No, that's not a typo. I think 75% of the last session with My Therapist was a sham. As my decreasingly photographic memory continues to call up details of the eventful denouement of our psychoanalytical moment in time, I am increasingly of the opinion that my Free and Final Session was rife with ulterior motives.
As I left the office, I noticed a device in his chair. Perhaps it was a cell phone. Perhaps it was a small tape recorder. Perhaps it's paranoia, but I don't think so. I think the entire Final Fifty may have been for the sole purpose of absolving himself of any professional consequences, should I have chosen to raise Homo Hell beyond these humble pages about what I perceived to be an inappropriate advance in the guise of psychoanalysis. I think it's entirely plausible that the device was a tape recorder semi-concealed so as to capture my granting of absolution and thereby indemnify himself against any possible future consequences.
It wouldn't be the first time someone had mistaken a doctor's intentions and rushed off to the courthouse to have their new pool financed by someone's malpractice insurance. And I spent enough time in law school to know that it wouldn't be the first time someone had invited the possibly-aggrieved to a sit-down (free!) while wearing a wire or otherwise taping the exchange that would grant them immunity in perpetuity (they hope).
I'd like to think that none of this is true. I'd like for it not to cross my mind. But it did. And that, dear reader, is what I meant when I told him that "the sanctity of this office and this experience has been cracked for me." Even after the Final Fifty, I'm questioning the authenticity of what went down. I know full well I'd never, ever be able to open up unedited again. I'd be looking around the proverbial corner for the hidden motivation to make itself manifest. It's bad enough that I think I may have been taped without my knowledge or consent. (I probably signed some sort of waiver allowing the taping when I first agreed to be seen. Not that it matters. Legal action was never even close to making my list of responses. And in retrospect, it would have been wholly inappropriate, not to mention ineffectual, if it had crossed my mind...which it didn't.)
I insisted that he understand just how demeaning it felt to be offered a one-sided romantic, erotic relationship in which I would portray for him all of my boyfriend tendencies and he would parrot nice things back to me at arm's length...all for the low, low price of $110 per 50 minutes. The money, I noted, isn't just a boundary. It's a Deluxe-printed, bank-processed insult of mammoth proportions when you couple it with the offer of a pseudo-relationship. And let's not forget, I ranted, the whole point to my being there was that I was prone to one-sided relationships. So now My Therapist was doing exactly what all the others had done.
The light bulb went on - for him. Or so it seemed. He acknowledged that I was so good ("star patient") that I had sucked him in both against his will and without his knowledge. Sucked him into my "drama", he said. My drama. He suggests what he suggested and I sucked him into my drama. Now that, my good people, is what the Texans call "chutzpah". I asked for clarification on just what an "erotic relationship" within the bounds of appropriate psychoanalytic practice looks like. He explained that I would have sexual dreams about him, as most patients do (!). Then I would share them with him (!!). I would also daydream about him sexually (!!!). I'd share that, too (!!!!). He would, in turn, say nice things to me and remind me that time is up and that I owe him money. (My self-serving paraphrase, not his exact words.)
It does not escape me that I phoned a therapist I'd met and asked for a recommendation to one of his colleagues specifically because I'd already had the dreams, daydreams, etc. about him. I strongly suspect that if it had been him who'd made the same therapeutic suggestion: an Almost Relationship for 50 minutes once a week for the low, low price of $110 a shot, I'd have said OK. I'm pretty sure I'd have jumped at the chance to enjoy 50 minutes of fantasy with someone who should not, could not, would not reciprocate it. Not really, anyway...and not fully. And I'd have written my check and started counting the minutes to the next time. And I wouldn't have felt demeaned in the least.
Even though it would have been a complete sham.
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