Looking For Love

Ben is a shy, anxious, good looking man in his mid-thirties. Although we’ve working together for several months, Ben continues to feel uncomfortable around me, as he does around most women. He has difficulty looking at me directly, often staring out the window or at the floor. When I try to address his discomfort, he shakes his head, indicating his unwillingness to pursue this avenue of exploration.

Not surprisingly, Ben has never had a girlfriend, although he desperately longs for someone to be with. I’ve tried to ask if he’s ever kissed a girl, but even this feels too intrusive. I want to ask if he masturbates, but I can’t manage to get the question out of my mouth. I have, in fact, become as inhibited as Ben in our sessions – anxious, careful, not wanting to offend, not wanting to cross an unspoken boundary.

That this constrained interaction has developed between Ben and myself is not all that surprising. Ben’s parents divorced when he was five. His father, always a womanizer, saw Ben only occasionally, leaving him to the welcoming embrace of his mother, who turned to Ben for solace after the divorce. Ben became her “little man.” She hovered over him, over-protected him, and preferred that he never leave her side. She interrogated him whenever he left the house, even to go to school, particularly interested in whether he talked to or was interested in a girl. She drank more and more heavily, Ben increasingly becoming her caregiver. She died when he was in his twenties, leaving him bereft, relieved and guilt-ridden.     

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Ben says. “I go to strip clubs.”

Of course, I think, not a surprise; a “safe” way to meet women who are not easily confused with mother.

“I met this girl, Crystal,” Ben continues. “She’s different. She has kind eyes. She’s sweet, not harsh or loud like a lot of them. And she likes me. She told me she likes me. I think she even implied that she’d meet me outside the club. But I’m kind of scared to do that. I mean, I’m not sure what I’d do, what she’d expect me to do. Like would I need to pay her? I’d rather not pay her. I’d rather we went out like on a regular date. Do you think she’d do that?”

“I don’t know, Ben. I don’t know what she’d do. Can you tell me what you and Crystal have done so far?”

“What do you mean? I’ve watched her dance. She has a beautiful body, but I try not to look too much. I’ve bought her some drinks. She’s sat and talked to me. She’d had a sad life. She’s been an orphan since she was a baby and grew up in foster homes.”

I’m aware that I want to push. I want to ask Ben if he’s taken her into the back room, if he’s had sex with her, if he knows she has sex with men all the time and that she plays men like him every minute of every night. And then I’m surprised at myself, at the obvious cruelty and sadism of these unasked questions.  I would be being with Ben as his mother was with him. What’s going on here?

For my part, I’m angry at Ben’s presentation of himself as a victim. Although I have tremendous compassion for the scared, vulnerable child he carries within him, I have a hard time with victims. I prefer that someone fight for themselves, fight against the odds, fight as I fought against the tyranny of my father. So that’s the part I bring to the interaction. But I think that by presenting himself as the victim, Ben is also eliciting this sadistic response from me, from his mother, from Crystal. It’s as though he’s saying, beat me, take advantage of me. It’s the only way he knew love in the past and it’s the only way he understands love today.  

Too complicated for an interpretation. I say nothing. I wait.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Ben finally asks.

“How do you feel about my not saying anything?”

“I don’t know.”

I have a glimmer. “How do you feel about my not saying anything?” I repeat.

“I already said, I don’t know,” Ben says slightly raising his voice.

“It sounds like you feel angry.”

He shrugs. “Annoyed, maybe, not angry.”

So this is part of Ben’s contribution to the interaction. He plays the victim so that others will feel the anger he cannot allow himself to feel. He will be the victim, the suffering child who feels nothing but kindness and compassion while others, like myself, feel angry at his passivity.

We haven’t solved Ben’s difficulties, but I understand more and have a better handle on myself.

Who Loves Whom and Why?

Last week’s blog was “Who Dislikes Whom and Why?” This is the companion piece: “Who Loves Whom and Why?”

Many similar questions can be asked. Perhaps instead of asking whether a therapist should work with a patient she loves, the question becomes whether that love can itself create blind spots or other difficulties? Is the love immediate or does it grow over time? Or does it lessen as the person reveals himself to be less loveable than initially thought? Is the love about the patient? The therapist? Both?

Why we love someone – in or out of the treatment room – is multi-determined by our unconscious, our early caretakers, our past relationships, our present life circumstances and by the other person’s response to us. When two people meet, whether it be in a therapist’s office or at a party, each person brings this complexity of history, needs and wants to the interaction that invariably affects both parties.

For me, patients with whom I form an immediate connection that grows into love, are young women who present with a tough front but are vulnerable, fragile, and often quite disturbed underneath. They also form strong, immediate attachments to me and, during the course of the treatment make huge strides. The best example is Alyce, the woman I present in the first two chapters of my book, Love and Loss in Life and in Treatment. From the first she was determined that I be her therapist, formed an immediate attachment to me and, despite her excessive, angry demands, blossomed into an incredibly bright, talented, accomplished woman.

I was hooked by Alyce’s vulnerability covered by a fierce determination. Although I do not believe I was ever as disturbed as Alyce, I think that dynamic - vulnerability covered by determination - is also who I am. I fought my father although I was terrified of him. I became a psychologist and psychoanalyst over his strenuous and critical objections. I admire grit and I understand the terror that lurks underneath. So in giving to and loving patients like Alyce, I am also giving and loving that child within me.

Although I didn’t know at the time, there was a period in the treatment when my love became too frightening for Alyce, perhaps threatening her sense of self. Unbeknownst to me, she began seeing another therapist. When she finally told me, I was hurt and shocked. I had been trying so hard, and all my efforts were deemed insufficient. Actually, I had been trying too hard. I had to be willing to let Alyce go. She had to choose. She couldn’t see two therapists. Once I was willing to let her go, she could choose to stay. Our work could then continue.

I don’t remember ever moving from love to dislike of a patient, but there have been treatments where I believed an intense connection would develop, only to find my expectations dashed. Vanessa is such a patient – warm, caring, sensitive, introspective. I thought our relationship would become closer over time. But that was not the case. When I asked myself what was missing, I concluded that Vanessa could not allow herself to feel vulnerable. She had experienced too much trauma and loss in her early life to risk opening up that pain or to risk another relationship in which loss was inevitable. She made progress in treatment, but never allowed herself to fully love. And loving a patient who does not love back is difficult, at least for me.

In contrast, there is Caroline, another patient presented in my book. I did not feel an immediate connection to her, but over the course of her analysis we definitely grew to love each other. She became far more open, vulnerable, and aware of the needy, despairing child within her. She could speak her feelings in beautiful metaphoric language, almost poetry, touching an unconscious core in both of us. Additionally, there were major changes in my life as I dealt with my husband’s illness and eventual death. Those changes brought our present day lives ever closer together, as well as increasing my own vulnerability and desire for connection.   

   

So I will end this blog as I did the last one. Who loves whom and why? The answer, as always, is complex, determined by both people in the consulting room, by their experiences of each other, by their past histories and by their present life circumstances.