Читать книгу Slow Provocation - Pam Stavropoulos - Страница 10

4

My brother Ben had been an invaluable source on our shared childhood. Detailed focus on which was a key component of my counselling training. I was stunned – as he had also been surprised – by how much more he remembered of it than I. Particularly as I am two years older.

No two people from the same family grow up in the same family.

Not in terms of experiences, and not in terms of memories. That claim had come up a lot in the course. Maybe differing ability to recall accounts for at least some of the discrepancies. But the recollections should surely intersect at some points. At least, more often than they seemed to do in our case.

`Mum and Dad argued a lot when we were kids. You really don’t remember?’

He rarely shows strong emotion (do I?) But I can see he is taken aback.

`Not much. I remember the silences later on’.

Silences like the Nullarbor. And Mum had loved to communicate.

Like all of us? Where does commonality end and individual difference begin?

I remembered the impossibility of talking to Dad. And the joy and relief of exchanges with Mum. But Dad was around the house so often (a pervasive presence due to involuntary early retirement) that unconstrained conversation had been a luxury. Maybe Ben didn’t mind as much. Or perhaps he had less need to verbalise.

`He used to say something cutting that would reduce her to tears. She’d go and cry in her room. And he’d go on eating dinner as if nothing had happened’.

Jesus. I do vaguely remember that. And no mystery, really, if I’ve blocked it. The comments must have been quite vindictive if he got to her like that. For she’d been strong as well as sensitive.

`You don’t remember at all?’

`Well, a bit. In a way Mum kind of alluded to it in one of our last conversations. Asked me whether I remembered her shouting at him. `Back in the days when I thought it might make a difference’, she said’.

We’d both laughed ruefully.

`Not much made a difference with him’.

`Not much’.

______________________________________

The parts I remembered and the parts I didn’t.

What significance to attribute to each? Not all therapeutic approaches emphasise the early years in any case.

`Don’t worry about the sources of a problem’, one of the teaching staff at the counselling college had asserted. `Would knowing that – even assuming you could – necessarily help? Look at what maintains the problem in the present’.

It was a contrasting and challenging reading. In deflecting attention from what we do in the present, maybe the search for origins is indeed misguided. But focus on family history – which was required by the course in any case - has to count for a lot. The question is how much. Or maybe when - and how - to move on from it.

Dad was sometimes (often?) cutting in his remarks. With effort I could recall that. But mostly I remembered his complete lack of empathy. Which was perhaps a variation of the same thing. And which could be as sharp as a blade.

`Sometimes’, I recalled Mum saying (with guilt and in confidence) `I almost wish he’d vocalise his anger more. Express it, let it out. That would have led to other problems. But this is violence too, isn’t it?’

The silences. The imperviousness. The quiet put-downs that yielded more and longer silences.

Yes, Mum. This is violence too.

______________________________________

`Is this Holly?’

`Yes. Who’s this?’

Who is this? The male voice is somehow familiar. Though not enough to identify immediately. I am slightly uncomfortable with what feels like an implicit challenge to my professionalism. I hate power plays. But experience has taught me that a degree of distance between client and therapist is advisable from the outset.

Empathy but not complicity. Another elusive balance.

`Thought you’d know my voice. It’s Nick’.

`Nick!’

I try to sound neutral but welcoming (these impossible combinations!) But my mind races. And to my shock and discomfort, my body has reacted instantaneously.

Nick, Sophie’s partner. She and I were speaking of him, if only obliquely, the evening before. Recognition that he had figured in my dreams last night doesn’t help me recover my poise. Or such poise as I possess.

`Well, this is a surprise’.

So what on earth does he want, ringing me at work? Or anywhere for that matter? I’ve seen him with Sophie. And we’ve exchanged cursory greetings. But the call takes me aback in every respect.

My lack of composure is immediate sign of potentially problematic dynamics. Which, if he wants a consultation with me, and in addition to the fact that I have a relationship with his partner, should preclude me from agreeing to it.

`Yeah, well. I was wondering if I could see you’.

A slight pause.

`About a problem I have’.

I relax slightly (did he think I might think he was asking me out?) But only slightly. In light of his intimate, and who knows how problematic, relationship with my friend and employee – enough complication for starters – my physical reaction to his call sounds warning bells before rational reflection enters the equation.

Taking him on as a client would be, in that wonderful word, `contraindicated’. And I tell him as much, without alluding to our interpersonal dynamics which he clearly senses in any case (`I thought you’d know my voice’). We have met three times at most.

`I don’t think that would be a good idea, Nick. It’s a basic principle for therapists that we don’t try to treat our friends. Or friends of friends’.

Not that he’s really in either category. But that’s what comes out and it’s close enough.

Not for him though.

`We’re not friends, are we? We’ve only met a couple of times’.

But I’m ready for him now. And marshal, with some difficulty (is there also some regret?) my diplomatic refusal.

`It’s Sophie who’s my friend, Nick. And she’s also someone I employ. Even though I don’t know you well, that’s enough to be compromising’.

`Oh come on, Holly! For Chrissake! We’re living in the real world here. Business must come your way via all sorts of channels. You gonna pass some up because you know my girlfriend?’

A slight pause.

`Who said it relates to her, anyway?’

The word `business’ disarms me a little. A case could potentially be made for relating to him in a professional capacity. And he’s right that work flows from many sources. Would I have been as unequivocal were he, say, the sixty year old partner of a former acquaintance? Which is not the same dilemma but a range of possibilities do arise. And also another reminder of my physical attraction to him that I should resist so immediately and so strenuously.

