!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
During December, Petyr Cohen walked us step-by-step through increasingly fraught scenarios of ethical dilemmas which commonly emerge during analysis. We easily dispensed with the risks of treating other family members of a patient, and receiving, or proffering gifts. Next, we covered non-sexual boundary violations.
After the seminar, Jeanne and I found our usual table along with Petyr. I asked him, “Can you give a real-life example of a violation, something I might actually encounter?”
He cleared his throat, sat up straighter, and pronounced, “Say your client has season tickets for the Bruins, box seats, front row. You are a big fan of Bobby Orr, and you wish to…”
“Wait a minute,” Jeanne interjected. “He retired a couple of years ago, didn’t he? I mean, I’m no hockey fan, but even I’ve heard of Bobby Orr.”
“Thank you, Dr. Heldman, I suppose you’re right. I’m not really a fan either. I’ve never quite grasped the American obsession with team sports, especially the more violent ones like football and ice hockey. I believe it may have some connection with the deep strain of anti-intellectualism in our culture. The know-nothings who frequent these gladiatorial competitions – it’s as if their brains only have room for either sports, or useful thought. I was merely responding to Sarah’s request for a relevant example. Indulge me if you will?”
He paused, allowing me to interrupt. “I don’t think I have that sports gene either. And you’re right, the amount of time and money we spend on all that play is inordinate, when it could be going to improve our society, to education, or…mental health.” Our dinner discussions had become the focus of my week, as I learned to banter with him, challenge and be challenged by his rigorous views. “But you said, ‘team sports’. Are there physical activities which do have a value, which can improve someone’s life, expand, not stifle our thinking?”
He turned directly towards me, and said, “I do love skiing. Growing up in Geneve, plying the piste was de rigueur. I have continued my love of the sport here in New England. Once my divorce is final, I hope the condominium we purchased in Killington will suffice in the settlement for me, while she is satisfied with the place in New York. As I was saying…”
I barged in with, “What do you think about, when you’re skiing? I knew someone, in college, who was obsessed with skiing. As a senior, he spent the year in Aspen, then after his residency, another year in Salt Lake, just so he could ski every day. He said those were the only times he felt free from…let’s see, how did he put it?…’the tyranny of thought’. He was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, yet he seemed expanded, not diminished, by his time away from academics.” I reflected, “He had the same passion for swimming, another individual sport.”
Petyr’s eyes fell out of focus as he leaned back in his chair. “I agree, wholeheartedly, with that outlook. While I’m not obsessed, like your friend seems to have been, abandoning school, and then a medical practice, nonetheless, I relish the times I am able to test my prowess on the slopes.” Looking back at me, he narrowed his eyes and asked, “This is the same boy who gave you that Jeep on your key ring?”
I nodded briefly.
He smiled, and said dreamily, “I wish I’d had the courage of your boy friend. What was his name?”
“Mike. Michael Harrison.”
“Michael,” he said softly. “He had the right idea. Once in this country, my parents encouraged me to ski race. Ach! Every weekend! The gates, restricting where I could turn – all the beauty washed away from the sport. I complained, they never took me back, and we started going to Nantucket in the summer for vacations. Finally, when I returned to a conference in St. Moritz, meeting up again with old school chums, I remembered the beauty of the sport, the freedom of turning wherever one will, always seeking the least crowded line, following the sun across the hill. I came back, told my wife we would find a place in Vermont, somewhere the boys could escape the city…” He drifted off into his memories.
“Would it be a boundary violation, Dr. Cohen, if I asked you about your wife?”
“Certainly not. We’re all friends here, correct? Not analyst and analysand. What is it you’d like to know?”
“You have two children, right?”
“Yes, two boys, 9 and 7.”
“You must have loved each other, once. Why, how does that end, two people falling out of love? How can that be?”
He paused for thought, then said, “Love seems simple. And the younger we are, the earlier we are in a relationship, it is indeed simple. Think of your earliest loves , your mother, your father…”
I quickly said, “No words, we speak to them without words, saying a lot about very little – ‘I’m hungry’, ‘I’m wet’, ‘I’m tired’.”
“And yet, the love is unconditional, no? When love re-appears again, for the first time with someone outside the family, we think it is everything in the world for us, all-defining, all encompassing. And it is, just as when we were babes.”
Jeanne added, “Right. We have to grow, not just our selves, but with someone else. And sometimes, we grow in ways that run counter to being with someone, is that where you’re going?”
Petyr nodded, “Correct. In my case – in our case – I discovered that my wife began to love our children, to the exclusion of all else. Not an unusual circumstance” – he glanced knowingly at me – “but one which a couple must work through in order to become fuller companions, to actually build a family. And that, I believe, was our failing.”
I challenged him. “But wouldn’t you expect her to have that unconditional love for her children, for your children? Wouldn’t that be a strong foundation for a family?”
He sighed, for once speechless. Then, “We tried to work that through. Lots of talk between us. Lots of words…”
“But no feelings? No longer any feelings?” I asked, remembering my years with Howard.
“What is the saying, ‘It takes two to tango?’ For us, love died in tandem. I felt none for her, and none from her, for me at least. I tried to learn what I missed, what I did wrong. She insisted it was not me, it was her. But I believe it was us, together, as a pair, from whom love evaporated, as mysteriously as it seemed to come. It was not an argument, no specific behaviors she found lacking. Our foundation, the hidden core of any relationship, was simply no more.”
I wondered, “But couldn’t you have spent more time with all of them, tried seeing where that would lead? You might have created with her a different kind of love, larger, fuller, with a family.”
“Ah, Dr. Stein, you do indeed have the makings of an analyst, don’t you?”
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