame as though he had made a formal commitment; this was not the time for manipulation Saul would see through any guile. When I went to the waiting room to greet Thelma, I was dismayed at her physical deterioration. I always thought my daughter would go to Stanfordif she had lived.. . It helped me feel anchored again.. I want you to focus on one thing, nothing else. It was not unusual for him to stray into my mind. If she punished him in any manner, Elmer retaliated by hosing down carpets in other rooms. She had underlined with red pencil a paragraph that claimed that suicides are, in actuality, double homicides. Arent you asking this question: How do you, IrvThelma smiled here. love's executioner two smiles summary. We might as well have been in separate rooms. First, they tell you to evict your tenant. So Saul, as he was wont to do in such situations, did nothing. I have always felt drawn to patients who struggle with the same issues I do. My children have always kidded me about the way I rip open a present as soon as it is handed me. Long ago (when genitals were referred to as privates), therapy groups were reluctant to talk about sex. His book Staring at the sun really helped me in my (still ongoing) journey with confronting death anxiety, and I completely agree with you that its so cathartic to hear him admit his own shortcomings, and to relate to his patients case studies so easily. Some day Ill tell you about my nightmaresmaybe., Youre not the only one who has these fears, Dave. Youve fallen in love with your own creation.. Maries consultation hour is a testament to the limits of knowing. We agreed to concentrate on maintaining her new weight of one hundred sixty and, to that end, Betty bought a whole new wardrobe. What could be clearer? I was transfixed by her facial plasticity: she winked, grimaced, and popped her eyes either singly or in duet. The psychotherapists single most valuable practical tool is the process focus. He arrived at the conclusion that getting rich was what life was all about. But these were my reflections, not Marvins. We sat in silence together. When I handed her an ashtray, she lit up and, in a strong deep voice, began: I need to talk, all right, but I cant afford therapy. Saul, weve got to start out on the same trusting footing we had before. If one feels in no way responsible for ones predicament, then how can one change it? The event is severe (his migraines are exceptionally disabling); it is unexpected (sex never presented any unusual problems previously); and it is sudden (it erupted in full force precisely six months ago). I decided upon a general strategy: my basic position would be that I wanted to get closer to her but that her behavioral traits got in the way. (The fact that I was a better prophet than therapist, however, gave me little solace.). He wants her to have a loving relationship with a man and have a loving family. I got turned on, I admit it. Even though she was now working long hours, she was barely making it. A week later, a jawline, then a chin, an elbow. Then she began to realize that she had never considered what had happened in the family from her sons perspective. I resolved never to say or do anything which could possibly cause Harry pain. Nothing was going right in her life. Better, I thought, for her to have worked on this first in her personal therapy and then, even if she still chose to talk about it in the groupand that was problematicshe would have handled it better for all parties concerned. The atmosphere was exotic and otherworldly. She said his elevator didnt go to the top floor. He was absent: even when he was there, he was absent. And her daughter-in-law? I hoped that my reputation in the field would intimidate him into cooperating.