Page 22

12 March 2019

Me: “Can we talk a little more about your upbringing? Your parents?”

Patient X: “I don’t really have much family to speak of. Most of my family is dead.”

Me: “That must have been tough for you, and you’re an only child?”

Patient X: “No, though sometimes I wish I were.”

Patient X stifles a laugh at this point, which I read as a defense mechanism, a sign of more beneath it. I watch emotions struggle on their face, how their eyes darken with the anguish of remembering. For a moment I think they’re about to cry and my instinct is to reach across to comfort them, but I hold back. Instead, as Janet has encouraged me to do, I reflect on the feelings they’re provoking in me.

It’s funny how the consulting room is our very own theater of emotions, separate from the outside world. Whatever feelings arise in this one-hour session are no more real than projections played upon a movie screen.

Patient X: “I guess there’s a lot of baggage with my family. For a long time, I carried all of this guilt, but I’m not prepared to do that anymore.”

Me: “Why not, what’s happened?”

Patient X: Sighs heavily. “I can’t say. Not now, not yet—”

Me: “What I’m sensing is a desire in you for change, for these feelings to break to the surface, but perhaps also a fear about the consequences that may bring?”

Patient X: “I feel I can tell you, but—”

Me: “I’m here for you. Seriously, trust me on this. I think we both know it’s time to rip away the sticking Band-Aid, find out what’s underneath?”