Susan was now sixteen. She still refused to go to class, making it clear she had no intention of attending continuation school with a bunch of “uneducated” and “unsophisticated” teens. She was unwilling to be among people of “marginal” intelligence. Remarkably, her probation officer allowed her to remain at home—as long as she continued her therapy with Dr. Polk. The officer had observed a marked improvement in Susan since she started with Felix and believed that the lost teen might actually find her way.
Meanwhile, Helen thought that her daughter was thriving under Dr. Polk’s care.
In reality, Susan was deeply troubled and would later report that her therapy was adding to her anxiety. She later claimed that the sessions included hypnosis—and sex with her therapist while she was in a trance.
For her, the choice was clear: either she would surrender to Dr. Polk or risk being locked up in a mental institution. Whether Polk actually threatened the teen will never be known; however, Susan claimed that if she didn’t comply with his wishes, he would have committed her to U. C. Medical Center. She said that, at times, he would employ the plural “we” when speaking of decisions about her future. Susan was afraid to inquire about the “other” authorities who were also deciding her fate, choosing instead to go along with whatever Felix proposed.
While other teens her age were preparing for graduation and the prom, Susan claimed to be romantically involved with her forty-two-year-old married therapist. She alleged that her twice-weekly sessions consisted of “sex on the floor” of Dr. Polk’s Berkeley office.
Over time, though, the sex became consensual. Susan had grown comfortable with Felix who, despite his protectiveness, seemed to know how to make problems in her life go away. He had rescued her from school, even helping her to enroll in a course at Diablo Valley College in spite of the fact that she never completed more than the eighth grade.
Finally, someone in her life had taken charge, given her direction, and was really listening to her. Felix was the caring father—and mother—she never had. Even better, he wanted her. She loved that she seemed to be the most important person in his life.
But Susan Bolling was not well, and Felix Polk couldn’t see it.
Susan waited all day to tell her mother her secret. It was late 1974. She was seventeen now, and it was time to let Helen know that she was a woman. She had rehearsed the conversation in her mind countless times, how she would tell her mother that she was having an affair with Dr. Polk. She even tried to anticipate her mother’s reaction to the news that she was sleeping with a much older, married man.
What Susan failed to anticipate was her mother’s anger. Helen threatened to have Felix’s license revoked. Though she had never tried to intervene before, Helen Bolling would later say that she had always suspected that something was going on between the psychologist and her daughter—ever since Susan told her about sitting on Felix’s lap during some of their sessions.
Ultimately, Helen opted not to alert the authorities, going directly to Felix instead. It was the 1970s, a time when the victim of rape was often treated like the perpetrator, an outcome that Helen did not want for her daughter. As a minor, Helen had had her own experiences with the courts. She described an incident involving inappropriate contact with her father. The experience had been devastating, and she was determined to spare Susan.
Following Helen’s incident with her father, a subsequent investigation determined that the Avanzato home was not a suitable environment for young Helen. At first, she was placed in the care of her older half siblings, but ultimately she was sent to live in an orphanage. Life there was unbearable, and at the age of fourteen, with $100 in her pocket, Helen ran away to Chicago, Illinois.
A friend’s mother suggested she go there and loaned Helen money to get on her feet. Fearful that the authorities were on her trail, Helen changed her name to Lois Stokes and set off for the windy city, where she found work as a packer in a warehouse and a room to rent in a good neighborhood. Her first disappointment came at Christmas time when she lost her job at the warehouse. Though she quickly found a new job as a file clerk for an insurance company, she soon grew to dislike it. With little keeping her in Chicago, she agreed to follow a friend to Hollywood, California, shortly after she turned sixteen. The idea of living amid movie stars was appealing, and Helen readily traveled to the West Coast, where she continued to work odd jobs, mostly receptionist positions, to pay the bills.
But this was not the life that she wanted for her daughter. After learning of Susan’s affair, Helen telephoned Felix’s office, and the two had a discussion. She insisted the therapist “be kind” to her daughter when he ended their relationship. While Felix did not directly admit to a romance with Susan, neither did he deny that one was taking place, Helen later recalled. He simply promised to do as she asked.
On November 25, 1975, three years after her therapy sessions with Dr. Polk began, Susan celebrated her eighteenth birthday. Turning eighteen was emancipating. Susan was finally “of age.” In her mind, she was now an adult and no longer needed to hide her affair. She believed she was in love with the well- respected therapist who was old enough to be her father. It was cool to be his girlfriend, and she wanted everyone to know about the relationship.
One afternoon while participating in a group therapy session led by Felix, Susan stood up and playfully placed her arms around Felix’s shoulders.
“Felix and I are lovers,” she smiled.
Members of the group sat in stunned disbelief before quietly dispersing.
Susan recalled that Felix was mortified and then furious. His secret was out.
Yet, as Felix worried about how to handle the group, he learned that Susan had also confided their affair to a female therapist, who also worked in Berkeley. When Susan disclosed her romance to that therapist, she never imagined that the woman would promptly report the affair—not to authorities, but to Felix’s wife. Sharon Mann Polk was incensed, and according to Susan, both she and the therapist lashed out at
“They were mad at me!” Susan later recalled. “Yes, tell the wife, but don’t tell the medical board.”
Susan later claimed that she made the pronouncement hoping that it would anger Felix to the point of breaking off the romance with her, but that did not happen. Felix claimed that even though Sharon wanted to stay in the marriage, he wanted to be with Susan. Susan found his proclamation unbelievable. Sharon was beautiful, articulate, intelligent, and successful. For Susan, it was flattering to hear that Felix would choose her over his more accomplished wife.
Maybe Felix just wasn’t attracted to his wife anymore. Or perhaps he wanted to mold Susan into his dream girlfriend, she thought. According to Susan, Felix had gone to see a lawyer and was advised to leave Sharon and “marry her.” Marriage, the lawyer reportedly said, was the best legal solution for Felix, but that may or may not have been the case. According to experts, there may have been other factors at play.
Regardless of his marriage, the reality was that Felix had fallen in love with a woman who at fifteen was already very sick. Then the two began a very complicated social dance. It was not like the failed relationships with his older sister and his mother, women who were always in control. This time, it was Felix who was in control, and Susan was the patient he could help.
However, in this attempt to save Susan, he unwittingly became the focus of her many internal conflicts, a process called transference. In psychological terms, transference occurs when a patient shifts feelings of anger, rage, disappointment, or love onto their therapist. In Susan’s case, Felix became her father. Complicating matters was the fact that the transference was not limited to Susan. Felix, too, struggled to reconcile his vision of Susan to reality, as Susan may have became Felix’s fifteen-year-old sister whom he had fantasized about as a teen.
It was a deadly mix of transference and countertransference, one that would have explosive consequences.
Felix and Sharon Polk legally separated on October 10, 1978—one month after the couple celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary. Ironically, Felix had marked the occasion with a $600 gift of silver purchased at Gump’s, the famous San Francisco retail store. Then, he asked for a divorce.
That fall, his teenage girlfriend sat for the Standardized Achievement Tests (SATs). Susan scored a 740 out
