Loneliness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Cleanness (2020)

  It isn’t that, he said after a pause, I mean that’s not the main reason. He paused again, and the noise of the restaurant rose around us. I hadn’t been aware of it for some time, but now I heard the voices at the other tables, heard without un derstanding; they were jumbled, overlapping and indistinct, punctuated suddenly by an eruption of laughter in a far corner. When I was little, R. began, speaking more slowly than I had ever heard him speak, and almost with a different voice, muted and inward, a voice that though it addressed me didn’t welcome my company. When I was living in the Azores, he said, it was terrible, there was nothing to do, there were more cows around than people. I had maybe two friends, he said, and we lived so far away from everything I didn’t even get to see them very much, I only saw them at school. There were my sisters, but they were older, they didn’t want anything to do with me, and my parents—I don’t know, they were fine, I know you say I care too much about what they think but we’ve never been close, I’m not really sure they think about me all that much. All I did was watch TV, stupid cartoons or American shows, it was the only thing to do. There was only one person I was close to, and he wasn’t my friend, he was older, a friend of my father’s. We had known him forever, we called him uncle but he wasn’t our uncle, he was just my father’s friend. He was always nice, he would talk to me and ask me things and listen to me, he was the only person who made me feel like I was interesting. He was at our house a lot, he’d come over for dinner, and I was always happy to see him, more than happy, excited; I guess I had a crush on him, I don’t know, I didn’t think of it like that. When I was older, twelve or thirteen, we would go on walks while my mother was making dinner. It sounds weird now but it didn’t feel weird, my parents thought it was good for me, and it was for a while, I think, R. said, I mean I was happy. There was a place we used to go, near the American base, a field with a big concrete shell of a building. I don’t know what it was exactly, it was like a mall, there were three floors but only the skeleton, nothing else; it was something they started to build a long time ago and didn’t finish.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It isn’t that, he said after a pause, I mean that’s not the main reason. He paused again, and the noise of the restaurant rose around us. I hadn’t been aware of it for some time, but now I heard the voices at the other tables, heard without un derstanding; they were jumbled, overlapping and indistinct, punctuated suddenly by an eruption of laughter in a far corner. When I was little, R. began, speaking more slowly than I had ever heard him speak, and almost with a different voice, muted and inward, a voice that though it addressed me didn’t welcome my company. When I was living in the Azores, he said, it was terrible, there was nothing to do, there were more cows around than people. I had maybe two friends, he said, and we lived so far away from everything I didn’t even get to see them very much, I only saw them at school. There were my sisters, but they were older, they didn’t want anything to do with me, and my parents—I don’t know, they were fine, I know you say I care too much about what they think but we’ve never been close, I’m not really sure they think about me all that much. All I did was watch TV, stupid cartoons or American shows, it was the only thing to do. There was only one person I was close to, and he wasn’t my friend, he was older, a friend of my father’s. We had known him forever, we called him uncle but he wasn’t our uncle, he was just my father’s friend. He was always nice, he would talk to me and ask me things and listen to me, he was the only person who made me feel like I was interesting. He was at our house a lot, he’d come over for dinner, and I was always happy to see him, more than happy, excited; I guess I had a crush on him, I don’t know, I didn’t think of it like that. When I was older, twelve or thirteen, we would go on walks while my mother was making dinner. It sounds weird now but it didn’t feel weird, my parents thought it was good for me, and it was for a while, I think, R. said, I mean I was happy. There was a place we used to go, near the American base, a field with a big concrete shell of a building. I don’t know what it was exactly, it was like a mall, there were three floors but only the skeleton, nothing else; it was something they started to build a long time ago and didn’t finish.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Rather, I was uncomfortable because the hand-holding was invariably effective: it made me feel like a magus, someone with extraordinary powers I didn’t understand. Ultimately, a few months after she had buried her husband, Irene stopped needing and requesting hand-holding. Throughout our therapy I was dogged about engagement. I refused to be pushed away. To her, “I’m numb; I don’t want to talk; I don’t know why I’m here today,” I responded with some comment such as, “But you are here. Some part of you wants to be here, and I want to talk to that part today.” Whenever possible I translated events into their here-and-now equivalents. For example, consider the beginnings and endings of the hour. Frequently Irene entered my office and walked briskly to her chair without even a glance at me. I rarely let that pass. I might say, “Oh, so it’s going to be one of those sessions,” and focus on her reluctance to look at me. Sometimes she responded, “Looking at you makes you real, and that means you’ll have to die soon.” Or, “If I look at you, that makes me feel helpless and gives you too much power over me.” Or, “If I look at you, I might want to kiss you,” or, “I’ll see your eyes demanding that I get well quickly.” The ending of every session was problematic: she hated my having so much control and balked at leaving my office. Every ending was like a death. During her most difficult periods, she was unable to keep images in her mind and feared that once I was out of sight, I would cease to exist. She also considered endings of sessions as symbols of how little she meant to me, how little I cared for her, how quickly I could dispense with her. My vacations or professional trips invariably posed such major problems that on several occasions, I chose to phone to maintain contact. Everything became grist for the here-and-now mill: her wishes for me to compliment her; to tell her that I thought about her more than my other patients; to acknowledge that were we not therapist and patient, I would desire her as a woman. Ordinarily the here-and-now focus in psychotherapy has many advantages. It imparts a sense of immediacy to the therapy session. It provides more accurate data than relying on patients’ imperfect and ever-shifting views of the past. Since one’s mode of relating in the here-and-now is a social microcosm of one’s mode of relating to others, both past and present, one’s problems in relating are immediately revealed, in living color, as the relationship with the therapist unfurls.