Perhaps I am discriminating against him. As the innocent catalyst of my libidinous responses, maybe I am unjustifiably withholding assistance I would otherwise (try to) provide. And to which he is even entitled. The word `business’ is also alarming in another way, if I have felt so quickly reassured that this is not about pleasure.

But what am I thinking? His problem has to relate (doesn’t it?) to Sophie. Which is compromising enough to my relationship with her as well as to him. And to the therapy I am not going to conduct with him.

As if on cue, he grasps precisely that nettle.

`Don’t you even want to know what it concerns? Surely that might make a difference’.

Not necessarily. But let’s have it anyway.

`What does it concern?’

`Actually I don’t feel comfortable discussing it on the phone’.

`Nick –‘

`Holly, please. At least see me so I can put it to you. I’ll be honest – I’m not the counselling type. The very idea is a turn-off, believe me. I feel a bit reassured by the fact that I’ve met you. Put it this way, I wouldn’t have gone to Google. Can’t we at least meet once so I can tell you what it’s about? No obligation. To either of us’.

He’s persuasive. And that’s a potential problem too. But put like that, I feel less compromised about what can be a brief single meeting.

Besides, if it’s true that he may not have tried therapy otherwise – which I have no reason to disbelieve – he is grappling with something that is compelling him to transcend his comfortzone. If I don’t at least allow him the opportunity to convey his concern when he is reluctant to consult someone else, wouldn’t that be an abrogation on my part?

`Please, Holly’.

What does anyone gain by my refusal, when it’s a single meeting we’re talking about? And when there is no commitment to therapy so the venue would be outside the counselling room?

`All right. I have a cancellation at four next Thursday. Do you know that outdoor cafe in the mall next to the Hi-Fi store?’

`I do. And thanks’.

______________________________________

Sex is a dangerous force. Energizing, exhilarating, and a million other things.

But dangerous as well.

The `hellfire and brimstone’ approach to it – and the fear that induced – was a terrible way to induct the young into what awaited them. If, indeed, they had not already been introduced to it and often by violent means (wasn’t abuse as much a part of the Victorian era as crinolines and indignation? Not to mention hypocrisy).

But even in my long period of self-denial, I never really bought the `it’s a perfectly normal activity’ perspective which grew up in reaction. That was a good corrective, perhaps, to all the fear and joylessness. But it was too much of an over-compensation (in my line of work I would say that, wouldn’t I?) When it is the elusive in-between which is more apposite.

Normalising the act and process robs it of its mystery and vitality; scare-mongering fosters anxiety and judgementalism. But how do you convey awe without fear? Especially to children. Or do they sense that wild mix anyway, and it is we adults who package it conventionally to normalise our own disquiet about it?

You don’t want to lie, says Leonard Cohen in one of his many great injunctions. Not to the young. Yet lacking a vocabulary adequate to the task, it’s hard, in a sense, not to (or do I rationalise again?)

Having finally broken with the moralistic sanction that sex and love go, or even should go together (like bread and butter, like peaches and cream) I can recognise where I went wrong in my long monogamous relationship with Shaun. Those years of a partnership which was founded on respect and companionship (all the `good’ things) nevertheless lacked a necessary spark. The spark without which, in the end, we couldn’t survive as a couple. I was burning from my lack of burning.

And then came the spark with Leigh. And the whole conflagration. Cohen again (it is so often he) from his Joan of Arc chorus – Myself I longed for love and light/But must it come so cruel and oh so bright? Summed it up perfectly. And then she clearly understood/If he was fire, well then, she must be wood.

I burned all right. And had the scar tissue to prove it. For a while. Actually for a long while.

It is now five years ago, though, and an unexpected renaissance does seem to have occurred since. A new job. A child. And a lot of soul-searching. You have to come out of these things eventually. At least if you plan to hang around.

It was freeing in a way to see my relationship with Shaun as a partial reaction to the one my parents had (I can’t say `enjoyed’).

Squaring the circle, trying to put things right.

Dad had been emotionally unreliable. More than that: unreachable. Almost functionally incapable. Cold and distrustful, where Shaun was generous and dependable.

See, Mum, it was different for me! And look how it freed me to achieve!

The rebound effect of those early years had escaped me entirely. At least in its more subtle manifestations. Because at one level it was all pretty clear.

I was moving along.

And if the price of that was inner restlessness— an inability to really connect, including and especially with myself—well that was kind of par for the course, wasn’t it?

Wasn’t that simply `the way it was?’ Anxiety is the disease of the age (I would say of any age and time – where do we get off with our postmodern arrogance?)

What an incredible relief to be with a man who was safe! Except that it became too safe.

Terminally safe. And so a pattern, as well as residues of pain, began to crystallise.

But this is all a way back now. Pre-parenthood. Pre-therapy training. And pre the reconstructive efforts. You can’t make yourself over completely. But I know — and feel – that I’ve come a long way.

Which is why this thing with Nick is unsettling. And why my allowing of him to test some boundaries will be something I need to watch and monitor. Particularly as professional, as well as personal, integrity might be at stake were the lines to blur any further. Which they won’t of course. But even at this point I can’t fail to note.

Safety and danger (Mother and Dad?)

The conundrum of eros.

And sex as the irritant force.