Slim Novel 13 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage
28 Richard S's Psychoanalysis
(Stan's voice) I visit Rich - as he prefers to be called - on the suicide-watch ward. He was admitted yesterday after taking many Nembutals and coming to Emergency saying "I changed my mind." Chart says he is age 28, graduate student in Philosophy and published a novel Deserting Nest when he was 21 and made a small splash with it. We sit and I ask "Why did you try?" and he answers "Life is a racket; total dishonesty!"
"But why die?".
"Nothing is fun."
"Is it ever?"
"Not much but at least once or twice a day. Now, not even that."
I get a family history. His mother is a grammar school teacher and father an English professor and two brothers, the older a successful lawyer and the younger, pre-medical student. Rich considers himself a writer and at end of interview I find at core of his suicide attempt is an anhedonia and his fixed idea he can't write like he did because something has gone wrong in his head.
Rich's anhedonia - loss of daily pleasures - is most likely due to his neurotic paranoia that he is losing his powers. But, still, much to learn in sessions.
Session summary: Rich lives with parents; his mother is a perfectionist who has promoted him as brilliant writer. She is also a good-health fanatic, his favorite foods are forbidden and his girl friends are criticized and eventually driven away. His father is idolized but emotionally distant. Rich has problems with sex - he is frequently impotent; has had several homoerotic experiences. And he is obsessed with himself as a writer. He writes compulsively, and is tormented on days he cannot write. He is constantly worrying about what his agent, his publisher, the critics, his readers will think. He sleeps badly and takes pills. And he hates philosophy - the only reason he is a graduate student is his mother.
"Rich, what is your self diagnosis?"
"Desperate depressive, drug addict, eventual suicide."
"Are you curious why?"
"No. It's the essence of my problem. I'm inert. I think you guys call it abulia?"
"Correct. But abulia comes from a particular part of brain - frontal lobe."
"Are you suggesting lobotomy?"
"No, but it gives a hint that your feeling of inertia is a brain effect from events in your life. And we - you and I cooperating - might succeed in removing it by psychoanalysis."
Rich's mouth assumes an expression between smile and leer. "I'll try anything, Doctor."
So begins my 3-week psychoanalysis with Rich. In contrast to Freudian analysis, it is short. I am not interested in Rich's childhood sex life. I do not waste time asking him to recite data during a session. He is a writer so I order a synopsis of his life, in a thousand words or less. Also this week: a brainwave EEG and a 2-view skull x-ray that can detect a space lesion. And I have my intern do a neurology check. At the start of a psychoanalysis one wants to rule out mental defects or epileptic conditions that an EEG will pick up, or brain tumor and developing neurological illnesses that might cause depression.
The analysis is completed in six 30-minute periods. Rich relaxes flat on back and I probe his relationship with mother and father, his ability to enjoy life, and his thoughts about writing. And in doing so I try and succeed to get him to drop his defense and give me insights into his ideas.
From our final session:
"Rich, I get a feeling you have high anxiety that centers about your mother?"
"Doctor, at the start I felt I couldn't trust you, I thought you were like all the others; just interested in your racket? Now, I've loosened up on that. I think you're OK; a seeker after truth."
Stan remains silent, realizing the analytic moment.
Rich continues: "One day I am lying in bed, not able to go back to sleep, and it comes to me. I got a different dad! See, I'm the middle son in my family - Allen is firstborn, by birth date a wedding night baby, and he looks like father; then Eddie is the last child, 9 years younger than I. If anything, he is, as they say, the spittin' image of Allen as Allen is of the man I had thought of as my dad. But I am not the spittin' image. It is not an obvious case of not looking like one's father. But if you see Allen, me and Ed together, you would immediately think "Weissman the Iceman made a visit."
Even being Rich's analyst, I cannot help chuckling at his allusion
There was a young lady of Nod
Who claimed she got pregnant from God
But it wasn't the Almighty who pulled up her nightie
'T'was Weissman the iceman, his rod!
Rich smiles, breaking the tension of his confession.
"And not only physically, doctor. I think differently."
"Well, Rich, how did this - Shall I call it, epiphany? - affect you?"
"From that moment I lost my lust for life. I had respected my mother as a highly moral woman and idolized the man I thought my father as brilliant and the source of my talents. But from then I felt it's all a racket and I am a nothing. And I couldn't get out of my mind my true father is some kind of hod carrier."
"Like the Weissman?"
He laughs. "Yeah." Then he says, "Doctor, you're the first I told. Thanks for getting it out of me. So what do you think?"
I grabbed the analytic moment.
"Rich, why do you think we are doing an analysis?"
"You suggested it and I agreed because I don't want to die."
"OK. And here we are at the end and you told me something you never told before."
Rich sits up suddenly. "Doctor. Speaking about epiphany, I'm having one."
"So tell."
"My anhedonia started with the realization. I suffered a year of it - the usual little pleasures - food, sex, good writing - zilch ! A year of zero pleasure in living - can you imagine? And each time I sat down at the typewriter to do my morning write - it all seemed like junk. Then I thought about my life - If I can't be a writer and nothing is fun anymore - I don't want it." He sits down suddenly.
There are times when Stop when you're ahead is apt. This was one.
