The Schopenhauer Cure(20)
“Very possible. I’ve used that question when I feel at an impasse and need some shocking intervention. And…?”
“Well, you suggested that I might have my tombstone engraved with the phrase “He liked to fuck.” And then you added that the phrase could be a good epitaph for my dog too—that I could use the same stone for both me and the dog.”
“Pretty strong stuff. Was I really that harsh?”
“Whether it is harsh or not is irrelevant. What’s important is its effectiveness and persistence. Much later, maybe ten years later, I made use of it.”
“Time-delayed interventions! I’ve always had a hunch they’re more important than usually thought. Always meant to do a study of that. But for our purposes today tell me, why were you reluctant at our last meeting to mention these, to acknowledge that I had in some way, even some small way, been useful to you?”
“Julius, I’m not sure I see the relevance of this to the issue at hand—that is, whether you are or are not willing to be my psychotherapy supervisor? And to permit me in return to be your Schopenhauerian adviser?”
“The fact that you don’t see the relevance makes it all that more relevant. Philip, I’m not going to attempt to be diplomatic. Here it is straight: I’m not certain you’re basically equipped to be a therapist, and hence I have some doubts that supervision makes sense.”
“You say, not ‘equipped’? Clarify please,” said Philip with no trace of discomfort.
“Well, let me put it this way. I’ve always regarded therapy more as a calling than a profession, a way of life for people who care about others. I don’t see sufficient caring in you. The good therapist wants to alleviate suffering, wants to help people grow. But I see in you only disdain for others—look at the way you dismissed and insulted your students. Therapists need to relate to their patients, whereas you care little about how others feel. Take the two of us. You tell me that, on the basis of my phone call to you, you made the assumption that I had a fatal illness. Yet never did you utter a word of consolation or sympathy.”
“Would that have helped—mumbling some vacuous words of sympathy? I gave you more, much more. I constructed and delivered an entire lecture for you.”
“I understand that now. But it was all so oblique, Philip. It made me feel like I was being managed, not cared about. Better for me, much better, if you had been direct, if you had sent some message from your heart to mine. Nothing monumental, maybe just some simple inquiry into my situation or state of mind, or, Christ, you might have simply said, ‘I’m sorry to hear you’re dying.’ How hard would that have been?”
“If I were sick, that’s not what I’d want. I would have wanted the tools, the ideas, the vision that Schopenhauer offered in the face of death—and that’s what I delivered to you.”
“Even now, Philip, you still don’t bother to check your assumption that I have a fatal illness.”
“Am I mistaken?”
“Come again, Philip. Say the words—it won’t hurt.”
“You said you had significant health problems. Can you tell me more?”
“Good start, Philip. An open-ended comment is by far the best choice.” Julius paused to collect his thoughts and to consider how much to reveal to Philip. “Well, I’ve very recently learned that I have a form of skin cancer called malignant melanoma which poses a serious threat to my life, though my doctors assure me that for the next year I should remain in good health.”
“I feel even more strongly,” Philip responded, “that the Schopenhaurian vision I offered in my lecture would be of value to you. In our therapy I remember you once said that life was a ‘temporary condition with a permanent solution’—that is pure Schopenhauer.”
“Philip, that perspective was meant in jest.”
“Well we know, don’t we, what your own guru, Sigmund Freud, had to say about jesting. My point still stands: Schopenhauer’s wisdom contains much that will serve you well.”
“I’m not your supervisor, Philip, that’s still to be determined, but I’ll give you psychotherapy lesson number one, gratis. It’s not ideas, nor vision, nor tools that truly matter in therapy. If you debrief patients at the end of therapy about the process, what do they remember? Never the ideas—it’s always the relationship. They rarely remember an important insight their therapist offered but generally fondly recall their personal relationship with the therapist. And I’m going to venture a guess that this is even true for you. Why did you remember me so well and value what happened between us so much that you now, after all these years, turn to me for supervision? It’s not because of those two comments—however provocative they were—no, I believe it was because of some bond you felt with me. I believe you might have some deep affection for me, and because our relationship, however difficult though it might have been, was meaningful, you are now turning to me again in the hope of some form of embrace.”
“Wrong on all counts, Dr. Hertzfeld…”
“Yeah, yeah, so wrong that the mere mention of an embrace sends you scurrying back to formal titles again.”
“Wrong on all counts, Julius. First, I want to caution you against the error of assuming that your view of reality is the real thing—the res naturalis—and that your mission is to impose this vision on others. You crave and value relationships, and you make the erroneous assumption that I, indeed everyone, must do the same and that if I claim otherwise, I’ve repressed my relationship-craving.