outside of myself, helping others to live and to fulfill themselves.
More clearly than ever before I realized the centrality of my work
as a therapist and then I thought for hours about those I had helped;
all my patients, old and new, paraded through my imagination.
«Many Iknew I had helped but had I had anenduring impact
on their lives? That was the question that plagued me. I think I told
the rest of group before Pam returned that I had to know the
answer to this question so badly I decided to contact some of my
old patients to find out whether I had truly made a difference.
Seems crazy, I know.
«Then, while browsing through the charts of my long–ago
patients, I also began thinking of those I had failed to help. What
had happened tothem ? I wondered. Could I have done more? And
then the thought, the wishful thought, arose that maybe some of
my failures were late bloomers, maybe they had gotten some
delayed benefit from our work together. Then my eye fell upon
Philip`s chart, and I remember saying to myself, вЂIf you want
failure,there is failure—there is someone youreally didn`t help—
you couldn`t make even a dent in his problems.` From that moment
on, I had an irresistible impulse to contact Philip and find out what
happened to him, to see if, in some way, I had been useful to him
after all.»
«So that`s how it came about that you called him,” said Pam.
«But how did it come about that he entered the group?»
«You want to pick it up from here, Philip?» said Julius.
«I believe it would be a richer exercise if you continued,”
said Philip with the slightest trace of a smile on his lips.
Julius quickly filled the group in on the subsequent events:
Philip`s appraisal that his therapy had been without value and that
Schopenhauer had been his real therapist, the e–mail invitation to
the lecture, Philip`s request for supervision…
«I don`t get it, Philip,” interrupted Tony. «If you didn`t get
anything from Julius in therapy, then why in hell would you want
his supervision?»
«Julius posed that exact question, several times,” said Philip.
«My answer is that even though he didn`t help me, I could still
appreciate his superior skills. Perhaps I was a recalcitrant, resistive
patient, or perhaps my particular type of problem would not yield
to his particular approach.»
«Okay, got it,” said Tony. «I interrupted you, Julius.»
«I`m about finished. I agreed to become his supervisor with
one condition: that he first spend six months in my therapy group.»
«I don`t think you`ve ever explained why you made that
condition,” said Rebecca.
«I observed the way he related to me and to his students and
told him that his impersonal and uncaring manner would interfere
with his becoming a good therapist. Is that your view of it, Philip?»
«Your precise words to me were: вЂHow can you be a
therapist when you don`t know what the fuck is going on between
you and other people?`”
«Bingo,” said Pam.
«Sounds like Julius, all right,” said Bonnie.
«Sounds like Julius when his buttons are being pushed,” said
Stuart. «Were you pushing his buttons?»
«Not intentionally,” replied Philip.
«I`m still not clear, Julius,” said Rebecca. «I understand why
you called Philip, and why you advised him to get group therapy.
But why did you put him in your group or agree to supervise him?
You have plenty on your plate now. Why take on this additional
task?»
«You guys are tough today. That`s the big question and I`m
not sure I can answer it, but it`s got something to do with
redemption and setting things right.»
«I know a lot of this discussion was to fill me in and I
appreciate that, «said Pam. «I have just one more query. You said
Philip twice offered you comfort—or tried to. I still haven`t heard
about the first time.»
«Right, we started toward there but never got to it,” Julius
responded. «I attended one of Philip`s lectures and gradually
understood that he had constructed it specifically to offer me some
help. He discussed at length a passage from a novel in which a
dying man obtained much consolation from reading a passage by
Schopenhauer.»
«Which novel?» asked Pam.
«Buddenbrooks,” replied Julius.
«And it wasn`t helpful? Why not?» asked Bonnie.
«For several reasons. First Philip`s mode of giving me
comfort was very indirect—much like the way he just presented
the passage by Epictetus...”
«Julius,” said Tony, «I`m not being a smart ass, but wouldn`t
it be better to speak directly to Philip—and guess who I learned
this from?»
«Thanks, Tony—you are one hundred percent right.» Julius
turned to face Philip. «Your mode of offering me counsel in the
course of a lecture was off–putting—so indirect and so public. And
so unexpected because we had just spent an hour in private face–to–face talk in which you seemed utterly indifferent to my condition.
That was one thing. And the other was the actual content. I can`t
repeat the passage here—I don`t have your photographic
memory—but essentially it described a dying patriarch having an
epiphany in which the boundaries dissolved between himself and
others. As a result he was comforted by the unity of all life and the
idea that after death he would return to the life force whence he
came and hence retain his connectedness with all living things.
That about right?» Julius looked at Philip, who nodded.
«Well, as I tried to tell you before, Philip, that idea offers me
no comfort—zero. If my own consciousness is extinguished, then
it matters little to me that my life energy or my bodily molecules or
my DNA persists in deep space. And if connectivity is the quest,
then I`d rather do it in person, in the flesh. So»—he turned and
scanned the group and then faced Pam—«that was the first
consolation Philip offered, and the parable in your hands is the
second.»
After a brief silence Julius added, «I`m feeling I`ve been
doing too much talking today. How are you all responding to
what`s been happening so far?»
«I`m interested,” said Rebecca.
«Yeah,” said Bonnie.
«This is some pretty high–level stuff going on,” said Tony,
«but I`m staying with it.»
«I`m aware,” noted Stuart, «of ongoing tension here.»
«Tension between...?» asked Tony.
«Between Pam and Philip, of course.»
«And lots between Julius and Philip,” added Gill, again
taking up Philip`s cause. «I`m wondering, Philip, do you feel
listened to? Do you feel your contributions get the consideration
they merit?»
«It seems to me, that...that...well...” Philip was unusually
tentative but soon regained his characteristic fluency. «Isn`t it
precipitous to dismiss so quickly—”
«Who are you talking to?» asked Tony.
«Right,” answered Philip. «Julius, isn`t it precipitous to
dismiss so quickly a concept that has offered consolation to much
of humanity for millennia? It is Epictetus`s idea, and
Schopenhauer`s as well, that excessive attachment either to
material goods, to other individuals, or even attachment to the
concept of вЂI` is the major source of human suffering. And doesn`t
it follow that such suffering can be ameliorated by avoiding the
attachment? Indeed, these ideas are at the very heart of the
Buddha`s teaching as well.»
«That`s a good point, Philip, and I will take it to heart. What
I hear you saying is that you`re giving me good stuff which I
dismiss out of hand—and that leaves you feeling unvalued.