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A person whose social engagement system is suppressed has trouble reading positive emotions from other people’s faces and postures and also has little capacity to feel his or her own nuanced positive affects. Thus, one finds it difficult to know if that other person can be trusted (whether he or she is threatening or safe, friend or foe). According to the polyvagal theory, being in shutdown (immobility/freezing/or collapse) or in sympathetic/hyperactivation (fight or flight) greatly diminishes a person’s capacity to receive and incorporate empathy and support. The facility for safety and goodness is nowhere to be found. To the degree that traumatized people are dominated by shutdown (the immobility system), they are physiologically unavailable for face-to-face contact and the calming sharing of feelings and attachment. And while immobilization is rarely complete (as it is, for example, in catatonic schizophrenia), its ability to suppress life and one’s capacity for social engagement is extreme. A young man describes his dark plight as follows: “I feel all alone in the universe, dissociated from the human race … I am not sure that I even exist … Everyone is part of the flower; I am still part of the root.”i It is not surprising that, try as they may, many traumatized clients are little able to receive support and caring from their well-intentioned therapists—not because they don’t want to, but because they are stuck in the primitive root of immobility with its greatly reduced capability for reading faces, bodies and emotions; they become cut off from the human race. For this reason such a client may not be readily calmed by the positive feelings and attitude of empathy the therapist provides, and may even perceive the therapist as a potential threat. Unable to recognize caring feelings in the face and posture of others, such a client finds it extremely difficult to feel that anyone is safe or can really be trusted. And when high hopes are placed on the therapist, one small misstep or inadvertent fumble on the latter’s part can bring the entire relationship crashing down. As highly dissociated and shut-down clients involuntarily retreat, they experience additional self-recrimination and shame. Tormented by this loss of control, they are unable to accept and respond to the warmth and security offered by their therapist and may engage in unproductive transference and “acting out.” The inherent disconnect that then occurs often leaves both client and therapist bewildered and frustrated, feeling that they are failing in their respective roles. The client may perceive this breakdown as a devastating confirmation of his or her inadequacy, adding to a lifetime of (many perceived) failures. Therapists may also feel confused, helpless, inadequate and self-reproaching. Such situations, where the two partners are locked against one another, can readily become intractable Gordian knots. These therapeutic cul-de-sacs may eventually result in termination of treatment.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Deprived of face contact (and even a person who is blind from birth uses his or her hands to “see” other faces), we are (like Hanks’s character) cast away, adrift from our deepest needs and sense of purpose in life. Most of us would go insane without some kind of face-to-face contact. Along with facial recognition, the sound, intonation and rhythm of the human voice (prosody) have an equally calming effect. Even with clients who cannot tolerate face-to-face contact, the sound of the therapist’s voice—like the mother’s cooing to her infant—can be deeply soothing and enveloping. In a revealing commentary, Dr. Horvitz, a leading computer scientist, recently demonstrated his voice-based system, which asks patients about their symptoms and responds with empathy.67 When a mother said that her child was having diarrhea, the animated face on the screen said, in a supportive tone, “Oh, no; sorry to hear that.” This simple acknowledgment put the woman at ease and helped her to interact with the program in a secure and empowered manner. One physician told Horvitz that “it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion … I have no time for that.” Perhaps this computer system is the equivalent of Chuck Noland’s volleyball. Its programmed “empathy” was certainly helpful but a meager substitute for the real thing. It is a depressing commentary on the growing alienation of our postmodern, twenty-four-hour texting culture. While so many of our young keep in touch with dozens of people every hour in cyber-relationships, authentic face-to-face engagement is clearly on an apocalyptic wane. How sad and disturbing that the physician believed he didn’t have the minuscule time for such basic and salutary human communication—contact that would help humanize them both. If practiced regularly, it might even help both patient and physician stave off Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.68 Why Therapy FailsMany traumatized individuals, and especially those who have been chronically traumatized, live in a world with little or no emotional support, making them even more vulnerable. After a devastating event—be it violence, rape, surgery, war or an automobile accident—or in the aftermath of a childhood of protracted neglect and abuse, traumatized individuals, even those who share a residence with a friend, family member or intimate partner, tend to isolate themselves. Alternatively, they cling desperately to other people in the hope that they will somehow help and protect them. Either way, they are bereft of the real intimacy—the salubrious climate of belonging—that we all crave and need in order to thrive. Traumatized individuals are, at the same time, terrified of intimacy and shun it. So either way, avoidant or clinging, they are unable to maintain the balanced, stable and nurturing affiliations we all need, the egalitarian bond characterized by the Jewish theologian Martin Buber as the “I-thou” relationship.69

