so, what is it you need to explore, to talk about today? i ask as we both settle in over tea in my consulting room...she seems blunt, almost angry, eyes fierce...at me? i insecurely wonder, silently to myself, of course, hiding behind my doctor's degree...it couldn't be about me, could it? i am the therapist, sorta good, sometimes, i think, i hope...a client angry at me? anchor yourself, i say to me in my head...oh yeah, it is her session, i silently remember...she's offering a sacred projection...
then she blurts out: i want to be able to live without always having to have a man in my life!...oh my, it is about me, sorta, cause i am a man and she hired me, a man, to help her live without a man! oh, the necessary twists and turns of deep psychotherapy...she's brave to say this, certainly desperate...and angry, very angry, which she needs to be for the battle to save her soul...we reflect on previous sessions...how this has been her major theme, her goal...
you want to be able to live without always needing a man? especially the kind of man that you have often had...who end up being losers ( i am kinda blunt, too)...and you end up hurting and disappointed...yes, she firmly states...and we are silent for a while...
somehow, somewhere in this space of wondering...i ask if she has remembered any dreams...well, yes, just the other night i had one...it was stupid and weird...i was with my nephew (she deeply loves her troubled teenage nephew and often is the only adult in his life who truly "sees" him)...and we were in this house and we were looking out the window and we see a wolf running across the pasture toward our house and it kills our dog, rips it, and then it just runs off, back across the pasture...then my nephew and i are suddenly in a camper somewhere, camping in the mountains...we are with a person from work, a friend of mine who is always funny...and my nephew and i are getting ready to go to denver to the airport to take a trip...and that's it...that's the dream!
is this one dream? i wonder, or, as often happens, as dreams get jumbled together in our waking world, is this two separate dreams? no, it is the same dream, she says firmly and with a smile...h-h-h-m-m-m, weird, i agree...
i reflect and project...sometimes wild animals in dreams are about our wild untamed side...and domestic animals are about, well, our domestic side (i'm so brilliantly obvious)...do you dream about wolves often, about animals? no, never...see how weird it was, she says...and this wolf just rips, kills your dog?...and just runs off? yep...
i'm thinking/projecting/wondering...and the camper in the mountains... and going on a trip...this dream is so seemingly disconnected...and yet it has come to you to help you...wild...angry...killing...domestic...camping...do you go camping in waking life? no, never...well, i would sometimes if i was involved with a man and he wanted to...
ohhh, if he wanted to...
we keep reflecting... the word "adventure" comes to me in a kind of weird, pre-concsious way... why?... and what is it about this seemingly cruel wolf killing her dog and just running off? why would a wolf kill a dog?...
how do you have adventure, you know, have fun? well, i don't...i just work and go home, sometimes i go out with my girl friends, never go out alone...i'd go on some trips if the man i was with wanted to, but i'd never go alone...
wow! you never would go on a trip alone? without a man?
no.
so, you want to live your life without always needing a man? and this untamed wild, independent wolf side of you comes and kills your tame, dependent domestic side?
and, when the domestic, dependent side is killed, you are suddenly on a camping adventure with people you love and admire...you are free to take a trip, to fly away...without a man...
h-h-m-mm, nuff said.
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