Dare to Be Human

A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Journey

Michael Shoshani Rosenbaum

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135840082
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Daniel is 35, successful, a high level professional and an accomplished academic - yet he is also a virgin, who fears that he will spend the rest of his life alone. More importantly, Daniel has existed in an emotional bubble all of his life, and has had no intimate friendships. In other words, he is not fully alive, and seeks psychotherapy because he is haunted by not understanding what is wrong with him. He is attractive to women, yet as soon as a woman tries to get close to him, he runs away. Lacking an inner foundation, he fears that women will annihilate him, like his overbearing mother who abused him as a child.

Quite simply, this book is an unprecedented achievement, taking the reader into actual psychoanalytic sessions and sharing with the reader Michael Shoshani Rosenbaum's dialogues with Daniel, vividly illustrating his pain and struggle to transcend his existential plight. Furthermore, as the author of two sections of the book, Daniel himself provides a rare, insightful view from the other side of the couch, illuminating the challenge and change experienced within the other half of the therapeutic relationship.

It is a compelling psychological adventure, fusing together the intimacy of the therapy with an account of the revolutionary changes that have occurred in the practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis over the last decades. Daniel is like no one else, and yet he is everyone, making this book a must for every person searching for self-knowledge, allowing the reader to identify with Daniel and his struggle to become human.

1

Daniel's Subterranean Bunker

“An Airtight Bubble, It's Exclusively Mine; Nobody Else Can Enter”

A strong egoism is a protection against falling ill, but in the last resort we must begin to love in order not to fall ill, and we are bound to fall ill if, in consequence of frustration, we are unable to love.

Sigmund Freud, “On Narcissism” (1914, p. 85)

Everything can be achieved in solitude, except sanity.

Schopenhauer

“I don't actually know what I'm doing here. I have a feeling something is wrong inside me. People look at me and get the impression that I'm a perfect winner, but inside, I know I'm not right. It's as if I'm a puzzle with missing pieces.”

Daniel's face is expressionless. Although his language is eloquent, he speaks with a distanced, almost frozen gravity. His manner of speaking gives me the sense that he does not notice my presence in the room. It is as though he is unable to see me.

In his late 20s, Daniel becomes obsessively preoccupied with whether or not to seek therapy, and hardly a day goes by in which he does not deliberate the issue. He describes to me how the thought began to sink in that “there is probably no choice.” Nonetheless, he finally acts on this thought only at the age of 35.

“I kept putting it off because I was afraid. I didn't know what psychotherapy would be like or whether or not it could help me. Besides that, I resented having the feeling that there was no other choice. Whenever I feel like I'm being coerced to do something, I become obstinate and want to do the opposite.”

Afterwards, he tells me that all his life he has relied only on himself. “I don't want to depend on anyone; I don't want to approach others from a position of need. Coming to therapy,” he says, “feels like neediness to me.”

I can see that from Daniel's world view, entering therapy might feel like a kind of self-betrayal.

“In spite of its being abhorrent to me, I have decided there is no choice. As the years go by and I remain alone, with no relationships, I realize that if I do not take action, I am going to end up alone, spouseless and childless, and will die that way.”

Daniel feels like he is fortunate to be so handsome and intelligent and such a success professionally because these attributes disguise the fact that there is something wrong with him, both to himself and in his interactions with the outer world.

When he speaks, he sounds as though he is reading from a script. As I listen, I feel less like a participant in a conversation and more like a piece of medical equipment. Although his talk includes a great deal of information, and in its content seems to reflect emotional openness and a willingness to be intimate and share, the music or the intonation of his words, as well as his general attitude, have an alienated and distant ring to them. I feel as if he is telling me someone else's story.

After several weeks during which I get to know Daniel a little better, I suggest a tentative treatment plan that entails us starting with two sessions of psychotherapy a week, with the option of switching to psychoanalysis at some point in the future. Daniel accepts my suggestion without reservations. As I mentioned, the very fact of beginning therapy is for him the result of a lengthy deliberation process, during which he weighed the idea repeatedly, and he now feels prepared to accept whatever might be thrust upon him, in a somewhat submissive manner.

