next meeting. He remembered how, years ago, when he taught
group therapy the beginning students complained of boredom as
they observed ninety minutes of talking heads. Later, when they
learned how to listen to the drama of each patient`s life and to
appreciate the exquisitely complex interaction between members,
boredom dissolved and every student was in place early awaiting
the next installment.
The looming end of the group propelled members to address
their core issues with increased ardor. A visible end to therapy
always has that result; for that reason pioneer practitioners like
Otto Rank and Carl Rogers often set a termination date at the very
onset of therapy.
Stuart did more work in those months than in three previous
years of therapy. Perhaps Philip had jump–started Stuart by serving
as a mirror. He saw parts of himself in Philip`s misanthropy and
realized that every member of the group, except the two of them,
took pleasure in the meetings and considered the group a refuge, a
place of support and caring. Only he and Philip attended under
duress—Philip in order to obtain supervision from Julius, and he
because of his wife`s ultimatum.
At one meeting Pam commented that the group never
formed a true circle because Stuart`s chair was invariably set back
a bit, sometimes only a couple of inches, but big inches. Others
agreed; they had all felt the seating asymmetry but never connected
it to Stuart`s avoidance of closeness.
In another meeting Stuart launched into a familiar grievance
as he described his wife`s attachment to her father, a physician
who rose from chairman of a surgery department, to medical
school dean, to president of a university. When Stuart continued,
as he had in previous meetings, to discuss the impossibility of ever
winning his wife`s regard because she continually compared him
to her father, Julius interrupted to inquire whether he was aware
that he had often told this story before.
After Stuart responded, «But surely we should be bringing
up issues that continue to be bothersome. Shouldn`t we?» Julius
then asked a powerful question: «How did you think we would feel
about your repetition?»
«I imagine you`d find it tedious or boring.»
«Think about that, Stuart. What`s the payoff for you in being
tedious or boring? And then think about why you`ve never
developed empathy for your listeners.»
Stuart did think about that a great deal during the following
week and reported feeling astonished to realize how little he ever
considered that question. «I know my wife often finds me tedious;
her favorite term for me isabsent, and I guess the group is telling
me the same thing. You know, I think I`ve put my empathy into
deep storage.»
A short time later Stuart opened up a central problem: his
ongoing inexplicable anger toward his twelve–year–old son. Tony
opened a Pandora`s box by asking, «What were you like when you
were your son`s age?»
Stuart described growing up in poverty; his father had died
when he was eight, and his mother, who worked two jobs, was
never home when he returned from school. Hence, he had been a
latch–key child, preparing his own dinner, wearing the same soiled
clothes to school day after day. For the most part, he had
succeeded in suppressing the memory of his childhood, but his
son`s presence propelled him back to horrors long forgotten.
«Blaming my son is crazy,” he said, «but I just keep feeling
envy and resentment when I see his privileged life.» It was Tony
who helped crack Stuart`s anger with an effective reframing
intervention: «What about spending some time feeling proud at
providing that better life for your son?»
Almost everyone made progress. Julius had seen this before;
when groups reach a state of ripeness, all the members seem to get
better at once. Bonnie struggled to come to terms with a central
paradox: her rage toward her ex–husband for having left her and
her relief that she was out of a relationship with a man she so
thoroughly disliked.
Gill attended daily AA meetings—seventy meetings in
seventy days—but his marital difficulties increased, rather than
decreased, with his sobriety. That, of course, was no mystery to
Julius: whenever one spouse improves in therapy, the homeostasis
of the marital relationship is upset and, if the marriage is to stay
solvent, the other spouse must change as well. Gill and Rose had
begun couples` therapy, but Gill wasn`t convinced that Rose could
change. However, he was no longer terrified at the thought of
ending the marriage; for the first time he truly understood one of
Julius`s favoritebon mots: «The only way you can save your
marriage is to be willing (and able) to leave it.»
Tony worked at an astonishing pace—as though Julius`s
depleting strength were seeping directly into him. With Pam`s
encouragement, strongly reinforced by everyone else in the group,
he decided to stop complaining of being ignorant and, instead, do
something about it—get an education—and enrolled in three night
courses at the local community college.
However thrilling and gratifying these widespread changes,
Julius`s central attention remained riveted on Philip and Pam. Why
their relationship had taken on such importance for him was
unclear, though Julius was convinced the reasons transcended the
particular. Sometimes when thinking about Pam and Philip, he was
visited by the Talmudic phrase «to redeem one person is to save
the whole world.» The importance of redeeming their relationship
soon loomed large. Indeed it became his raison d`ГЄtre: it was as
though he could save his own life by salvaging something human
from the wreckage of that horrific encounter years before. As he
mused about the meaning of the Talmudic phrase, Carlos entered
his mind. He had worked with Carlos, a young man, a few years
ago. No, it must have been longer, at least ten years, since he