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Golde’s picture of marriage doesn’t match what we today in the West commonly refer to as intimacy. We’d be more inclined to call it domesticity (at best) or age-old oppression (at worst). In the past, when marriage was a more pragmatic institution, love was optional. Respect was essential. Men and women found emotional connection elsewhere, primarily in same-sex relationships. Men bonded over work and recreation; women connected through child rearing and borrowing sugar. Love within a marriage might develop over time but was not indispensable to the success of the family. Marriage used to be primarily a matter of economic sustenance, and it was a partnership for life. Mating today is a free-choice enterprise, and commitments are built on love. Intimacy has shifted from being a by-product of a long-term relationship to being a mandate for one. In companionate marriage, trust and affection have replaced respect as the relational pillar, bringing us to a place where the centrality of intimacy is unquestioned. The Ascendance of Intimacy The family therapist Lyman Wynne points out that “intimacy became recognized as a ‘need’ only when it became more difficult to achieve.” The advent of industrialization and the subsequent rise of urban living touched off a major shift in social structure. Work and family were separated, and so were we: we became more disconnected, more lonely, and more in need of meaningful contact. In contrast, when people live in close social networks they are more likely to seek space than intimate dialogue. When three generations live under one roof, everyone knows his place; the family members are more apt to abide by rules of formality that ensure privacy and discretion. Though much is shared, everyone gets to stake a claim on something personal—a private corner, a favorite coffee cup, a seat by the window, a quiet read in the loo. From Tokyo to Djibouti to Queens, New York, people who live in an extended family, or who are under the yoke of economic duress and forced to live in close quarters, tend not to seek greater closeness. When people live on top of each other, there is no isolation to transcend, and they are far less interested in embracing western, middle-class ideals of intimacy. Their lives are entwined enough as it is. Intimacy has become the sovereign antidote for lives of increasing isolation. Our determination to “reach out and touch someone” has reached a peak of religious fervor. Just this morning as I was penning these thoughts my home phone rang; and when I didn’t answer, my cell phone chimed in. It was followed immediately by my computer beeping to let me know I had mail. After my private line joined the cacophony, I gave up and allowed myself to be “touched.” In our world of instant communication, we supplement our relationships with an assortment of technological devices in the hope that all these gizmos will strengthen our connections. This social frenzy masks a profound hunger for human contact.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  A patient with cancer once told me that she knew death was near when her doctor, who previously had always concluded his physical exam with a playful pat on her fanny, instead ended his exam with a warm handshake. More than death, one fears the utter isolation that accompanies it. We try to go through life two by two, but each of us must die alone—no one can die our death with us or for us. The shunning of the dying by the living prefigures final absolute abandonment. Paula taught me how the isolation of the dying works two ways. The patient cuts herself off from the living, not wanting to drag family or friends into her horror by revealing her fears or her macabre thoughts. And friends shrink away, feeling helpless, awkward, uncertain of what to say or do, and reluctant to get too close to a preview of their own deaths. But Paula’s isolation was now at an end. If nothing else, I was constant. Though others had abandoned Paula, I would not. How good that she had found me! How could I have known then that the time would come when she would consider me her Peter, denying her not once but many times? She could find no suitable words to describe the bitterness of her isolation, a period she often referred to as her Garden of Gethsemane. Once she brought me a lithograph drawn by her daughter in which several highly stylized silhouette figures are stoning a saint, a single tiny crouching woman whose frail arms cannot protect her from the hail of granite. It still hangs in my office, and whenever I see it I think of Paula saying, “I am that woman, helpless before the onslaught.” It was an Episcopal priest who helped her find her way out of the Garden of Gethsemane. Familiar with the wise aphorism of Nietzsche, the Antichrist, “He who has a ‘why’ can put up with any ‘how,’” the priest reframed her suffering. “Your cancer is your cross,” he told her. “Your suffering is your ministry.” That formulation—that “divine illumination,” as Paula called it—changed everything. As she described her acceptance of her ministry and her dedication to easing the suffering of individuals stricken with cancer, I began to understand my assigned role: she wasn’t my project, I was hers, the object of her ministry. I could help Paula but not through support, interpretation, or even caring or fidelity. My role was to allow her to educate me. Is it possible that someone whose days are limited, whose body is infiltrated with cancer, can experience a “golden period”? Paula did. It was she who taught me that embracing death honestly permits one to experience life in a richer, more satisfying manner.