Lying on the Couch Read Online Free PDF

would never collect. This was a no-brainer. Zero risk downside and a good chance upside that I could save this woman.
    "I've always liked action, love the races, bet on anything—baseball, basketball. After high school I joined the navy and put myself

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    through college on my shipboard poker winnings; in my internship at Mount Sinai in New York I spent many of my free nights in a big game on the obstetrics unit with the on-call Park Avenue obstetricians. There was a continuous game going on in the doctors' lounge next to the labor room. Whenever there was an open hand, they called the operator to page 'Dr. Blackwood.' Whenever I heard the page, 'Dr. Blackwood wanted in the delivery room,' I'd charge over as fast as I could. Great docs, every one of them, but poker chumps. You know, Ernest, interns were paid almost nothing in those days, and at the end of the year all the other interns were in deep debt. Me? I drove to my residency at Ann Arbor in a new De Soto convertible, courtesy of the Park Avenue obstetricians.
    "Back to Belle. I vacillated for weeks about her wager and then, one day, I took the plunge. I told Belle I could understand her needing incentive, and I opened serious negotiation. I insisted on two years. She was so grateful to be taken seriously that she agreed to all my terms, and we quickly fashioned a firm, clear contract. Her part of the deal was to stay entirely clean for two years: no drugs (including alcohol), no cutting, no purging, no sex pickups in bars or highways or any other dangerous sex behavior. Urbane sexual affairs were permitted. And no illegal behavior. I thought that covered everything. Oh, yes, she had to start group therapy and promise to participate with her husband in couples therapy. My part of the contract was a weekend in San Francisco: all details, hotels, activities were to be her choice—carte blanche. I was to be at her service.
    "Belle treated this very seriously. At the finish of negotiation, she suggested a formal oath. She brought a Bible to the session and we each swore on it that we would uphold our part of the contract. After that we solemnly shook hands on our agreement.
    "Treatment continued as before. Belle and I met approximately two times a week—three might have been better, but her husband began to grumble about the therapy bills. Since Belle stayed clean and we didn't have to spend time analyzing her 'slips,' therapy went faster and deeper. Dreams, fantasies—everything seemed more accessible. For the first time I began to see seeds of curiosity about herself; she signed up for some university extension courses on abnormal psychology, and she began writing an autobiography of her early life. Gradually she recalled more details of her childhood, her sad search for a new mother among the string of disinterested governesses, most of whom left within a few months because of her

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    father's fanatical insistence on cleanliness and order. His germ phobia controlled all aspects of her life. Imagine: until she was fourteen she was kept out of school and educated at home because of his fear of her bringing home germs. Consequently she had few close friends. Even meals with friends were rare; she was forbidden to dine out and she dreaded the embarrassment of exposing her friends to her father's dining antics: gloves, hand washing between courses, inspections of the servants' hands for cleanliness. She was not permitted to borrow books—one beloved governess was fired on the spot because she permitted Belle and a friend to wear each other's dresses for a day. Childhood and daughterhood ended sharply at fourteen, when she was sent to boarding school at Grenoble. From then on, she had only perfunctory contact with her father, who soon remarried. His new wife was a beautiful woman but a former prostitute—according to a spinster aunt, who said the new wife was only one of many whores her father had known in the