Lying on the Couch
Page 44
"Positive. Exhilarating. But a little scary."
"You and I sit touching our bare feet together. What's that dream saying? Let your mind drift. Think about you and me sitting together. Think about therapy."
"When I think about therapy, I think about my client. He's left town."
"And . . . ," prompted Ernest.
"Well, I've been hiding behind my client. Now it's time for me to come out, to get started on myself."
"And . . . just let your thoughts run free, Carolyn."
"It's like I'm just beginning . . . good advice . . . you know, you gave me good advice for my client. . . damned good . . . and watching how much he was getting made me envious . . . made me long for something good for myself ... I need it. ... I need to start talking to you about Jess, whom I've been seeing a lot of lately—problems coming up as I get closer to him . . . hard time trusting that something good can happen to me . . . starting to trust you . . . passed every test . . . but it's scary too—don't quite know why . . . yes, I do . . . can't quite say why. Yet."
"Perhaps the dream says it for you, Carolyn. Look at what you and I are doing in the dream."
"I don't get it—touching the soles of our bare feet. So?"
"Look at how we're sitting—sole to sole. I think the dream is expressing a wish to sit soul to soul—spelled s-o-u-1. Not sole touching but soul touching."
"Oh, cute. Soul, not sole. Ernest, you can be very clever if I give you half a chance. Soul touching—yes, that feels right. Yes, that's what the dream is saying. It is time to begin. A new beginning. The cardinal rule here is honesty, right?
Ernest nodded. "Nothing more important than our being honest with each other."
"And anything I say here is acceptable, right? Anything is acceptable as long as it's honest."
"Of course."
"Then I have a confession to make," said Carol.
Ernest nodded, reassuringly.
"You ready, Ernest?"
Ernest nodded again.
"You sure, Ernest?"
Ernest smiled knowingly. And a little smugly—he had always suspected that Carolyn had kept some parts of herself concealed. He picked up his notepad, snuggled back cozily into his chair, and said, "Always ready for the truth."
(continued from front flap)
Readers Kave turned to Dr. Yalom's writing over and over for knowledge, insigkt, and a tantalizing, almost illicit look behind tke objective gaze of a psyckotkerapist, to taste tke forbidden fruit of wkat a tkerapist migkt really be tkinking during a tkerapy session. In Lyin^ on the Couch, tke reader is seated ringside at tke nastiest of power plays between tkerapists and patients and moved by a resolution ot surprising kumanity and redemptive faitk.
IRVIN D. YaLOM, M.D, is tke autkor of tke best-selling Love's Executioner and When Nietzsche Wept (winner of tke Commonwealtk Award for Best Fiction), Every Day Gets a Little Closer (witk Ginny Elkin), as well as several textbooks on psyckotkerapy, including tke classic Theory anJ Practice of Group Psychotherapy and Existential Psychotherapy. He is professor of psyckiatry at Stanford University and lives in Palo Alto, California.
Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich Jacket photograph by Geoff Spear
Al THOR photograph C 1996 BY REID YaLOM