Lying on the Couch by Irvin D. Yalom Page B

could do this as well as the next therapist. But it was boring. Therapy grew more and more predictable; nothing unexpected ever happened. Ernest stifled yawns and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose to keep himself awake. He no longer discussed Justin with his supervisor. He imagined conversations with Justin in which he raised the question of referring him to another therapist.
    And here, today, Justin saunters in and nonchalantly announces he has left his wife!
    Ernest tried to conceal his feelings by cleaning his goggle spectacles with a Kleenex yanked from the box.
    "Tell me about it, Justin." Bad technique! He knew it instantly. He put his glasses back on and jotted on his notepad: "mistake— asked for information—countertransference?"
    Later, in supervision, he would go over these notes with Marshal. But he knew himself that it was nuts for him to be pulling for information. Why should he have to coax Justin to continue? He should not have given in to his curiosity. Incontinent —that's what Marshal had called him a couple of weeks earlier. "Learn to wait," Marshal would say. "It should be more important for Justin to tell you this than for you to hear it. And if he chooses not to tell you, then you should focus on why he comes to see you, pays you, and yet withholds information from you."
    Ernest knew Marshal was right. Yet he did not care about technical correctness—this was no ordinary session. The sleeping Justin had awakened and left his wife! Ernest looked at his patient; was it his imagination or did Justin appear more powerful today? No obsequious head bowing, no slouching, no fidgeting in his chair to adjust his underwear, no hesitancy, no apologies about dropping his newspaper on the floor next to his chair.
    "Well, I wish there were more to tell—it all went so easily. Like I was on automatic pilot. I just did it. I just walked out!" Justin fell silent.

    Again, Ernest couldn't wait. "Tell me more, Justin."
    "It's got to do with Laura, my young friend."
    Justin rarely spoke of Laura, but when he did she was always, simply, "my young friend." Ernest found that irritating. But he gave away nothing and remained silent.
    "You know I've been seeing her a lot—maybe I've minimized that a bit to you. I don't know why I've kept it from you. But I've been seeing her almost daily, for lunch, or a walk, or going up to her apartment for a romp in the hay. I've just been feeling more and more together, at home, with her. And then, yesterday, Laura said, very matter of factly, 'It's time, Justin, for you to move in with me.'
    "And you know," Justin continued, brushing away the mustache hairs tickling his nostrils, "I thought, she's right, it is time."
    Laura tells him to leave his wife and he leaves his wife. For a moment Ernest thought about an essay he had once read on the mating behavior of coral reef fish. Apparently marine biologists can easily identify the dominant female and male fish: they simply watch the female swim and observe how she visibly disrupts the swim patterns of most male fish—all but the dominant males. The power of the beautiful female, fish or human! Awesome! Laura, barely out of high school, had simply told Justin it was time to leave his wife, and he had obeyed. Whereas he, Ernest Lash, a gifted, a highly gifted therapist, had wasted five years trying to pry Justin out of his marriage.
    "And then," Justin went on, "at home last night Carol made it easy for me by being her usual obnoxious self, hammering at me for not being present. 'Even when you're present, you're absent,' she said. 'Pull your chair up to the table! Why are you always so far away? Talk! Look at us! When was the last time you made a single unsolicited comment to me or the children? Where are you? Your body's here—you're not!' At the end of the meal, when she was clearing the table and banging and clattering the dishes, she added, 'I don't even know why you bother to bring your body home.'
    "And then suddenly,