Lying on the Couch Read Online Free PDF Page B

previous fourteen years. Maybe, Belle wondered—and this was her very first interpretation in therapy— he felt dirty, and that was why he was always washing and why he refused to let his skin touch hers.
    "During these months Belle raised the topic of our wager only in the context of expressing her gratitude to me. She called it the 'most powerful affirmation' she'd ever gotten. She knew that the wager was a gift to her: unlike 'gifts' she had received from other shrinks— words, interpretations, promises, 'therapeutic caring'—this gift was real and palpable. Skin to skin. It was tangible proof that I was entirely committed to helping her. And proof to her of my love. Never before, she said, had she ever been loved like that. Never before had anyone put her ahead of his self-interests, ahead of the rules. Certainly not her father, who never gave her an ungloved hand and until his death ten years ago sent her the same birthday present every year: a bundle of hundred-dollar bills, one for every year of her age, each bill freshly washed and ironed.
    "And the wager had another meaning. She was tickled by my willingness to bend the rules. What she loved best about me, she said, was my willingness to take chances, my open channel to my own shadow. 'There's something naughty and dark about you, too,' she'd say. 'That's why you understand me so well. In some ways I think we are twin brains.'
    "You know, Ernest, that's probably why we hit it off so quickly, why she knew immediately that I was the therapist for her—just

    Lying on the Couch ^ ^ 2. i
    something mischievous in my face, some irreverent twinkle in my eyes. Belle was right. She had my number. She was a smart cookie.
    "And you know, I knew exactly what she meant—exactly! I can spot it in others the same way. Ernest, just for a minute, turn off the recorder. Good. Thanks. What I wanted to say is that I think I see it in you. You and I, we sit on different sides of this dais, this judgment table, but we have something in common. I told you, I'm good at reading faces. I'm rarely wrong about such things.
    "No? C'mon! You know what I mean! Isn't it precisely for this reason that you listen to my tale with such interest? More than interest! Do I go too far if I call it fascination} Your eyes are like saucers. Yes, Ernest, you and me. You could have been me in my situation. My Faustian wager could have been yours as well.
    "You shake your head. Of course! But I don't speak to your head. I aim straight at your heart, and the time may come when you open yourself to what I say. And more—perhaps you will see yourself not only in me but in Belle as well. The three of us. We're not so different from one another! Okay, that's all—let's get back to business.
    "Wait! Before you turn the recorder back on, Ernest, let me say one more thing. You think I give a shit about the ethics committee? What can they do? Take away hospital admitting privileges? I'm seventy, my career is over, I know that. So why do I tell you all this? In the hope that some good will come of it. In the hope that maybe you'll allow some speck of me into you, let me course in your veins, let me teach you. Remember, Ernest, when I talk about your having an open channel to your shadow, I mean that positively —I mean that you may have the courage and largeness of spirit to be a great therapist. Turn the recorder back on, Ernest. Please, no reply is necessary. When you're seventy, you don't need replies.
    "Okay, where were we? Well, the first year passed with Belle definitely doing better. No slips whatsoever. She was absolutely clean. She placed fewer demands on me. Occasionally she asked to sit next to me, and I'd put my arm around her and we'd spend a few minutes sitting like that. It never failed to relax her and make her more productive in therapy. I continued to give her fatherly hugs at the end of sessions, and she usually planted a restrained, daughterly kiss on my cheek. Her husband refused couples