Page 3 of The Therapist

Iggy is in after-school care until 5 p.m. so I have half an hour before I have to leave to get him, even factoring in the extra time I’m going to need because of the weather.

I sit down behind my desk, grabbing a couple of Panadol from one of the drawers and taking them with some water.

If I can get some notes done now, I won’t have to work after Iggy goes to bed.

As I wait for the Panadol to work, I read through the notes I have taken on Natalia. She’s a young woman who is a devoted nurse but she is struggling with being unable to leave the job at work. I know how hard it is to do that so I feel I have some understanding of her concerns.

The headache is receding so I power up my computer, but as I go to start entering my notes, there is a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ I call, knowing that it can only be Ben.

There’s no one else in the office right now because Kirsty, our receptionist, asked to leave early today for a doctor’s appointment.

She doesn’t seem unwell but perhaps it’s only a check-up.

‘Hey,’ says Ben, opening the door, ‘do you have a minute?’ His smooth English accent never fails to make me smile.

‘I’m leaving soon to get Iggy,’ I reply, and I try, really hard, not to be worried that my black hair is lying limply on my shoulders, that the dark shadows underneath my brown eyes will be more obvious now that my make-up has worn off at the end of the day and that I am wearing my most stretchy pants after eating whatever I wanted on holiday with Iggy. I feel like an unprofessional disaster.

Ben looks immaculate, as usual. His brown hair is a mess of perfect curls and there is a light stubble across his chin.

He studies me with pale grey eyes behind neat, rimless glasses and I shift in my desk chair, uncomfortable with the way he is looking at me.

He is only two years younger than me at thirty-four but he looks a decade younger than me at least. He’s never been married and he has no children.

He never talks about a girlfriend but I’m sure he’s rarely alone.

I have seen Kirsty’s eyes light up when he walks into the office and I am a little worried about what may happen between the two of them.

Kirsty is twenty-six, around the same age as my patient Natalia, but she has an entirely different attitude to her life.

She is pretty, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and frequently has flowers on her desk from young men, always a different one from what I can gather.

She mentions Jack or Sven or Oscar for a few weeks and then the name changes.

She believes she deserves to have as much fun as possible with her life, and so despite having a business degree, she’s spent years travelling the world and is happy to be our receptionist until she wants the pressure of a job in her industry.

I admire her attitude although I never could have done that myself.

All I ever wanted was my Master’s of Clinical Psychology so I could start my own practice.

I feel like I’ve worked non-stop since I entered university, only taking a six-month break when I had Iggy.

Anytime I relax, guilt taps me on the shoulder, especially now that I’m a single mother.

I’m thirty-six and starting to feel really conscious of the passing of time.

I shake off my thoughts and focus back on Ben.

‘It’s always hard the first day back at work.’ He smiles and I flush slightly, realising that I do indeed look as tired as I think I look.

‘Well, nice vacations have to be paid for,’ I say with a smile.

Ben and I share office space and both contribute to Kirsty’s salary but we are essentially separate entities, despite both practising under the banner of my clinic name: Calm Minds.

I leased the office space first and then advertised for another therapist to take the other office to help with the rent.

I’ve had three different therapists rent the office over the last eight years and Ben is the first man. He’s been here for six months.

We’ve developed a tentative friendship, which I’m glad of.

He’s an attractive man, very attractive, and it’s admittedly hard for me not to notice that or to worry about how I look when I see him.

It’s drilled into every woman, I think. But luckily there are zero feelings there other than friendship and professional trust.

‘What’s up?’ I ask.

Ben comes into the office and sits down on the navy-blue sofa my patients use, stretching his long arm over the back. ‘I have a favour to ask.’

I close down my computer. ‘What can I help you with?’

‘There’s a patient…’ He hesitates.

A therapist never discusses their patients, except with their own therapist, which we are all required to have.

My therapist is the woman who mentored me through my two registrar years, SueEllen Granger.

She’s ten years older than me and one of the wisest people I know.

I see her once every six weeks or so, even if I don’t feel I need to.

She puts things into perspective for me, both in my life and with my patients.

Ben has only referred to his therapist as Nancy and I don’t want to push him into telling me exactly who she is, but I think she’s in the UK, where Ben lived for the last thirty years, after his family left Australia for the UK when he was four.

The truth is that Ben and I do sometimes discuss our patients if we want an immediate input.

‘Go on,’ I encourage him.

‘I think she’s attracted to me.’

I laugh. ‘Well, that wouldn’t be the first time, Ben.

’ It’s called transference, and it’s when a client redirects their feelings about someone in their life onto the therapist. I’ve had a couple of male patients tell me they’re in love with me over the years, which I know better than to find flattering.

It’s because we listen, we sympathise, we do everything they are hoping for from a person in their life they are having difficulty with.

A therapist’s job is to help the patient understand that their feelings towards their therapist are not real and to use the situation to delve deeper into their patient’s life to see if they can identify why the feelings are occurring.

A last resort, if the situation cannot be managed, is to end the relationship by referring the patient to another therapist.

‘I know,’ he rubs his jaw, ‘and we’ve discussed it and she seems to understand but the truth is…’

‘Is?’