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  She shrugs. “Not really. I keep thinking that it will come back, but I can’t say I miss it.” While Stephanie’s desire has remained stagnant, Warren’s frustration has risen. “I’ve tried everything,” he tells me. “She asks for help; I give her help. I do the dishes; I let her sleep late on the weekends; I take the kids out so she can have some time to herself. But, you know, I work, too. I’m meeting deadlines all day long. It’s not like I’m having a picnic. She thinks all I want is to get laid, but that’s not it. I want to come home and be with my wife sometimes. But all I get is a woman who’s become all mother. It’s all about the kids. What we need to plan, what we need to do, what we need to buy. Can’t we just give it a rest once in a while?” “Have you seen the movie Before Sunset ?” I ask him. “At one point the main character, Jesse, says that he feels as though he’s running a day care center with someone he used to date.” “Exactly!” Warren snaps. “Do you ever have fun?” I ask. “Oh, we have a good time. We do a lot together as a family, and I love that. We went apple picking last weekend. We ride our bikes, go to the park, that kind of thing. The kids are fantastic; we laugh a lot. Stephanie is a terrific mom. She’s always looking for something new to do together.” “Together à deux, or together with all of you?” “Together with all of us,” he grumbles. Eros Redirected Stephanie bursts with creativity: art projects, nature walks, trips to museums and fire stations, puppet shows, cookie cutting, cookie baking, cookie parties. Hardly a day goes by when she’s not thinking about something fun and new to do with the kids. Parental love throbs with vitality. Seeing Stephanie interact with her family, it is apparent that her playful energy did not disappear when she became a mother. Her life is filled with novelty and adventure, but it all takes place in relation to her kids, leaving Warren longing. The children are the adventure now. If we think of eroticism not as sex per se, but as a vibrant, creative energy, it’s easy to see that Stephanie’s erotic pulse is alive and well. But her eroticism no longer revolves around her husband. Instead, it’s been channeled to her children. There are regular playdates for Jake but only three dates a year for Stephanie and Warren: two birthdays, hers and his, and one anniversary. There is the latest in kids’ fashion for Sophia, but only college sweats for Stephanie. They rent twenty G-rated movies for every R-rated movie. There are languorous hugs for the kids while the grown-ups must survive on a diet of quick pecks. This brings me to another point.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  This scenario was to happen again and again throughout our work. I was the designated voice of reason. I often took the bait: I confronted her irrationality; argued; appealed to her reason; tried to rouse her precise, scientifically honed mind. Other times I just waited. But the result was always the same: she never budged an inch; she never relinquished her position. And I never got used to her dual nature, her extraordinary lucidity flanked by preposterous irrationality. Lesson 2: The Wall of Bodies If Irene’s initial dream anticipated the nature of our future relationship, a dream she had in the second year of therapy was the opposite—a beam directed backward, illuminating the trail we had already traveled together. I am in this office, in this chair. But there is a strange wall in the middle of the room between us. I can’t see you. At first I can’t see the wall distinctly; it’s irregular, with lots of crevices and protuberances. I see a small patch of fabric, red plaid; then I recognize a hand; then a foot and a knee. Now I know what it is—a wall of bodies heaped one upon the other. “And the feeling in the dream, Irene?” Almost always my first question. The feeling in a dream often leads to the center of its meaning. “Unpleasant, fearful. My strongest feeling was in the beginning—when I saw the wall and felt lost. Alone—lost—frightened.” “Tell me about the wall.” “When I describe it now, it sounds gruesome—like a heap of bodies at Auschwitz. And that patch of red plaid—I know that pattern, it was the pajamas Jack was wearing the night he died. Yet somehow the wall is not gruesome—it’s simply there, something I’m inspecting and studying. It might have even allayed some of my fear.” “A wall of bodies between us—what do you make of that, Irene?” “No mystery there. No mystery to the whole dream. It’s just what I’ve been feeling all along. The dream says you can’t really see me because of all the dead bodies, all the deaths. You can’t imagine. Nothing has ever happened to you! You’ve had no tragedy in your life.” The losses in Irene’s life had mounted. First her brother. Then her husband, who died at the end of our first year of therapy. A few months later her father was diagnosed with advanced prostatic cancer, followed shortly by her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease. And then, when she seemed to be making progress in therapy, her twenty-year-old godson—the only child of her cousin, a close lifelong friend—drowned in a boating accident. It was in the midst of her bitterness and despair over this last loss that she dreamed of the wall of bodies. “Keep going, Irene; I’m listening.”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  When their loneliness becomes too stark, traumatically disconnected individuals may seek increasingly more unrealistic (and sometimes dangerous) “hook-ups.” They see each new relationship possibility (or impossibility) as providing the caring protection that will calm their inner anxieties and buoy up their fragile sense of self. Having had a neglectful or abusive childhood predisposes them to chaotic relationships. These individuals continue to look for love “in all the wrong places”—a folly the song reminds us of. Even when one’s idealized (fantasy) rescuers become abusive, one seems oblivious to the early signs of that abuse and becomes increasingly ensnared in a damaging liaison precisely because it is so familiar or “like family.” Correcting such maladaptive patterns is the bane of many trauma therapists, who look on helplessly as their clients are repeatedly triggered and seduced into self-destructive affairs, reenacting their original trauma. Many therapists hold to the hope that they can somehow provide their clients with the positive, affirmative (I-thou) relationship that will assuage a client’s fractured psyche and restore his or her wounded soul to wholeness. However, what often happens is that a client’s dependency upon the therapist escalates and gets entirely out of hand–as shown so conspicuously in the gem of a film What About Bob? (1991). In it, Bob, the “abandoned” client, is so dependent, and his feelings about being left alone are so intolerable, that he tracks down his psychiatrist like a sleuth and follows him on a family vacation on Cape Cod. On the other hand, if a client experiences the therapist, who is supposed to be a healer, as a “proxy” abuser, the therapy often culminates in the client’s profound disappointment and/or seething rage. Traumatized individuals are not made whole through the therapeutic relationship alone. Even with the best of intentions, and highly developed empathic skills, a therapist often misses the mark here. The polyvagal theory and the Jacksonian principle of dissolution help us to understand why and how this happens.70 When the traumatized person is locked in either the immobilization response or the sympathetic arousal system, the social engagement function is physiologically compromised; the former, in particular, both inhibits sympathetic arousal and can almost completely suppress the social engagement system.