Bonnie stammered, got tissues from the box in the middle of the room, and wiped her eyes, "I...uh...I...I don't know how to answer--this whole thing is surreal.... Julius, you floor me, you knock me out the way you talk about dying so matter-of-factly."
"We're all dying, Bonnie. I just know my parameters better than the rest of you,"
said Julius.
"That's what I mean, Julius. I always love your flippancy, but now, in this situation, it kind of avoids things. I remember once--it was during that time that Tony was doing weekend jail time and we weren't talking about it--that you said if something big in the group is being ignored, then nothing else of importance gets talked about either."
"Two things," said Rebecca. "First, Bonnie, we
were
talking about something important just now--several important things--and, second, my God, what do you want Julius to do? He
is
talking about this."
"In fact," said Tony, "he even got pissed that we heard it from Philip rather than from him personally."
"I agree," said Stuart. "So Bonnie, what
do
you want from him? He's handling it.
He said he's got his own support network to help him deal with it."
Julius broke it off--it had gone far enough. "You know, I appreciate all this support from you guys, but when it's this strong then I begin to worry. Maybe I'm getting loose, but do you know when Lou Gehrig decided to retire? It happened one game when everyone on the team gushed compliments about how he fielded a routine ground ball.
Maybe you're considering me too fragile to speak for myself."
"So, where do we go with this?" said Stuart.
"First, let me say to you, Bonnie, that you're showing a lot of guts by jumping in and naming the thing that's too hot to touch. What's more, you're absolutely right: I have been encouraging some...no,
a lot of
denial here.
"I'm going to make a short speech and lay it all out for you. I've had some sleepless nights lately and a lot of time to think about everything, including what to do about my patients and this group. I haven't had any practice at this. No one practices endings. They only happen once. No textbooks are written about this situation--so everything is improvisation.
"I'm faced with deciding about what to do with the time I have left. Look, what are my options? Terminate all my patients and end this group? I'm not ready to do that--I've got at least a year of good health, and my work means too much to me. And I get a lot out of it for myself. Stopping all my work would be to treat myself as a pariah. I've seen too many patients with fatal illness who've told me that the isolation accompanying their illness is the worst part of all.
"And the isolation is a dual isolation: first, the very sick person isolates himself because he doesn't want to drag others down into his despair--and I can tell you for a fact that's one of my concerns here--and, second, others avoid him either because they don't know how to talk to him or because they want nothing to do with death.
"So, withdrawing from you is not a good option for me and, what's more, I don't believe for you either. I've seen a lot of terminally ill people who underwent change, grew wiser, riper, and had a great deal to teach others. I think that's already starting to happen to me, and I'm convinced that I'll have a lot to offer you in the next few months.
But if we're to keep working together, you may have to face a lot of anxiety. You'll not only have to face my approaching death, but you may be confronted with your own. End of speech. Maybe you all have to sleep on this and see what you want to do."
"I don't need to sleep on it," said Bonnie. "I love this group and you and everyone in it, and I want to work here as long as possible."
After members echoed Bonnie's affirmation, Julius said, "I appreciate the vote of confidence. But group therapy 101 underscores the daunting power of group pressure. It's hard to buck group consensus in public. It would take superhuman resolve for any of you to say today, 'Sorry, Julius, but this is too much for me, and I'd rather find a healthy therapist, someone hale enough to take care of me.'
"So, no commitments today. Let's just stay open and keep evaluating our own work and see how everyone feels in a few weeks. One big danger which Bonnie expressed today is that your problems start to feel too inconsequential to discuss. So we have to figure out the best way for me to keep you working on your own issues."
"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."
"You make me sound like a whore." Rebecca swiveled suddenly to Philip.
"Doesn't that make you think I'm a whore?"
Philip, not distracted from gazing at his favorite spot somewhere on the ceiling, answered quickly, "Schopenhauer said that a highly attractive women, like a highly intelligent man, was absolutely destined to living an isolated life. He pointed out that others are blind with envy and resent the superior person. For that reason, such people never have close friends of their same sex."
"That's not necessarily true," said Bonnie. "I'm thinking of Pam, our missing member, who is beautiful too and yet has a large number of close girlfriends."
"Yeah, Philip," said Tony, "you saying that, to be popular, you have to be dumb or ugly?"
"Precisely," said Philip, "and the wise person will not spend his life or her life pursuing popularity. It is a will-o'-the-wisp. Popularity does not define what is true or what is good; quite the contrary, it's a leveler, a dumbing down. Far better to search within for one's values and goals."
"And how about
your
goals and values?" asked Tony.
If Philip noted the surliness in Tony's question, he gave no evidence of it and replied ingenuously, "Like Schopenhauer, I want to will as little as possible and to know as much as possible."
Tony nodded, obviously baffled about how to respond.
Rebecca broke in: "Philip, what you or Schopenhauer was saying about friends was right on the mark for me--the truth is that I've had few close girlfriends. But what about two people with similar interests and abilities? Don't you think that friendship is possible in that case?"
Before Philip could answer, Julius enjoined, "Our time is growing very short today. I want to check in about how you all are feeling about our last fifteen minutes.
How are we doing here?"
"We're not on target. We're missing," said Gill. "Something oblique is going on."
"
I'm
absorbed," said Rebecca.
"Nah, too much in our heads," said Tony.
"I agree," said Stuart.
"Well, I'm not in my head," said Bonnie. "I'm close to bursting, or screaming, or..." Bonnie suddenly rose, gathered up her purse and jacket, and charged out of the room. A moment later Gill jumped up and ran out of the room to fetch her back. In awkward silence the group sat listening to the retreating footsteps. Shortly Gill returned, and as he sat he reported, "She's okay, said she's sorry but she just had to get out to decompress. She'll go into it next week."
"What
is
going on?" said Rebecca, snapping open her purse to get sunglasses and car keys. "I
hate
it when she does that. That's really pissy."
"Any hunches about what's going on?" asked Julius.
"PMT, I think," said Rebecca.
Tony spotted Philip scrunching his face signifying confusion and jumped in.
"PMT--premenstrual tension." When Philip nodded, Tony clenched his hands and poked both thumbs upward, "Hey, hey, I taught
you
something,"
"We've gotta stop," said Julius, "but I've got a guess about what's going on with Bonnie. Go back to Stuart's summary. Remember how Bonnie started the meeting--
talking about the chubby little girl at school and her unpopularity and her inability to compete with other girls, especially attractive ones? Well, I wonder if that wasn't recreated in the group today? She opened the meeting, and pretty quickly the group left her for Rebecca. In other words, the very issue she wanted to talk about may have been portrayed here in living color with all of us playing a part in the pageant."
18
Pam in India
(2)
_________________________
Nothing
can alarm or move him
any more. All the thousand
threads of willing binding us
to the world and dragging us
(full