‘I’m actually attracted to her as well, not that I’ve told her that at all, but I can see that this could go the wrong way. I’ve never been in a situation where I was attracted to the client as well.’

‘That is difficult,’ I say, even as I feel an unwelcome streak of jealousy run through me.

I wish I could control it but I can’t so now I accept it.

I was never beautiful or even pretty and I have always been aware, in every relationship I’ve been in, of other women around me.

Still, I look very different to how I did in high school.

So different that once, Iggy giggled and pointed at an old picture of me at my mother’s house, asking, ‘Who is that weird girl?’

‘It’s me,’ I told him, staring at the picture of myself standing on-stage, holding up my award for the highest grade for English in my final year of school.

I wanted to cry for the awkward teenager still wearing braces at seventeen.

My fellow students were more concerned with the formal school dance but I hadn’t been invited and had told my mother, ‘I don’t want to go anyway. ’

My buck teeth have been fixed, my mousey brown hair dyed jet black, and I’ve lost a lot of weight. Though I let myself go in Bali and will now need to be vigilant to get back to the goal weight I spent years working towards.

I’ve changed but the insecurity remains. I suppose that’s what allows me to connect so well with my patients. I understand their worries and their fears because I am as human as they are, as complex as they are, and I know that everyone is fighting their own battles every day, including me.

I take a sip of the water on my desk, bringing my focus back to what Ben needs.

‘You should probably refer her somewhere else,’ I say.

‘I know but…’

‘What is it, Ben?’ I ask, curious. He’s not usually this hesitant.

‘She’s in a bad relationship with her husband, like it’s really bad, and I don’t want to send her off to see someone else because it’s taken her months to open up to me, to tell me what’s really going on, and I’m afraid if she has to go somewhere else, she won’t get the help she needs.’

‘Are you telling me that you want to keep seeing her? If that’s the case, why come and tell me about it? You know I’m going to tell you it’s a bad idea.’

Ben sighs. ‘Yeah…I mean, I know that already but I just…needed some help talking it through.’

‘I get that. It’s hard when you start to question yourself.’

‘Exactly,’ he says.

I understand Ben wanting a discussion about this decision on this patient but I think there is more that he wants to say.

He stares down at the beige speckled carpet in my office. ‘I don’t want to send this woman out into the world with no help. I want her to be able to trust someone immediately.’

I sit back in my desk chair and fold my arms. I need to leave in a few minutes to get Iggy. ‘What are you saying, Ben?’

‘Can you take her on? If you say yes, I can explain that I have…I don’t know, I’ll figure it out but at least I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not seeing her anymore.’

I take a deep breath, rub my head where the headache still lingers. ‘No, Ben, no…I can’t do that. I already have a full patient list and I really can’t, especially when you’ve told me what you’ve told me. It will cloud everything.’

‘Please, I would really appreciate it.’

I shake my head, standing up and grabbing my bag.

‘I know, but it’s not a good idea. Look, I’m sorry to rush out but I need to get Iggy.

I can think about some names, about the best possible person for you to refer her to, but I can’t take her on for you, Ben.

I know too much already and I don’t think it would be good for me or for her, and if you happen to see her here, waiting for me, it wouldn’t be good for you either. ’

‘Okay, okay.’ He sighs and repeats, ‘okay,’ as he stands up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘I’m sorry, Ben. I’m not trying to upset you here…’

‘I know, I know. That’s why I asked you. You have a level of integrity I really respect, Lana, and I knew you would make the right decision.’

When Angela, the last therapist who rented the space, told me she was taking a year off to care for her baby as I had suspected she would, I spoke to three other therapists, all women, before Ben came in.

I worry about why I offered the space to him over any of the women.

We all have the same basic qualifications but Ben spent years practising in the UK so perhaps I thought he would bring a different perspective.

Or perhaps you really liked his smile . I hate having to question myself.

My ability to maintain control over everything is a source of pride.

Even through my divorce, I remained calm, unruffled, able to communicate logically with my lawyer and negotiate with Oliver, despite what he had done.

‘It’s just that…’ Ben shoves his hands in his pockets, walks around the room looking at the few benign objects I have on display like the wooden bowl filled with dry, lightly scented rose petals and the glass vase filled with multicoloured marbles – objects that add some colour but cannot upset or offend anyone.

‘Just that?’

‘I’m really worried about her.’ I feel like there is more to this than Ben is telling me, some other reason why he doesn’t want to tell this woman to find another therapist, but I don’t really have the time to go into it with him now.

A rumble of thunder makes me turn towards the window and I silently curse the rain, knowing that I am wasting valuable driving time. ‘I understand,’ I tell Ben, ‘but I don’t think it would be the right thing to do.’

He nods his acceptance and smiles. ‘Thanks for listening anyway,’ he says as he leaves and goes back into his office.

I make my way down the back six flights of stairs of our building so I can get some incidental exercise in, and as I climb into my car in the parking garage, I think about the client Ben says he’s attracted to.

I wonder what she looks like. I’m sure she’s really pretty, beautiful even.

Quickly dismissing the thought, I put her out of my mind because I can’t treat her. It would obviously be a very bad idea.