And the sense that something important is at stake for someone other than herself is new to her.
`So what kind of pizza do you want?’
`You know!’
She does too. But drawing him out on every ingredient of the preferred topping is part of the game. She welcomes it now, a lighthearted foil to the inner exploration she’ll do later on.
Pizza and red wine as reward for the psychical excavation in which she will engage. She only has two clients today; there will be plenty of opportunity to ponder. But while normally drawn to an inward focus, the nature of this dream is such that she is strangely reluctant to probe possible reasons for it.
`Mum! Where are you?’
This is another interaction between them. If he doesn’t feel he has her whole attention, her son will point that out in this particular way.
It is rare for him to do that these days. Which attests to her increased ability to draw a line between her work life and her four-year-old, as well as to the strength of his own immediacy. But she feels a glimmer of guilt as she brings herself back to the moment.
Where am – was - I? In the jungle navigating the vines?
Matt would relish the imagery. But this is adult stuff.
`I was thinking we’re gonna be late unless we move it. Where’s your backpack?’
Jumping from the chair, he scampers off to find it, leaving a trail of crumbs in his wake.
Yet insight comes surprisingly easily when she clears a space in which it can emerge.
Sitting in her small office later in the afternoon (client notes written up; a full hour in front of her to focus solely on the dream) she wonders why she didn’t see it straight away.
Perhaps it’s because, distracted as always by the slide of images from pleasurable to terrifying, she has been revisiting the obvious elements of the dream rather than what, this time, has catalyzed them.
Perhaps because the dream so evokes Luke, and the challenges she still faces in absorbing his legacy, she has been slow to recognize the significance of recurrence of this dream at this particular time.
Her new client, Ryan, is in no clear way similar to her former lover. And other than the disquiet she feels in the wake of the dream images, she has no evidence to suggest otherwise.
But perhaps – and the intimation doubles her sense of disquiet – perhaps the issue which troubles him is the same.
6
He seems less guarded this time. But is certainly far from relaxed.
Second sessions are often problematic. And he is clearly waiting for her to lead.
She wonders how he’d react if she doesn’t gratify the expectation. Going with that strategy seems like a good idea.
And she doesn’t have long to wait.
`So what do we do this time?’
There is no apparent challenge in his question (is she still feeling the energy of that coffee with Diane?) But it can’t have been comfortable to ask it either.
Consulting a female therapist about panic attacks is not easy for any man. And perhaps - she finds herself speculating - for this man in particular.
She brackets her intimation as to what might be distressing him. Which would be inappropriate at all levels to articulate. With few exceptions, personal information about clients should come from the clients themselves. And her intimation of what might have brought this particular client to therapy is in a category of its own.
`What would you like to do?’
Not a frivolous or mischievous question (this is therapy after all). And if he responds to it with humour, that could be therapeutic in itself.
When had he last laughed, or even really smiled? She has already detected wit in the demeanour he seeks to control.
Not that panic attacks are cause for laughter.
`I’ll follow your lead’.
A bit cryptic; a bit humorous in itself.
And a clear play for time.
He’s hard to read.
And not about to make it easy for me.
Evidence to date is that he is a man of few words. But she also suspects the limits of that. When relaxed he may be sociable; she senses a hungry spirit at bay.
What might assist in smoothing the path for that spirit to emerge? For it to trust that it could be met and received?
She also senses that while the enormity of his issue might confer a grace period regarding his assessment of therapy, he will not return indefinitely in the absence of tangible progress.
How much time do I have?
And finds herself thinking
Not a whole lot.
`So can you tell me something about your week?’
A leisurely pace seems advisable at this point. Despite- and because – of the likely urgency of the issues.
Any challenge beyond rapport-building is too risky right now.
And if he sees her as unhurried that could be a positive.
He seems to be taken a little off-guard (is that a flicker of relief in his eyes?) If so, her hunch seems to be validated.
`My work, you mean?’
Does she want to know about that?
Well that’s ok. Not what I expected, but I can deal with that. Thank God she’s not going straight for the feelings. Because I’ve drawn a blank on those.
`You don’t have to go into detail. Just give me a sense of your week’.
So he does.
Says he is in the office much of the time, but that visiting clients is important as well. That he set the business up some years ago. And that while he now employs three staff, he likes to keep his hand on the pulse of what goes on.
`So it’s your own business. That must be gratifying’.
`It should be’.
That’s out before he realizes it. He’s not ready to go deeper yet. And has unwittingly given her a lead.
But she doesn’t take him up on it. And gratitude, as well as relief, begin to gather in him.
She’s easy to sit with.
They both know there may be hard yards ahead. But also of the need to pace it.
`It sounds like you work pretty hard. Do you put in long hours? What do you do when you knock off?’
Even in an ordinary exchange there are potholes. And he is about to step into one.
He also knows that no amount of normalizing the demands of one’s own business (`you never knock off’) can disguise the fact that he is essentially alone.
`Sport? Anything like that?’
Need to reduce the cortisol and circulate the endorphins …
`Used to. I used to do a lot of things –‘
His sentence and voice break simultaneously. Like the snapped twig he has become. Even to his own ears he can hear a grief (and incipient fear?) that he can’t disguise.
And that he knows she has heard as well. It is the kind of comment you can’t retreat from. And that calls for a response.
Yet