The Schopenhauer Cure(46)
“I think you’re doing it, “said Stuart, “by just keeping us informed.”
“Okay. Thanks, that helps. Now let’s go back to you guys.”
A long silence.
“So, maybe I haven’t liberated you. Let me try something. Can you, Stuart, or others, lay out our agenda, what’s here on the table—what are the open issues today?”
Stuart was the informal group historian: he was blessed with such a retentive memory that Julius could always call on him for an account of past or present group events. He tried not to overuse Stuart, who was in the group to learn how to engage others, not to be a recorder of events. Wonderful with his child patients, Stuart was socially at a loss whenever he left the perimeter of his pediatrician role. Even in the group he often carried some of the accoutrements of the trade stuffed in his shirt pocket: tongue depressors, penlight, lollipops, medication samples. A stable force in the group for the past year, Stuart had made enormous progress in, as he had put it, “project humanization.” Yet interpersonal sensitivity was still so undeveloped that his recounting of group events was entirely without guile.
Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes before responding. “Well, let’s see—we began with Bonnie and her desire to talk about her childhood.” Bonnie had been Stuart’s frequent critic, and he glanced at her for approval before continuing.
“No, not quite right, Stuart. Right facts, wrong tone. You’re making it sound flippant. Like I just want to tell a story for the fun of it. There are a lot of painful memories from my childhood that are now coming up and haunting me. Get the difference?”
“I’m not sure I do get it. I didn’t say you were doing it for the fun of it. That’s just the kind of thing my wife complains about. But, to continue: next there was some stuff with Rebecca, who felt insulted and angry with Bonnie for pointing out how she was preening and attempting to impress Philip.” Stuart ignored Rebecca’s slapping her hand to her forehead and muttering, “Goddamnit,” and continued, “Then there was Tony’s feeling that we were using a more complex vocabulary in order to impress Philip. And then Tony commented that Philip was a show-off. And Philip’s sharp response to Tony. And then there was my comment to Gill that he avoided displeasing women so much that he lost his sense of self.
“Let’s see what else…” Stuart scanned the room. “Well, there’s Philip—not what he said but what he didn’t say. We don’t talk too much about Philip, as though it’s taboo. Come to think about it, we don’t even talk about not talking about him. And, of course, Julius. But we worked on that. Except that Bonnie was particularly concerned and protective, as she often is about Julius. In fact, the Julius part of the meeting started with Bonnie’s dream.”
“Impressive, Stuart,” said Rebecca. “And pretty complete: you left out only one thing.”
“And that is?”
“Yourself. The fact that you were being the group camera again, photographing rather than plunging in.”
Often the group had confronted Stuart about his impersonal style of participation. Months ago he described a nightmare in which his daughter had stepped into quicksand and he could not save her because he wasted so much time getting his camera out of his backpack to take a snapshot of the scene. That was when Rebecca labeled him the “group camera.”
“Right you are, Rebecca. I’ll pack my camera away now and say I agree entirely with Bonnie: you are a good-looking woman. But that’s not news to you—you know that. And you know I think so. And, of course, you were preening for Philip—doing and undoing and stroking your hair. It was obvious. How did I feel about it? I felt a little jealous. No, a lot jealous—you never preened for me. No one ever preened for me.”
“That kind of thing makes me feel like I’m in prison,” Rebecca shot back. “I hate it when men try to control me like this, like my every movement is under scrutiny.” Rebecca broke off each word, showing an edge and a brittleness that had been under wraps for a long time.
Julius remembered his first impressions of Rebecca. A decade ago, long before she entered the group, he had seen her individually for a year. She was a delicate creature with an Audrey Hepburn graceful, slim body and precious, large-eyed face. And who could forget her opening comment in therapy? “Ever since I turned thirty I’ve noticed that when I enter restaurants, no one stops eating to look at me. I’m devastated.”
Two sources of instruction had guided Julius in his work with her both individually and in the group. First, there had been Freud’s urging that the therapist should reach out in a human way to a beautiful woman and not withhold himself or penalize her simply because she was beautiful. The second had been an essay he had read as a student titled, “The Beautiful Empty Woman,” which made the point that the truly beautiful woman is so often feted and rewarded solely for her appearance that she neglects developing other parts of herself. Her confidence and feelings of success are only skin-deep, and once her beauty fades she realizes she has little to offer: she has developed neither the art of being an interesting person nor that of taking an interest in others.
“I make observations, and I’m called a camera,” said Stuart, “and when I say what I feel I’m labeled a controlling man. Talk about feeling cornered.”
“I don’t get it, Rebecca,” said Tony. “What’s the big deal here? Why are you freaking out? Stuart’s just saying what you’ve said yourself. How many times have you said you know how to flirt, that it comes naturally to you? I remember your saying that you had an easy time in college and in your law firm because you manipulate men with your sexuality.”