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Ah jes’ wanted to thank you—thas all. I got a lot from that meetin’.” “Can you tell me what you got from it?” “Ah learned something urgent. Ah learned that Ah’m done with rearin’ children. Ah’m done with that—fo’ever. ...” Her voice trailed off and she looked away, peered down the corridor. Urgent? Forever?—Magnolia’s unexpected words intrigued me. I wanted to keep on talking to her and was disappointed to hear her say, “Oh, look theh, it’s Claudia, comin’ for me.” Claudia wheeled Magnolia out the front door to the van that was to take her to the nursing home to which she was being discharged. I followed her out to the curb and watched her and her chair being hoisted inside by the lift on the back of the van. “Good-bye, Doctah Yalom,” she said, waving to me. “Take care of yo’self.” Strange, I mused as I watched the van drive away, that I, who have devoted my life to apprehending the world of the other, have not, until Magnolia, truly understood that those whom we transform into myth are themselves myth-ridden. They despair; they mourn the death of a mother; they search for the exalted; they too rage against life and may need to maim themselves to be done with giving. 4 Seven Advanced Lessons in the Therapy of Grief Long ago Earl, my friend of many years, phoned to tell me that his closest friend, Jack, had just been diagnosed with a malignant, inoperable brain tumor. Before I could commiserate, he said, “Look, Irv, I’m not calling for me—but for someone else. A favor—something really important to me. Look, will you treat Jack’s wife, Irene? Jack’s going to die an ugly death—perhaps the hardest death life can deal. It doesn’t help matters that Irene is a surgeon: she’ll know too much, and it’ll be agonizing for her to stand and watch helplessly as his cancer eats away his brain. And then she’ll be left with a young daughter and a full practice. Her future’s a nightmare.” As I listened to Earl’s request, I wanted to help. I wanted to give everything he asked. But there were problems. Good therapy requires crisp boundaries, and I knew both Jack and Irene. Not well, it’s true, but we’d been at a couple of dinner parties together at Earl’s home. I had also once watched a Super Bowl game with Jack and played tennis with him a few times. All of this I told Earl and wound up, “Treating someone you know socially never fails to get messy. The best way for me to help is to find the best referral—someone who doesn’t know the family.” “I knew you’d say that,” he replied. “I prepared Irene for that answer.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  And so it went, the two of us speaking past each other. I did my best to reach her. I told her I needed her—for myself, not for the group. Indeed, I did need her. There were issues in my life troubling me at the time, and I yearned for her inspiration and her soothing presence. Once, several months before, I had called Paula one evening, ostensibly to discuss our plans for the group but in reality because my wife was out of town and I was feeling lonely and anxious. After our phone conversation, which went on for over an hour, I felt much better—though slightly guilty for having gotten therapy on the sly. I thought now about that long, healing phone conversation with Paula. Why hadn’t I been more honest? Why hadn’t I simply said, “Look here, Paula, can I talk to you tonight? Can you help me—I’m feeling anxious, lonely, driven? I’m having trouble sleeping.” No, no, out of the question! I preferred to take my nourishment secretly. How hypocritical, therefore, for me to have demanded that Paula ask help from me openly. So she’d covertly asked for help, using a cover story about the workshop? So what! I should have tried to comfort her without insisting she genuflect. As I contemplated Paula’s anger rock, I realized how little chance there was of salvaging our relationship. Certainly this was no time for subtlety, and I opened up to her as never before. “I need you,” I said, reminding her, as I often had before, that therapists too have needs. “And perhaps,” I went on, “I haven’t been sensitive enough to your distress. Yet I’m not a mind reader, and haven’t you for years refused all my offers to help you?” What I wanted to say was, “Give me another chance. Even if this one time I didn’t pick up on your distress, Paula, don’t leave forever.” But I had come close enough to begging that day. Paula was adamant, and we parted without touching. I put Paula out of my mind for many months until Dr. Kingsley, the young psychologist to whom she had taken such an irrational dislike, told me of a disagreeable encounter she had had with Paula. Paula had returned to the group Dr. Kingsley was leading (we now had several groups in the project) and—sounding like “Mrs. Cancer,” as the psychologist put it—had monopolized the session with a speech. I immediately phoned Paula and invited her to lunch again.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Rosa blushed but nodded assent. Time was passing. I suddenly realized I hadn’t explored what the group could offer Magnolia. I had been too enchanted by the promise of her largesse and the memory of that refrain: “You would lose them . . . I know how to use them. ” “You know, Magnolia, you should get something from the group too. You started the meeting by saying that what you want from the group is to be a good listener. But I’m impressed, very impressed, with what a good listener you already are. And a good observer too: look at the details you remember about Rosa’s blanket. So I don’t think you need a lot of help with learning to listen. How else can we help you in this group?” “Ah don’ know how dis group can help me.” “I heard a lot of good things said about you today. How does that feel?” “Well, natchally, dat feels good.” “But Magnolia, I have a hunch you’ve heard that before—that people have always loved you for how much you give. Why, the nurses were saying that very thing before the group met today—that you’ve raised a