I had a patient decide to stop seeing me. The reason, he said, was that I didn’t provide enough feedback during our sessions, and he wanted someone more “active.”
I went through a small range of reactions. The first, and most obvious one, was to place the blame for that on the patient. “Well, we only had two sessions together. I was still learning about him and didn’t have much to say just yet so of course I was passive during our sessions.” Then it shifted to a more accepting perspective (ostensibly, anyway): “This style isn’t for everyone, and it evidently wasn’t for this patient. That’s totally fine. I’m still bothered, but it’s fine.”
Initially I left it right there. It wasn’t actively on my mind, but it was there in the back of it, and I was fine with this state of affairs. I did, however, decide to bring it up to Tom during one of our sessions, and I used the phrase “I just want to sit in this for now” several times, which struck him.
“It sounds like a kid in his dirty diaper.”
I remembered the way things worked at the previous clinic where I was employed. Any time that a patient left, I would have to discuss it during supervision, no matter the reason. And my dominant mode then was the initial, hysterical (in the psychoanalytic sense) reaction: defending myself, displacing the blame, keeping the Other’s gaze anywhere besides on myself. In a way, I think it’s fair to say that I liked to smear the contents of my diaper, rather than sit in them.
“What else can a kid really do?”
“They can just do their work, flush it down the toilet, and be done.”
Somehow this thought hadn’t even crossed my mind a little bit. And what’s funnier is that I would’ve described myself as a “sitter” rather than a “smearer” prior to beginning my analysis, but it has become increasingly clear that I am both at various times. So how does one just do their business and move on?
I associated to a conversation I had with my psychoanalytic supervisor recently, regarding the way that one reads Lacan. It’s quite difficult, if you don’t already know, and I only began my foray into the field a few years ago. What the supervisor told me was, essentially, “it takes time.” I suggested this to Tom. “Maybe right now I don’t know how to just do my business and move along, but at some point I will. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.”
“I think you’re letting yourself off the hook too much there.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Obviously I need to do some things as well, I just don’t know what those things are yet. I guess one thing I do know to do is keep coming here, keep speaking, keep giving something up to you.”
This is where we ended.
There’s one more thing that happened during the session which I want to note, but I don’t remember precisely where it happened, or how it fits in. It was closer to the beginning or middle of the session. In any case, I remember telling Tom about how I like the “cool” status I occupy as a therapist who practices psychoanalysis, or at least is informed by it when I’m not practicing “strict” psychoanalysis. I’m also slightly terrified by this status: the thought that someone might “find out” the theory that informs my work is a paralyzing one. He thought this was pretty funny in the context of talking about my supervision sessions at my previous clinic. “It’s as if you want someone to take notice that you do psychoanalysis. ‘Look at me, look how cool I am!’”