Essays on Psychology and Life

Dreams, Imagined Dreams: Failed Therapy

In the fall of 1980, I was given the names of two therapists by Dr. Stone, a senior colleague and therapy supervisor. I was at Massachusetts General Hospital at the time, doing a post-doc in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I assumed Dr. Stone (all names in this piece, except my own, have been changed) had chosen these two therapists because she knew them well, and she knew me well, and a good match could be made. The first therapist, Dr. Farber, said he could see me but the only time available was at 5:30 in the morning. These were still the "macho" days of psychotherapy--when one made these kinds of sacrifices for the sake of the "cure." Still, I politely refused. The second therapist, Dr. Schultz, offered me a more reasonable hour, and I went to see him.

Dr. Schultz was a pleasant looking, athletically trim man in his late thirties, with a charming German accent. He had short brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and he dressed casually in corduroy pants and sweater vests. His office was in the basement of a brick townhouse in a recently gentrified section of Boston. In the winter time he fired up a small wood stove, and his black Lab laid by his side. I told him I was there, not because I was in any specific distress, but because a lot was happening in my life: I was 25 years old, living with one of my professors from graduate school (now my wife); she had three kids from a previous marriage; I was a mere babe at Massachusetts General swimming with the circling sharks--was this where I wanted to be? What I didn't tell him, and what was most true, was that I was longing for someone to hear me and appreciate me, for this is what I missed most in my childhood.

I spent 2 ½ years with Dr. Schultz. His job, as he saw it, was to discover the parts of me that I did not know about (and perhaps would not want to know), and then reveal them to me. He was very clever. After everything I said, he had something very "smart" and "perceptive" to offer. He didn't seem to like me, but I figured that was o.k., therapy wasn't about being liked it was about "insight." And if I wanted to impress him, well that was part of my problem; it was "transference" as they say in the Freudian vernacular, something to be "worked through." Sometimes, he had names for me. Once he called me Dr Jekyl and Mr. Hyde when I appeared in jeans and a sweatshirt after doing carpentry on my house all morning: usually I appeared in tie and jacket. His favorite name for me was Cotton Mather, because he said I had the bad habit of becoming morally indignant about people who had wronged or misheard me.

One day, in the middle of a session, he reminded me that I had had a sexual dream about him.

I was confused. I didn't remember any sexual dream I had had about him. I tried to rescue him: "You mean the one in which I was sitting in front of you on a surf board?" I asked. I figured this could be seen to have some sexual component. I had told him about this dream a few weeks back.

"No. I mean an overtly sexual dream."

I thought for a minute. "I don't think so--I had a dream about seeing my boss in bed with his secretary, and somehow feeling neglected. You mean that one?"

"No," he said again. "An overtly sexual dream about me."

"Gee, I don't think so. I would remember that."

As I spoke he paged through the notebook in which he wrote down all his patients' dreams. He went forwards and then backwards. Then the room went silent.

I thought of how to respond. "It must have been another patient," seemed possible. Or, in a light-hearted way, "Maybe it was a dream you had about me." But the former seemed lame, and I dared not say the latter for he would not have found it funny. He would have been offended by the tweak. So, instead I said nothing.

He never mentioned the dream again, nor did I. I was partly embarrassed for him, partly afraid he would become accusatory if I brought the matter up.

After two years I thought it was time to end. But he convinced me to stay because my "work" wasn't through. Finally, six months later I ended therapy. Had I made much progress? Not in Dr. Schultz's view--I was not much different than when I came in. But in my eyes I had. I had come to see what was happening in our relationship, and also, far more importantly, that I could never change it. Over and over again he was giving me the same message: "I am the expert--you know very little: that's the reason you are sitting in your chair and I am sitting in mine. When you finally understand this and fully appreciate me, then you will be cured." Ironically, I could have adored him if he had just come to know me. He never read between the lines, never wondered about my over-achievement (I had come to Mass. General at the age of 23 and was soon to be the step-father of three teenagers) and why I might be so driven.

The therapy ultimately failed, not because Dr. Schultz had made mistakes, for all therapists make mistakes. It failed because the messages he was sending were destructive and self-serving. I had three options: either silently accept the messages, fight endless unwinnable battles, or leave. I made the right choice.

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