At 35, Daniel is a tall and handsome doctor of biology who works at one of Israel's research institutes. He is a highly sought-after bachelor. His family comes from an old and venerable lineage, and he is sixth-generation Israeli-born. He has been a combat fighter in an elite IDF unit and is a brilliant academic. In short, he personifies in achievements and appearance everything considered socially desirable and worthy of admiration. His casual clothes, somewhat scruffy, do not in any way diminish the striking effect of his appearance, which from the beginning arouses in me feelings of admiration mixed with a bit of envy.^*

The early days of every treatment are characterized, for both parties, by a certain fusion of excitement, curiosity, and anxiety—somewhat like one's feelings on a blind date when one believes that the stakes are high. I feel this most acutely in Daniel's case, perhaps because of his impressive achievements and his self-assurance with regard to them. Thus, my countertransference emerges at a very early stage of our encounter. I worry about whether he will let me into his life and allow me the position of therapist. I worry about whether he will permit me to be his guide on this journey, the first steps of which he is now taking. I ask myself whether or not I will be able to gain the recognition and appreciation necessary to enable us to work together.

Daniel grew up in a small town in the north of Israel. He had been a quiet, obedient, and lonely boy, a “goody-goody” type. “I created a fantasy world as a very young child, and since then, have spent most of my time living in it. I know how to converse with myself,” he says. “It's others I don't know how to converse with.”

Daniel has two older sisters and a younger brother. One sister is seven years older than he and the other four years older; his brother was born when Daniel was finishing high school. His mother had been a housewife most of her life, except for several years during which she had worked at various temporary jobs. His father worked as an administrator and was often required to be away from home for long periods of time.

“Most of my friends are in relationships,” Daniel says. “I'm the only one who is not only not married, but without even a girlfriend. The thought of being that close to a woman strikes me as hideous.”

Sometimes Daniel suspects that he might be attracted to men, although he avoids having same-sex relationships. In general, when he sees or imagines other people behaving in an intimate manner, “the thought of having sex with anyone, either male or female,” he says, “disgusts me.”

Daniel continues to elaborate on his situation in an objective tone, as if he is speaking about somebody else rather than himself. While expressing the facts of his predicament, including the most intimate ones, his face and his voice fail to manifest emotion. I have a sense that he is as alienated from me as he is from himself and, again, that he perceives me as an object rather than a person with whom he can be open and share any depth of feeling behind his words.

“For many years now, I have felt that there is something wrong with me. I have never had sex. I have never been in love. I haven't even had any close friends. In a way, I can tell myself I'm unique, but the truth is I feel like an alien, not a human being. Sometimes I think to myself, ‘Is it possible that I'm not meant to be with either a man or a woman, but am meant to spend my life alone?’”

As he expresses these thoughts, I feel wonder and curiosity. The contrast between Daniel's striking appearance and manners and the painful, lonely reality he describes is intense. His impassive manner evokes a dismal, heavy feeling in me. I wonder how long I will have to carry his pain for him before he is able to own it himself.

Daniel goes on to tell me more of his background. Speaking very rapidly, almost without pause, and absent any facial expression, he tells me about being an abused child.

“My mother used to beat me with her hands, with a belt, sometimes even with a broom. She would accuse me a lot of being sloppy or dirty, though it wasn't true. She used to say all the time, ‘So you think you're so smart?’ or ‘You think because you're the best student in school that makes you privileged?’ and then she'd hit me.”

