About a year ago a good friend of mine, let’s call him Tzachi, turned to me because he said he needed to talk about something. He said work relations were deteriorating, he feels anger and stress all the time. He is unsettled and wants to find out why he is so stressed and what he is really experiencing.
I recommended that he consult a psychologist, even telling him that a referral through his health fund will make it cheaper. He listened to me and following a brief but humiliating presentation to the fund as to why he was enough of a psycho to qualify for a subsidy, he made his first appointment.
Listen, Chanoch, he said after the first session, I don’t know if this is for me. Why not? I asked. I paid him good money to help me, he explained, but he didn’t say a word during the entire meeting. To have someone listen to me and not utter a word, I don’t have to pay money; I have a baby at home. I can speak to him.
First, I thought, talk to the baby as well, it’s important. Secondly, that is how therapy works. Don’t you get it? He keeps quiet in order to allow you to open up. He keeps quiet in order to create a platform of tranquility enabling you to speak freely; to talk about deeply buried issues inside the space of this room. Come on, muttered Tzachi, he keeps quiet because he’s got nothing to say.
You know what? I said. The best thing for you is to discuss this with him. At your next meeting, tell him you find his silence very disturbing.
I am dying to discuss my problems, Tzachi said after his second meeting, but we never get to them. Why don’t you bring up your problems? Because I told him how his silences were hard for me so he’s been making me talk about it ever since.
I tied to explain that a lot of things in my life are distressing and I’d like to discuss them but he said that the best thing is to discuss the here and now, the relation between him and me. He said it would help me to try and explain what I am feeling when he is quiet and of where it takes me.
I told him that it reminds me of the moment at the end of the session when I pay him without feeling any progress at all.
And what did he say to that? I asked. He said that he heard anger and that it was important that I expressed it and that we are making progress.
I called Tzachi a week later to see if he had been able to raise the problems that were troubling him. This week we talked about my arriving late, he said. What do you mean? I asked. Did you make it clear to him that you want to talk about your work-related problems? Yes, Tzachi replied, but the psychologist insisted that we focus on why I was late for our session. I told him there was a huge traffic jam but he insisted that my tardiness was a way of expressing melancholy and that is what we need to focus on.
How was it this week? I asked Tzachi, after another week had lapsed. Have you been able to bring up what’s troubling you? Not yet, answered Tzachi. This week we discussed the fact that I arrived early for my appointment. I told the psychologist that I was early because after what happened last week I was afraid of being late again and have to use the entire session to talk about my lateness. He said that in his opinion by arriving early, I am sending him a message and we need to talk about this and what it means.
Two more months pass and Tzachi calls. I am sorry I have not called before, he apologizes, but I have no time for anything. How’s the therapy going? I cautiously asked. So-so Tzachi replied. I didn’t show up for one session because I forgot that we began meeting twice a week.
So at the meeting the following day we spoke about why I didn’t show up, and for the following two meetings we spoke about the fact that I was mad because he charged me for the meeting that I missed, and for the next five meetings we discussed how I felt about meeting twice a week. I think I announced that I want to end the therapy because I have no more money. In response he said that we need to increase our meetings to three times a week in order to understand why I want to quit.
He also said that this is not the time to stop, that it is true I am spending less time at work and less time with my children. I explained that I am less at work and less at home because I am always with the psychologist. But he said he sees pain and it's good that I express it and maybe we need to meet four times a week just to be on the safe side.
The following week, Tzachi tried a new tactic. He told the therapist that their work together was so successful that he feels all his problems have been resolved and he no longer needs the sessions. The psychologist told him that it’s fine to end the therapy but it is not healthy to decide to stop from today to tomorrow. It really should be a gradual process of two years.
I ran into Tzachi with his kids at the park. My psychologist was sent as an academic envoy to the US, he said immediately, so my therapy ended. Listen, I said, I am sorry about this whole therapy thing, I guess it didn’t work out.
Didn’t work out? What are you talking about? Ever since the psychologist left, I am spending more time at work, more time with the children. Suddenly I have more time to myself and it’s just great. If I wouldn’t have seen a psychologist, I would have never learned to appreciate my life as it is. I would never be this happy. Listen Chanoch, there is only one thing more effective than starting therapy: Ending it.
Young Mr. Daum – Those close to Shimon Peres are trying to arrange an open vote ahead of elections for a new president and it makes sense. Even though Peres will lose, no matter what arrangement is made, at least this way at least we’ll be saved having to witness the embittered look of surprise on his face when the results are announced.
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