Silent Partner

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. A sweet, creamy voice.

“So what else is new,” said Gray Hair.

“Any more follow-ups to present?” I asked.

No one answered.

“Then I guess we can move on to new material.”

“What about Sharon?” said Ponytail, grinning at the new arrival. “You haven’t shared a thing with us all semester, Sharon.”

The black-haired girl shook her head. “I really don’t have anything prepared, Walter.”

“What’s to prepare? Just pick a case, give us the benefit of your wisdom.”

“Or at least Paul’s wisdom,” said Julian.

Snickers, nods of assent.

She pulled at her earlobe, turned to me, seeking reprieve.

The crack about Kruse helped explain the tension that had accompanied her entrance. Whatever his therapeutic skills at manipulating roles, this supervisor had allowed his group to be poisoned by favoritism. But I was hired help, not the one to deal with it.

I asked her: “Have you presented at all this semester?”

“No.” Alarmed.

“Do you have any case you could discuss?”

“I… I suppose so.” She gave me a look more pitying than resentful: You’re hurting me but it’s not your fault.

Shaken a bit, I said, “Then go ahead, please.”

“The one I could talk about is a woman I’ve been seeing for two months. She’s a nineteen- year-old sophomore. Initial testing shows her to be within normal limits on every measure, with the MMPI Depression scale a little elevated. Her boyfriend is a senior. They met the first week of the semester and have been going together ever since. She self-referred to the Counseling Center because of problems in their relationship-”

“What kinds of problems?” asked Gray Hair.

“A communication breakdown. In the beginning they could talk to each other. Later, things started to change. Now they’re pretty bad.”

“Be more specific,” said Gray Hair.

Sharon thought. “I’m not sure what you-”

“Are they fucking?” asked Ponytail Walter.

Sharon turned red and looked down at the carpet. An old-fashioned blush- I hadn’t thought it still existed. A few of the students looked embarrassed for her. The rest seemed to be enjoying it.

“Are they?” pressed Walter. “Fucking?”

She bit her lip. “They’re having relations, yes.”

“How often?”

“I really haven’t kept a record-”

“Why not? It could be an important parameter of-”

“Hold on,” I said. “Give her a chance to finish.”

“She’ll never finish,” said Gray Hair. “We’ve been through this before- terminal defensiveness. If we don’t confront it, cut it off where it grows, we’ll be spinning our wheels the whole session.”

“There’s nothing to confront,” I said. “Let her get the facts out. Then we’ll discuss them.”

“Right,” said Gray Hair. “Another protective male heard from- you bring it out in them, Princess Sharon.”

“Ease up, Maddy,” said Aurora Bogardus. “Let her talk.”

“Sure, sure.” Gray Hair folded her arms across her chest, sat back, glared, waited.

“Go ahead,” I told Sharon.

She’d sat in silence, removed from the fray like a parent waiting out a spat between siblings. Now she picked up where she’d left off. Calm. Or on the edge?

“There’s been a communication breakdown. The patient says she loves her boyfriend but feels they’re growing distant from one another. They can no longer talk about things they used to be able to discuss.”

“Such as?” asked Julian, through a cloud of smoke.

“Just about everything.”

“Everything? What to have for breakfast? Stuffing versus potatoes?”

“At this point, yes. There’s been a complete breakdown-”

“Breakdown,” said Maddy. “You’ve used that word three times without explaining what you mean. Try clarifying rather than restating. Operationalize the word breakdown.”

“Things have deteriorated,” said Sharon, making it sound like a question.

Maddy laughed. “Terrific. That makes it perfectly clear.”

Sharon lowered her voice. “I don’t really know what you’re getting at, Maddy.”

Maddy shook her head in disgust, said to no one in particular: “Why waste time on this shit?”

“Second the motion,” someone said.

I said, “Let’s stick to the case. Sharon, why does this girl feel things have broken down?”

“We’ve discussed that for several sessions. She claims she doesn’t know. At first she thought he’d lost interest and was seeing another woman. He denies that- he spends all his free time with her, so she thinks he’s telling the truth. But when they’re together he won’t talk and seems angry at her- or at least she feels that. It came on all of a sudden, got worse.”

“Did anything else happen at that time?” I asked. “Some kind of stressful event?”

Another blush.

“Did they begin having sex at that time, Sharon?”

Nod. “Around then.”

“Were there sexual problems?”

“It’s hard to know.”

“Bullshit,” said Maddy. “It would be easy to know if you’d done your job properly.”

I turned to her and asked, “How would you go about getting that kind of information, Maddy?”

“Be real, establish rapport.” She ticked each phrase off with her finger. “Know the specific defenses of the client- be prepared for the defensive bullshit and roll with it. But if that doesn’t work, confront and stay with it until the client knows you mean business. Then simply go for it- bring up the subject, for Christ’s sake. She’s been seeing this woman for two months. She should have done all of that by now.”

I looked at Sharon.

“I have,” she said, the blush still in force. “We’ve talked about her defenses. It takes time. There are problems.”

“Sure are,” said Julian.

“Seck-shoo-all problems,” enunciated Maddy. “Say the ‘S’ word, honey. Next time it’ll be easier.”

Scattered laughter. Sharon seemed to be taking it calmly. But I kept my eye on her.

“Share the problems with us,” Walter was urging, grinning and playing with his ponytail.

“They… she isn’t satisfied,” said Sharon.

“Is she coming?” asked Julian.

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think so?”