I am a psychiatrist now. I am somewhat of a rookie with only six years of experience, but I work well and take good care of my patients. I smile them and take them by the hand, I listen and nod and often rephrase what they have said themselves and repeat it right back at them. I always test to see whether they will realize I am simply repeating the same thing back at them, but they never do! They get all excited as though I have expressed the most significant insight someone has had in years. It might be helpful to listen to their own thoughts so much, so I keep on repeating, and they often get better.
I was treating a girl today. I don’t mean a little girl, now, she was about my age, probably a few years younger. She sat in the chair on the opposite side of my desk from me. The chair stood on five wheels, as so many office chairs do, and she pushed to the right with her feet. She traveled with small steps and slowly reached the left wall. Once she touched it and examined the surface of the wall, she pushed with her feet to the left. That’s how we talked. She reminded me of someone, but I didn’t spend a single calorie of energy wondering about what similarity I had found. Every future psychiatrist undergoes therapy and training which teach him to suppress his own issues and personal memories. One learns to perceive the person sitting in front of him and the situation he is in by referring as little as possible to specific personal events. It does work, thank god, because analyzing associations all the time makes me feel overloaded and stuck in my own cage. It’s not a bad cage, one might argue, because it is my own cage, but I never liked cages, even nice ones.
I didn’t remember her even when she told me her name: Lilitt. I talked to her: How are you today, Lilitt? Are you more certain of what you know now, Lilitt? Not that I was at fault for anything, I just didn’t remember.
On a Wednesday morning, she came in and said:
“I have something to tell you, Doctor. I think you’ll love it!” She was beaming, and I was genuinely interested.
“Of course, I’d be happy if it’s good for you. Tell me.”
“I remembered you, Doctor.”
I stood silent for a few seconds—something I never did without a reason. Now the reason was sheer surprise.
“Did you use to forget me, Lilitt? Do you mean that you forgot me after each session and then had to meet me again anew every time we had another session?” That could have been a new symptom, although it would take us in a completely different direction. “Is that what you mean?”
“No, Doctor, that’s not what I mean.” She was still beaming. I was relieved she didn’t have that symptom, but that beaming face of hers made me shift in my chair from one buttock to the other.
“So what do you mean?” I was getting scared now, mostly for my diagnosis.
She pushed to the right with her feet and made a dash for the left wall. Her feet stepped faster and in front of each other, as though moving across a dance floor. She put out both hands and slid them across the wall. It was the same old wall, and she still smiled.
“Could you please take out a sheet of paper and a blue pen, Doctor?” she asked from the other corner of the room.
“Of course, Lilitt. What will we need it for?” My voice was as neutral and friendly as ever.
Examining every bump in the wall, she said, “I will write five sentences, Doctor, and then pass it to you. Then you will read my five sentences and write five more sentences as a sequel to my five sentences and pass the sheet back to me. Then I will read your five sentences and write a sequel to them and then pass the sheet back to you. Then you will read my five sentences and write a se—“
She had looked up and seen me bathing in my own sweat.
“But in order for it to work, Doctor,” she said, beaming from ear to ear as though her mouth had been cut to reach both ears, “we need to step in the elevator.”
My scalp was boiling with my sweat.
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