son and fifteen foster children and never stop giving.” “Not now. Ah can’t give nuthin’ now. Ah can’t move mah legs, and those bugs—” She shuddered suddenly, but her soft smile remained. “Ah don’t want to go back home no more.” “What I mean, Magnolia, is that it probably isn’t too helpful for others to tell you things about yourself that you already know. If we’re going to help you here, we need to give you something else. Maybe we’ve got to help you learn new things about yourself, give you some feedback about your blind spots, things you may not have known.” “Ah done tol’ you, Ah gets help by helpin’ other folks.” “I know that, and that’s one of the things I really like about you. But you know, it feels good to everyone to be helpful to others. Like Martin—look what it meant to him to help Rosa by being understanding;” “Dat Martin is sometin’. He don’ move too good, but he’s got a fine head on his shoulders, a real fine head.” “You do help others and you’re good at it. You’re a marvel, and I agree with Rosa, the hospital should hire you. But Magnolia,” I hesitated in order to give my words greater impact, “it would be good for others to be able to help you too. By being so totally giving, you don’t let others get help from helping you. When Rosa said she’d like to go home with you, I was thinking too how great it would be to be comforted by you all the time. I’d like that too.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Till he'd gone and married that Bertha Coutts, as if to spite himself. Some people do marry to spite themselves, because they're disappointed of something. And no wonder it had been a failure.--For years he was gone, all the time of the war: and a lieutenant and all: quite the gentleman, really quite the gentleman!--Then to come back to Tevershall and go as a gamekeeper! Really, some people can't take their chances when they've got them! And talking broad Derbyshire again like the worst, when she, Ivy Bolton, knew he spoke like any gentleman, _really_. Well well! So her ladyship had fallen for him! Well,--her ladyship wasn't the first: there was something about him. But fancy! A Tevershall lad born and bred, and she her ladyship in Wragby Hall! My word, that was a slap back at the high-and-mighty Chatterleys! But he, the keeper, as the day grew, had realised: it's no good! It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them. With a sudden snap the bleeding desire that had drawn him after her broke. He had broken it, because it must be so. There must be a coming together on both sides. And if she wasn't coming to him, he wouldn't track her down. He mustn't. He must go away, till she came. He turned slowly, ponderingly, accepting again the isolation. He knew it was better so. She must come to him: it was no use his trailing after her. No use! Mrs. Bolton saw him disappear, saw his dog run after him. "Well well," she said. "He's the one man I never thought of; and the one man I might have thought of. He was nice to me when he was a lad, after I lost Ted. Well well! Whatever would _he_ say if he knew!" And she glanced triumphantly at the already sleeping Clifford, as she stepped softly from the room. CHAPTER XI Connie was sorting out one of the Wragby lumber rooms. There were several: the house was a warren, and the family never sold anything. Sir Geoffrey's father had liked pictures and Sir Geoffrey's mother had liked cinquecento furniture. Sir Geoffrey himself had liked old carved oak chests, vestry chests. So it went on through the generations. Clifford collected very modern pictures, at very moderate prices. So in the lumber room there were bad Sir Edwin Landseers and pathetic William Henry Hunt birds' nests: and other Academy stuff, enough to frighten the daughter of an R. A. She determined to look through it one day, and clear it all. And the grotesque furniture interested her.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Never exposed to broad daylight, the spell of the other is preserved. There’s no need to worry that your friends won’t like him, since nobody knows about him. Affairs unfold in the margins of our lives, and are luxuriously free of the dental appointments, taxes, and bills. Then there are barriers to overcome. To see each other, you have to make an effort, sometimes a huge one. There are hoops to jump through, schedules to juggle, locations to secure, excuses to invent. And all that unflagging zeal repeatedly affirms the lovers’ importance to each other. Seen in this light, Doug’s transgression was an attempt to recapture what he once had with his wife and could not live without: a sense of importance, a relief from loneliness, and a feeling of robustness. You Can Go Home Again By the time the affair ends, Doug’s marriage is down to the bare bones. Doug and Zoë are cordial, respectful, even occasionally affectionate, but emotionally they have flatlined. They have grown accustomed to vagueness regarding his repeated absences. His overtures are few and far between, and he is distracted. He is afraid of unintentionally disclosing something with a slip of the tongue; his secrecy is taking up more and more acreage in their marriage, leaving him with few subjects he can freely discuss with Zoë: the kids, the president, and the weather. As we unravel what sparked Doug’s affair with Naomi, it becomes clear to me why he chose not to fight for her but instead to stay with his wife. Zoë is terra firma. At the same time, her ability to keep things in perspective gives her a certain ease; it’s not hard for her to sleep through the night, or to get up in the morning. Zoë doesn’t seek passion. She is rarely swept away. With Naomi, Doug may have found the single missing piece, but with Zoë he has the rest of the puzzle. Doug and I discuss how his ideal of marriage holds up to the reality of his own particular union. He wants heat and warmth in the same place. He wants the kitchen table to be an altar of carnal merging at night, and a sunny breakfast nook for pancakes with the kids the next morning. But Doug will probably never experience with Zoë the same intensity he has had with Naomi. Affairs have their own brand of passion. Secrecy, torment, guilt, transgression, danger, risk, and jealousy are highly combustible, a Molotov cocktail, an erotic explosion far too threatening in a home with children. As Doug becomes clearer about what he can reasonably expect from his marriage, a new set of questions arises. What are his options now that he has chosen to stay? Can he recognize his desires without having to act on them?

