The Schopenhauer Cure(9)
“Twenty-two. I just looked over my records.”
“And why now, Dr. Hertzfeld?”
“Does this mean we’ve finished the small talk?” No, no! Julius chided himself. Cut it out! He remembered that Philip had no sense of humor.
Philip seemed unperturbed. “Basic interview technique, Dr. Hertzfeld. You know the routine. Establish the frame. We’ve already set the place, the time—I offer a sixty-minute session, incidentally, not the fifty-minute psych hour—and the fees, or lack thereof. So, next step is to move to purpose and goals. I’m trying to be at your service, Dr. Hertzfeld, to make this session as efficient as possible for you.”
“All right, Philip. I appreciate it. Your ‘why now?’ is never a bad question—I use it all the time. Focuses the session. Gets us right down to business. As I told you on the phone, some health problems, significant health problems, have resulted in my wanting to look back, appraise things, evaluate my work with patients. Perhaps it’s my age—a summing up. I believe when you reach sixty-five you’ll understand why.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that summing-up process. The reason for your wish to see me or any of your clients again is not immediately apparent to me, and I experience no inclinations in that direction. My clients pay me a fee, and, in return, I give them my expert counsel. Our transaction ends. When we part, they feel they got good value, I feel I gave them full measure. I can’t possibly imagine wanting to revisit them in the future. But, I am at your service. Where to start?”
Julius characteristically held little back in interviews. That was one of his strengths—people trusted him to be a straight shooter. But today he forced himself to hold back. He was stunned by Philip’s brusqueness, but he wasn’t there to give Philip advice. What he wanted was Philip’s honest version of their work together, and the less Julius said about his state of mind, the better. If Philip knew about his despair, his search for meaning, his longing to have played some enduring instrumental role in Philip’s life, he might, out of a sense of charity, give him just the affirmation he wanted. Or, perhaps, because of his contrariness, Philip might do just the opposite.
“Well, let me start by thanking you for humoring me and agreeing to meet. Here’s what I want: first, your view of our work together—how it helped and how it didn’t—and, second—and this is a tall order—I’d like very much to get a full briefing about your life since we last met. I always like to hear the end of stories.”
If surprised by this request, Philip gave no sign but sat silently for a few moments, eyes closed, the fingertips of his two hands touching. In a carefully measured pace, he began. “The story’s not at an end yet—in fact my life has had such a remarkable turn in the last few years that I feel it’s just now beginning. But I’ll maintain a strict chronology and start with my therapy. Overall, I’d have to say that my therapy with you was a complete failure. A time-consuming and expensive failure. I think I did my job as a patient. As far as I can recall, I was fully cooperative, worked hard, came regularly, paid my bills, remembered dreams, followed any leads you offered. Would you agree?”
“Agree that you were a cooperative patient? Absolutely. I’d even say more. I remember you as a dedicated patient.”
Looking again at the ceiling, Philip nodded and continued: “As I recall, I saw you for three full years. And much of that time we met twice a week. That’s a lot of hours—at least two hundred. About twenty thousand dollars.”
Julius almost leaped in. Whenever a patient made a statement like that, his reflex was to reply “a drop in the bucket.” And then point out that the issues being worked on in therapy had been problematic for so much of the patient’s life that one could hardly expect them to yield quickly. He often added a personal note—that his first course of therapy, an analysis during his training, had been five times a week for three years—a total of over seven hundred hours. But Philip was not his patient now, and he was not there to persuade Philip of anything. He was there to listen. He bit his lips in silence.
Philip continued. “When I started with you I was at the nadir of my existence; ‘in the trough’ might be more apt. Working as a chemist and developing new ways to kill insects, I was bored with my career, bored with my life, bored with everything except reading philosophy and pondering the great riddles of history. But the reason I came to you was my sexual behavior. You remember that, of course?”
Julius nodded.
“I was out of control. All I wanted was sex. I was obsessed with it. I was insatiable. I shudder to think of the way I was, the life I led. I attempted to seduce as many women as possible. After coitus I had a brief respite from the compulsion, but in a short while my desire took over again.”
Julius suppressed a smile at Philip’s use of coitus—he remembered now the strange paradox of Philip wallowing in carnality but eschewing all four-letter words.
“It was only in that brief period—immediately after coitus,” Philip continued, “that I was able to live fully, harmoniously—that was when I could connect with the great minds of the past.”
“I remember you and your Aristarchus and Zeno.”
“Yes, those and many others since, but the respites, the compulsion-free times, were all too brief. Now I’m liberated. Now I dwell in a higher realm all the time. But let me continue to review my therapy with you. Isn’t that your primary request?”