I said, "Rich, your short-term analysis is over. I am sure you won't suicide now. And I'm sure your little joys of life will return and you will find your writing no more a chore. And if I'm wrong, you can sue me." We both laugh and stand up and Rich extends his right hand. I shake it and he says.
"Doctor, I really don't know if I'm cured or if you just changed me from a depressive to a manic but suddenly I feel OK. I got a lot more to think about from other things we discussed but I guess I can work it out myself. And if I can't, can I call you."
I say, "Did you see Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in Bells of St. Mary's?"
"Loved it." Suddenly, Rich's face lights up. "Oh, yeah!" He gives a laugh. "I dial O for O'Malley!"
"And you know my O."
Followup of the Successful Psychoanalysis
Rich calls one autumn morning at the hospital.
"Dr. Pelc, I'm dialing your O for O'Malley; not to ask help but to invite you to lunch to tell my sensationally good outcome of your vunderbar psychoanalysis."
Stan is naturally happy to hear this and replies, "I have time at 12 noon."
In front of the Gun Hill Road entrance in the bright autumn noon sunlight, Stan waits. Looking left, he spots Rich approaching from Jerome Ave. They walk back to Jerome, make a right and head north on the east side of the Jerome El trains. At the Woodlawn final station of the El they buy 2 large plain pizza wedges heated up by Nicola and bottles of cold Coca Cola. Ten minutes later they are sitting on a Parks Department bench under an autumn-leafed elm tree in Van Cortlandt forest, with squirrels lurking, and having passed on their walk, a hare barely larger than a rat hopping out of their way, and 2 black & white stripe skunks that they avoided.
The bench is isolated from view by trees and bushes and only approached on a one-person width Indian path. It is a bench long forgotten by the Parks Department and Stan brushes away leaves and twigs for their seats. Recalling the Paul & Percival Goodmans' Communitas, he thinks Everything walking distance, even when I do psychoanalysis with a patient.
First they eat. Rich is in the habit - like most - of talking while he eats but he senses from lack of response that Stan prefers the quiet enjoyment of eating. After, they open the Coca Cola bottles and take big drinks and Stan says: "So tell me, Rich, your thoughts. And no more Dr Pelc; Stan."
"Your analysis surprised my literary friends when I related it. They say an analysis should last years, be terribly expensive and you lie on the couch reciting your childhood sex life and doing word games. And you never get cured you just get used to what bothered you."
Stan explains psychoanalysis is not therapeutic against mental illness. Even Freud and his followers agree with that; the analysis is meant to make one a better person - to function more efficiently because less guilt and anxiety. Whether it actually succeeds is unclear because it has never been tested. He gets specific about the approach he is using.
"We are calling it short-term psychoanalysis - it is an analysis but not a life analysis; rather an analysis of the circumstances that led to illness. I admit what I do is experimental. But I am a neuropsychiatrist and well trained so a patient can have confidence I will at least do no harm and perhaps I'll do good."
"You certainly did good for me, Stan."
"Glad you are having a good result but as a scientist I must caution that it could be - you are a writer so you know - serendipity?"
"Sure, a coincidental result that may seem to be caused by what someone does but actually is due to unknown factors."
"Yes, in medicine we have a term, tincture of time. Many illnesses get better no matter they are treated or not and we put it down to the body or mind healing itself although that is just another way of saying we do not know the operative factors in the cure."
"Whatever! It certainly was some coincidence that as soon as I got that realization - the epiphany - my depression disappeared and has not come back."
"Good, Rich. I am reasonably certain we did something of value."
"You say "We", Stan. Why not you? I hadn't the slightest clue till you steered me."
"The psychoanalysis is a cooperation between doctor and patient. If you think back to the analytic moment, I did not actually make a suggestion about your mother and father; I simply suggested you had something you were not bringing to the surface. You were the one who said it and caused your change".
"Well, I won't argue. Just to say Thank you from the bottom of my atheistic soul."
Stan gives an understanding laugh. Then he says: "Also, we must be careful not to credit everything to a dramatic realization as you had. That is actually very Hollywood, like in Alfred Hitchcock movie Spellbound."
"Oh yeah, when Dr Edwardes is helped to remember the dream buried in his mind."
"Actually, your realization opened your mental gates and allowed you to review the reasons you did not desire to live any more."
"Yeah ! Yeah ! The anhedonia. I did start thinking a lot about my inability to have fun - enjoy food, seeing a good movie like Spellbound. And I began to realize I'd gotten too much entangled with myself as the great writer; I'd begun to believe my mother's BS about being a genius. So since then, I cultivate each day enjoying simple pleasures that have nothing to do with my writing. Just looking forward to a good hot dog or a pizza. Or masturbating when I am relaxed and enjoying an extended orgasm. Or going to a good movie with my best friend. And not worrying about what Mom has to say."
"Are you still living at your parents place?"
"Yes. At first I planned to find my own place but I came to realize that could make worse problems. After all, I am used to my home and in many ways my mom is Ok even if she is a pill about the stuff we talked about. It's funny; once I had the realization in analysis, it did not really matter to me any more. I said to myself "Well, maybe Mom did fuck around with Weissman and have me? And I began to think: Maybe this Weissman ain't such a bad guy?"
A pleasant lunch: Stan labels it psychoanalysis under the elms. For next, click 13.29 Homosexuality Enters a Life
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