The Schopenhauer Cure(53)
“I give you feedback about the way you handle—or, mostly, don’t handle—anger, and then I get accused of being self-centered.” Rebecca bristled. “Do you or don’t you want feedback? Isn’t that what this group is about?”
“What I want is for you to give me feedback about me. Or about me and someone else. It’s always about you, Rebecca—or you and me—and you’re so attractive it always swings things back to you and away from me. I can’t compete with you. But it’s not only your fault; the others play into this, and I need to ask all of you a question.”
Bonnie swiveled her head looking briefly at each member in turn as she said, “I never really get your interest—why not?”
The men in the room looked down. Bonnie didn’t wait for an answer but continued: “And another thing, Rebecca, what I’m saying to you about girlfriends is not news to you. I can remember clear as a bell you and Pam having an identical go-around about this.”
Bonnie turned to Julius. “Speaking of Pam, I’ve been meaning to ask you, “Any news of her? When is she coming back? I miss her.”
“That was fast!” Julius said, “Bonnie, you are the master of the whirlwind segue! But for the moment I’m going to let you get away with it and answer your question about Pam, mainly because I was going to announce that she e-mailed me from Bombay. She’s finished her meditation retreat and will be returning soon to the States. She should be here for the next meeting.”
Turning to Philip, Julius said, “You remember I mentioned Pam, our missing member, to you?”
Philip replied with a brief nod.
“And, you, Philip, are the master of the fast nod,” said Tony. “It’s amazing how much you stay in the middle of things without ever looking at anyone and without saying very much. Look at all this stuff going on around you. Bonnie and Rebecca squabbling over you. What are you feeling about all this? What are you feeling about the group?”
When Philip did not immediately reply, Tony appeared uncomfortable. He looked around the group: “Shit, what is this? I feel like I’m breaking some kind of rule here, like farting in church. I’m just asking him the same kind of question everyone asks everyone else.”
Philip broke the short silence. “Fair enough. I require time to collect my thoughts. Here’s what I was thinking. Bonnie and Rebecca have similar afflictions. Bonnie cannot tolerate being unpopular, whereas Rebecca cannot tolerate being no longer popular. Both are hostages to the caprice of what others think. In other words, happiness, for both of them, lies in the hands and heads of others. And for both the solution is the same: the more one has in oneself, the less one will want from others.”
In the silence that followed one could almost hear sounds of cerebral mastication as the group attempted to digest Philip’s words.
“It doesn’t appear that any of you are about to respond to Philip,” said Julius, “so I want to address an error I think I made a couple of minutes ago. Bonnie, I shouldn’t have gone along with your segue to Pam. I don’t want a repeat of last week when your needs were not dealt with. A few minutes ago you were talking about why the group often overlooked you, and I thought you took a courageous step by asking everyone why you could not get their interest. But look what happened then: in the very next breath you switched to Pam’s return to the group, and, presto, in a couple of minutes, your question to us faded into history.”
“I noticed that, too,” said Stuart. “So, Bonnie, it’s like you arrange for us to ignore you.”
“That’s good feedback.” Bonnie nodded her head. “Very good. I probably do that a lot. I’ll do some thinking about that.”
Julius pressed on, “I appreciate the thanks, Bonnie, but I can’t help feeling you’re doing the same thing now. Aren’t you saying, in effect, ‘that’s enough focus on me.’ I should have a Bonnie bell here and ring it every time you switch away from yourself.”
“So what do I do?” Bonnie asked.
“Give us the reason you had no right to request feedback from us,” Julius suggested.
“I guess I just don’t feel important enough.”
“But is it okay for others here to make this kind of request?”
“Oh, yes.”
“That means that others here are more important than you?”
Bonnie nodded.
“So, Bonnie, try this,” Julius continued, “look around at each of the members here and answer this question: Who in this group is more important than you? And why.” Julius could hear himself purring. He was coasting in familiar waters. For the first time in a while, certainly since Philip had entered the group, he knew exactly what he was doing. He had done what the good group therapist should do: he had translated one of his patient’s central issues into the here-and-now, where it could be explored firsthand. It was always more productive to focus on the here-and-now than to work on the patient’s reconstructions of an event from the past or from current outside life.
Swiveling her head to glance briefly at each person in the group, Bonnie said, “Everyone here is more important than I am—a lot more important.” Her face was flushed, her breathing rapid. As much as she craved attention from others, it was obvious that she now wanted nothing more than invisibility.