with ninety different women. Tells all this with flat affect—no shame, no boasting. Feels
anxious if he is alone for an evening. Usually sex acts like Valium. Once he has sex, he
feels peaceful for the rest of the evening and can read comfortably. No homosexual
activities or fantasies.
HIS PERFECT EVENING? Out early, picks up woman in bar, gets laid (preferably
before dinner), dumps woman as quickly as possible, preferably without having to buy
her dinner but usually ends up having to feed her. Important to have as much evening
time as possible for reading before going to bed. No TV, no movies, no social life, no
sports. Only recreation is reading and classical music. Voracious reader of classics,
history, and philosophy—no fiction, nothing current. Wanted to talk about Zeno and
Aristarchus, his current interests.
PAST HISTORY: Grew up in Connecticut, only child, upper middle class. Father
investment banker who committed suicide when Philip was thirteen. He knows nothing
about circumstances or reasons behind father`s suicide, some vague ideas that it was
aggravated by mother`s continual criticism. Blanket childhood amnesia—remembers
little of his first several years and nothing about his father`s funeral. Mother remarried
when he was 24. A loner in school, fanatically immersed in studies, never had close
friends, and since starting Yale at 17, has cut himself off from family. Phone contact with
mother once or twice a year. Has never met stepfather.
WORK: Successful chemist—develops new hormonal–based pesticides for DuPont.
Strictly an eight–to–five job, no passion about field, recently growing bored with his work.
Keeps current with the research in field but never during his off hours. High income plus
valuable stock options. A hoarder: enjoys tabulating his assets and managing his
investments and spends every lunch hour alone, studying stock market research.
IMPRESSION: Schizoid, sexually compulsive—very distant—refused to look at me—not
once did he meet my gaze—no sense of anything personal between us—clueless about
interpersonal relations, responded to my here–and–now question about his first
impressions of me with a look of bewilderment—as though I were speaking Catalan or
Swahili. He seemed edgy, and I felt uncomfortable with him. Absolutely no humor. Zero.
Highly intelligent, articulate but stingy with words—makes me work hard. Tenaciously
concerned about therapy cost (though he can easily afford it). Requested fee reduction,
which I refused. Seemed unhappy about my starting a couple minutes late and did not
hesitate to inquire whether we`d make up this time at end of session to get full value.
Questioned me twice about precisely how much advance notice he needed to give to
cancel a session and avoid being charged.
Closing the chart, Julius thought:Now, twenty–five years later, Philip is a therapist.
Could there be a more unsuitable person in the world for that job? He seems very much
the same: still no sense of humor, still hung up about money (maybe I shouldn`t have
made that crack about his bill). A therapist without a sense of humor? And so cold. And
that edgy request to meet at hisoffice. Julius shivered again.
3
_________________________
Lifeis a miserable thing. I
have decided to spend my life
thinking about it.
_________________________
Union Street was sunny and festive. The clatter of silverware and the buzz of animated
luncheon conversation streamed from the packed sidewalk tables at Prego, Beetlenut,
Exotic Pizza, and Perry`s. Aqua–marine and magenta balloons tethered to parking meters
advertised a weekend sidewalk sale. But as Julius strolled toward Philip`s office he barely
glanced at the diners or the outdoor stalls heaped with the leftover designer clothes from
the summer season. Nor did he linger at any of his favorite shop windows, not at Morita`s
antique Japanese furniture shop, the Tibetan shop, or even Asian Treasures with the gaily
colored eighteenth–century roof tile of a fantastical woman warrior that he rarely passed
without admiring.
Nor was dying in his mind. The riddles connected with Philip Slate offered
diversion from those disquieting thoughts. First there was the riddle of memory and why
he could so easily conjure up Philip`s image with such eerie clarity. Where had Philip`s
face, name, story been lurking all these years? Hard to get his mind around the fact that
the memory of his whole experience with Philip was contained neurochemically
somewhere in the cortex of his brain. Most likely Philip dwelled in an intricate «Philip»
network of connected neurons that, when triggered by the right neurotransmitters, would
spring into action and project an image of Philip upon a ghostly screen in his visual
cortex. He found it chilling to think of harboring a microscopic robotic projectionist in
his brain.
But even more intriguing was the riddle of why he chose to revisit Philip. Of all his
old patients, why choose Philip to lift out of deep memory storage? Was it simply
because his therapy had been so dismally unsuccessful? Surely there was more to it than
that. After all, there were many other patients he had not helped. But most of the faces
and names of the failures had vanished without a trace. Maybe it was because most of his
failures had dropped out of therapy quickly; Philip was an unusual failure in that he had
continued to come. God, how he continued! For three frustrating years he never a missed
session. Never late, not one minute—too cheap to waste any paid time. And then one day,
without warning, a simple and irrevocable announcement at the end of an hour that this
was his last session.
Even when Philip terminated, Julius had still regarded him as treatable; but then,
he always erred in the direction of thinking everyone was treatable. Why did he fail?
Philip was serious about working on his problems; he was challenging, smart, with
intelligence to burn. But thoroughly unlikable. Julius rarely accepted a patient he
disliked, but he knew there was nothing personal in his dislike of Philip:anyone would
dislike him. Consider his lifelong lack of friends.
Though he may have disliked Philip, heloved the intellectual riddle Philip
presented. His chief complaint («Why can`t I do what I really want to do?») was an
enticing example of will–paralysis. Though the therapy may not have been useful for
Philip, it was marvelously facilitative for Julius`s writing, and many ideas emerging from
the sessions found their way into his celebrated article «The Therapist and the Will» and
into his bookWishing, Willing, and Acting. The thought flashed though his mind that
perhaps he had exploited Philip. Perhaps now, with his heightened sense of connectivity,
he might redeem himself, might yet accomplish what he had failed to do before.
Four–thirty–one Union was a modest stucco two–story corner building. In the
vestibule Julius saw on the directory Philip`s name: «Philip Slate Ph.D. Philosophical
Counseling.» Philosophical counseling? What the hell is that? Next, Julius snorted, it`ll
be barbers offering tonsorial therapy and greengrocers advertising legume counseling. He
ascended the stairs and pressed the bell.