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A young man describes his dark plight as follows: “I feel all alone in the universe, dissociated from the human race … I am not sure that I even exist … Everyone is part of the flower; I am still part of the root.” i It is not surprising that, try as they may, many traumatized clients are little able to receive support and caring from their well-intentioned therapists—not because they don’t want to, but because they are stuck in the primitive root of immobility with its greatly reduced capability for reading faces, bodies and emotions; they become cut off from the human race. For this reason such a client may not be readily calmed by the positive feelings and attitude of empathy the therapist provides, and may even perceive the therapist as a potential threat. Unable to recognize caring feelings in the face and posture of others, such a client finds it extremely difficult to feel that anyone is safe or can really be trusted. And when high hopes are placed on the therapist, one small misstep or inadvertent fumble on the latter’s part can bring the entire relationship crashing down. As highly dissociated and shut-down clients involuntarily retreat, they experience additional self-recrimination and shame . Tormented by this loss of control, they are unable to accept and respond to the warmth and security offered by their therapist and may engage in unproductive transference and “acting out.” The inherent disconnect that then occurs often leaves both client and therapist bewildered and frustrated, feeling that they are failing in their respective roles. The client may perceive this breakdown as a devastating confirmation of his or her inadequacy, adding to a lifetime of (many perceived) failures. Therapists may also feel confused, helpless, inadequate and self-reproaching. Such situations, where the two partners are locked against one another, can readily become intractable Gordian knots. These therapeutic cul-de-sacs may eventually result in termination of treatment. A Way Out Shut-down and dissociated people are not “in their bodies,” being, as we have seen, nearly unable to make real here-and-now contact no matter how hard they try. It is only when they can first engage their arousal systems (enough to begin to pull them up, out of immobility and dissociation), and then discharge that activation , that it becomes physiologically possible to make contact and receive support. Fortunately, there is a way to escape the immobilization system’s domination of the two less primitive systems—a way that healing practitioners must learn to exercise. This therapeutic solution is supported by Lanius and Hopper’s fMRI work mentioned earlier. 71 This compelling research, recording activity in the part of the brain associated with the awareness of bodily states and emotions, makes a clear differentiation between sympathetic arousal and dissociation in traumatized subjects.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Intimacy has shifted from being a by-product of a long-term relationship to being a mandate for one. In companionate marriage, trust and affection have replaced respect as the relational pillar, bringing us to a place where the centrality of intimacy is unquestioned. The Ascendance of Intimacy The family therapist Lyman Wynne points out that “intimacy became recognized as a ‘need’ only when it became more difficult to achieve.” The advent of industrialization and the subsequent rise of urban living touched off a major shift in social structure. Work and family were separated, and so were we: we became more disconnected, more lonely, and more in need of meaningful contact. In contrast, when people live in close social networks they are more likely to seek space than intimate dialogue. When three generations live under one roof, everyone knows his place; the family members are more apt to abide by rules of formality that ensure privacy and discretion. Though much is shared, everyone gets to stake a claim on something personal—a private corner, a favorite coffee cup, a seat by the window, a quiet read in the loo. From Tokyo to Djibouti to Queens, New York, people who live in an extended family, or who are under the yoke of economic duress and forced to live in close quarters, tend not to seek greater closeness. When people live on top of each other, there is no isolation to transcend, and they are far less interested in embracing western, middle-class ideals of intimacy. Their lives are entwined enough as it is. Intimacy has become the sovereign antidote for lives of increasing isolation. Our determination to “reach out and touch someone” has reached a peak of religious fervor. Just this morning as I was penning these thoughts my home phone rang; and when I didn’t answer, my cell phone chimed in. It was followed immediately by my computer beeping to let me know I had mail. After my private line joined the cacophony, I gave up and allowed myself to be “touched.” In our world of instant communication, we supplement our relationships with an assortment of technological devices in the hope that all these gizmos will strengthen our connections. This social frenzy masks a profound hunger for human contact. Tell Me How You Really Feel Interestingly, while our need for intimacy has become paramount, the way we conceive of it has narrowed. We no longer plow the land together; today we talk. We have come to glorify verbal communication. I speak; therefore I am. We naively believe that the essence of who we are is most accurately conveyed through words. Many of my own patients wholeheartedly embrace this assumption when they complain, “We’re not close.