Suspicion

I have been seeing John for a little over a month. He is a reluctant patient: removed, distanced, openly skeptical that therapy can be of help. “I’ve tried it before. I can’t see how talking makes a difference. So what if I understand myself? It doesn’t mean that will make me different.”

John, now 60, grew up on a Midwestern farm with an alcoholic father and a depressed mother, neither of whom had the time nor inclination to pay attention to their son. John always knew he wanted out; always knew he wanted more. And he succeeded, at least financially. He started out acquiring small, undervalued properties and parlayed it into a now huge real estate fortune. Personally, however, John has been far less successful. He’s been married and divorced three times, has no relationship with any of his children, and spends most of his time alone, working or following the stock market. My sense of John is that he is protecting himself from knowing the extent of his own childhood neediness, erecting a fortress around him that neither he nor anyone else can penetrate.

At the end of today’s session John takes out his checkbook and says, “Let me pay you for last month.” He stops, looks at me and asks, “If I pay you in cash, will you reduce your fee?”

I’m startled. The session is over. No time to ask what this question means to him; what he’d think of me if I said, yes; what he’d think of me if I said, no. “I’m not comfortable with that,” I reply. He nods, writes out a check, hands it to me and leaves.

I am bothered and discomforted. Although I have other patients to see, John intrudes into my thoughts for much of my day. Why did he ask me that question? Is it just that he sees himself as a shrewd businessman, bargaining over his fee as he would a piece of property? Does he feel that everything and everyone is for sale? Was he testing me? And then a strange thought occurs to me, was this a set-up? Was he hired by someone to entrap me, to see if I’d be willing to take cash and not declare the income? What a crazy thought, I tell myself; a paranoid thought that’s completely out of character for me. 

At the end of my day, I’m finally free to explore the possible meanings of both my patient’s question and, more importantly, my own thoughts. It’s clear that my patient has profoundly affected me. He has intruded himself into my mind in a way that has resulted in my thinking inordinately about him, as well as thinking in an unusually suspicious manner.

So what might have happened here? My assessment of John is that he is consciously aware of his own distrust, but totally unaware of his own neediness. In therapy, the boundary between patient and therapist can be fluid, such that the patient can unconsciously prompt the therapist to experience feelings the patient himself may not be aware of. Today’s interaction with John left me feeling suspicious, like John himself, as well as preoccupied with him, raising the possibility that John may have unconsciously communicated to me his need to have me both think about him and feel as he does.    

But I’m not an empty shell that a patient can just put feelings into. What was my contribution to this interaction? Although I am not aware of being consciously tempted by John’s proposal, I also know that I too have an unconscious and, by definition, the unconscious is unconscious. Perhaps an unknown part of me was tempted, felt guilty and then needed to punish myself by imagining that I would be caught and punished for my transgression.   

In our next session, although I doubt John will gain much awareness from the discussion, I raise the issue of why he asked if I’d lower my fee for cash and how he felt about my declining.

He shrugs. “It never hurt to try. Thought it could be a good deal for both of us.”

“But is this about a deal, John, or is about a relationship?”

“I pay you, don’t I?”

“Yes, you pay me. And we’re still two people relating to each other, sometimes about really important and painful feelings and experiences.”

He shrugs again. “No big deal.”

Last week’s experience comes into my mind: John denying his need, while “taking over” my mind. “That’s where I’d disagree, John. I’d say you are a big deal, so that anything that pertains to you and anything that happens in this room is of utmost importance.”

John stares at me quizzically. I’d guess he’s not sure he believes me. I’d guess we have a long, long way to go.