On the couch

(Reprinted with permission from 'Beyond Empathy' (2023) by Richard Erskine, Janet Moursund & Rebecca Trautmann.)

Client:

Well... it was so fucking humiliating to be sent off to school with so much glee by my mother, you know. She was really fucking pleased to get rid of us, you know. I was sent to boarding school at 12, my brother was sent away at only 8. I mean, I was 12, I could sort of handle it. But at 8, my god! So that does rankle continually.

Therapist:

Hmm, when the person you're most dependant on, in this whole world, has glee in sending you away, something's got to happen in your heart.

Client:

Hmm. Oh, I really felt that way before I went. I mean I, um, I was, there were people, there were boys sitting around in class with tears rolling down their cheeks. One of my best friends Kevin had a rash of boils, sitting their squeezing them with tears running down his face... and I didn't cry at all.

Therapist:

And inside, what were you really feeling?

Client:

I was glad to get away from it. I hadn't felt happy for at least two years, since I was about 10. Everything seemed to fall apart, I had a lot of very intense and preying fantasies, I mean they preyed on me. Very intense sexual fantasies. I had enormous desire to get my clothes off, walk around the house naked.

Therapist:

Were you hungry for skin contact?

Client:

Oh, Jesus, I was just bonkers for it. I even got out on the roof with no clothes on, fell off the roof, that was great.

Therapist:

Did anybody hold you on their lap? Did anybody lie down with you, and fall asleep, cuddle you?

Client:

No. We did have au pair girls from when I was about 2. One was wonderful, she hugged me. But she went away and I was really pissed off at her. Told everyone how fat she was, things like that. It was difficult because they'd leave every year. It's like, I had very close contact with some of these women and then they were suddenly gone.

Therapist:

And was your father any sort of balance to that?

Client:

Not with me. We were four boys and it was invisibly decided that I was like mum and therefore in her camp. My big fear was that they'd split up, they had a very very angry rocky relationship, and they did for a while when I was about 10. One of my fears was that I'd be left with her, her and her fixed gaiety "We'll be alright without your father", when she was just brutal. Cleaning out my ears, uuugh, I felt like belting her. I so wanted.....

Therapist:

To escape.

Client:

Yeah... yes, she felt dangerous, a little bit monstrous, you know?

Therapist:

Uh-huh, I get that.

Client:

She feels, a little - I didn't trust her. Though what is it I didn't trust her not to do, or to do...

Therapist:

Well, you wouldn't trust her cleaning out your ears...

Client:

Ughhh, it was always unpleasant, blaming going on, for being dirty... Enraging.

***

And on they went... the client bravely unravelled the nature of his attachment style, where it came from and how it affects him - as it does for us all, at home and work.