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The loneliness of sex in a brothel! So that was why my classmates talked so much about it among themselves: they had to rid themselves of the solitude they experienced each time they faced a woman. An adolescent who is in the least bit shy, as I was, finds sex wretched and shameful. One day, I almost discovered intimacy. I had come during a busy period, and I had always refused to wait in line, for I needed to maintain the illusion that I was the only lover of a willing woman. After the disgusting promenade along the closed doors all besieged by waiting men, I was finally taken in by a thin little redhead with a sharp profile and enormous freckles all over her face. Nobody seemed to want her. I was often attracted, in spite of their ugliness, to women who had been ignored, for their expression of sadness made them seem less frightening and more attentive. She welcomed me joyfully and fussed over me and, for some unknown reason, called me her little pinhead. I was almost happy. The next time I came to the district, I made at once for her crib. My hesitant steps found it automatically. She recognized me, called me her little pinhead again, stroked my hair, and made no attempt to hurry me. Afterward, as she was not expecting many customers, we rested alongside each other on the couch. It was winter and the rain was falling outside. She had lit a brazier over which the water from her basin slowly rose in steam. The little room was comfortably warm and we were both nude. Such confident relaxation, only a yard away from the cold and the rain that beat against the door, added to my poise and happiness. She babbled all the while and kept asking questions, ordinary ones as well as some indiscreet ones. I lied a good deal, but answered willingly enough. Physically, I felt satisfied, not having been hurried, I had almost had time to exhaust the unbearable and painful tension with which all other girls had left me. It really was quite something to be chatting away with a woman, both of us nude, and the word “nude,” which I repeated over and over again to myself, seemed full of confused meanings. She took an interest in my life and seemed to admire me, and I had, at last, a feeling of sexual communion and of sharing my secret.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  He wrote her name down. “Why not?” he said suddenly, uncertainly. “Why the heck not.” He gave her a number and wandered off to another group of shooters. Dwight’s number was called early. He fired his ten rounds in rapid succession, hardly pausing for breath, and got a rotten score. A couple of his shots hadn’t even hit the paper. When his score was announced he handed my mother the rifle. “Where’d you get this blunderbuss, anyway?” he asked me. My mother answered. “A friend of mine gave it to him.” “Some friend,” he said. “That thing is a menace. You ought to get rid of it. It shoots wild.” He added, “The bore is probably rusted out.” “The bore is perfect,” I said. My mother’s number should have been called after Dwight’s, but it wasn’t. One man after another went up to the line while she stood there watching. I got antsy and cold. After a long wait I walked over to the river and tried to skip rocks. A mist drifted over the water. My fingers grew numb but I kept at it until the sound of rifle fire stopped, leaving a silence in which I felt too much alone. When I came back my mother had finished her turn. She was standing around with some of the men. Others were putting their rifles in their cars, passing bottles back and forth, calling to each other as they drove away into the dusk. “You missed me!” she said when I came up. I asked her how she had done. “Dwight brought in a ringer,” one of the men said. “Did you win?” She nodded. “You won? No kidding?” She struck a pose with the rifle. I waited while my mother joked around with the men, laughing, trading mild insults, flushed with cold and the pleasure of being admired. Then she said good- bye and we walked toward the car. I said, “I didn’t know you were a member of the NRA.” “I’m a little behind in my dues,” she said. Dwight and Pearl were sitting in the front seat with the ham between them. Neither of them spoke when we got in. Dwight pulled away fast and drove straight back to the house, where he clomped down the hall to his room and

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  We lived in a boardinghouse in West Seattle. At night, if my mother wasn’t too tired, we took walks around the neighborhood, stopping in front of different houses to consider them as candidates for future purchase. We went for the biggest and most pretentious, sneering at ranches and duplexes—anything that smelled of economy. We chose half-timbered houses, houses with columns, houses with sculpted bushes in front. Then we went back to our room, where I read novels about heroic collies while my mother practiced typing and shorthand so she wouldn’t fall behind in her new job. Our room was in a converted attic. It had two camp beds and between them, under the window, a desk and chair. It smelled of mildew. The yellow wallpaper was new but badly hung and already curling at the edges. It was the kind of room that B-movie detectives wake up in, bound and gagged, after they’ve been slipped a Mickey. The boardinghouse was full of old men and men who probably only seemed old. Besides my mother only two women lived there. One was a secretary named Kathy. Kathy was young and plain and shy. She stayed in her room most of the time. When people addressed her she would look at them with a drowning expression, then softly ask them to repeat what they had said. As time went on, her pregnancy began to show through the loose clothes she wore. There didn’t seem to be a man in the picture. The other woman was Marian, the housekeeper. Marian was big and loud. Her arms were as thick as a man’s, and when she pounded out hamburger patties the whole kitchen shook. Marian went with a marine sergeant from Bremerton who was even bigger than she was but more gentle and soft-spoken. He had been in the Pacific during the war. When I kept after him to tell me about it he finally showed me an album of photographs he’d taken. Most of the pictures were of his buddies. Doc, a man with glasses. Curly, a man with no hair. Jesus, a man with a beard. But there were also pictures of corpses. He meant to scare me off the subject with these pictures but instead they made me more interested. Finally Marian told me to stop bothering him.