In the months prior to his telling me this, I had come to appreciate and respect Daniel, but these feelings were accompanied by a certain abiding emotional distance. Now, despite the remote quality in his voice, and his shrinking from any eye contact, this confession of his childhood suffering awakens other feelings in me. I remember the beatings I took from my father, and I identify with Daniel, empathize with his suffering, and feel compassion both for him and for the child I used to be. The atmosphere during these conversations is weighed down by a strong sense of strife and helplessness, as each of us silently reflects on his pain and on memories of the injustices we endured as children. Daniel says,

Dad was usually away, so there was nobody around to protect me from Mom. No matter how hard she beat me, I refused to give in and cry. The fact that I didn't cry enraged her further, so she went on beating me. But I never gave her the satisfaction she wanted—I was never weak, not even once. My intense loneliness as a child hurt worse than the beatings. My sisters stuck together and refused to let me in their circle. Dad wasn't there and my brother wasn't born until I was much older. When I was about 5 years old, I realized there was something wrong with mother. She used to do things that didn't make sense, for example, cover the furniture in the living room and not let us go in there for days because she was afraid of dirt.”

Daniel remembers comparing her to other children's mothers. “I felt there was something not right, though I couldn't put my finger on it.” These feelings appear in one of Daniel's dreams:

In the dream, I'm with my sister Betty in the swimming pool. We get out of the pool and go from room to room in a house. Each room is grander than the one before, and the place seems like a brothel. The woman who owns the house looks like a “madam.” Someone tells us we're in a hotel…. And then the scenery changes and I'm with my father, and the landlady takes me for a ride in her convertible. Dad stays behind, and I wave goodbye to him and cry very hard. The “madam” speeds away like a lunatic, but I mean really, like a madwoman…. In another scene I'm fighting with my mother and she does something bad to me. Then I woke up sort of wondering, is mom still so mean? Or is she nicer in reality?

I ask Daniel for his association for his dream.

“Dad leaves me in the care of my crazy mother, who drives at breakneck speed, and I cry. The witch-driver was like a kind of driver-in-service. Like mom, who did the washing and cooking and that sort of thing.”

Daniel's associations to the dream reflect the reign of terror his mother had imposed on their home, his own helplessness in the face of it, and the fact that his father had failed to stand up to his wife and protect himself and his son. Daniel's descriptions paint a picture of his mother as an anxious, compulsive person with a tyrannical and invasive personality.^*

About 8 months into the therapy, Daniel gradually and with increasing clarity begins to describe how, from the age of about 4 onwards, he built himself a rich and increasingly complex imaginary world, existing side by side with the real world. Although he has been functioning impressively in real life, he still takes frequent refuge in this imaginary world. This world serves to ease his loneliness and, in my opinion, also preserves his sanity, which is at risk whenever he comes too close to people.^* Daniel's fantasy world protects him and provides an ontological anchor and a self-sufficient emotional fueling station. Like an underwater mammal, he regularly needs to cut himself off from his social surroundings and “refuel” on his emotional oxygen supply. His private bubble-world provides him with the reservoirs of oxygen he needs to survive. Being with other people always means living on borrowed-oxygen time. “I can only be around people for so long,” Daniel tells me, “then I need to be left alone so I can spend time in the world of my imagination.”

Later on in the therapy, when he feels more secure, he is able to bring up another sensitive subject. In one of our sessions he tells me about a young woman who is trying to get intimate with him, but whose breasts are too small even for his taste. Although he usually prefers women with small breasts, in her case this is too extreme. While he tells me this, he has his hands folded over his chest. He says, “What I'm holding in my hands right now is more than this girl has…” I say, “It sounds as if, in a way, you are both a man and a woman…” A tense silence follows. Finally, Daniel replies, “I can't say this for certain, but I think, once in a while, I have this idea that if I could get myself pregnant it would be the ideal solution, and among other things, I wouldn't have to be in therapy.”^† As I understand it, Daniel wants to be one-that-is-all, both man and woman, never needing others.

Another metaphor that begins to take shape in our sessions is that of a subterranean bunker in which Daniel provides himself with all of his own needs and where he exists as an autarkic unit.^‡ We continue to deal with this notion of the illusion of self-sufficiency in his fantasy life as well as in his external reality throughout the therapy, and this illusion stands out as a major dimension in his mental deployment vis-à-vis others and the external world.

Daniel's bunker and his illusion of self-sufficiency also come to the fore in his descriptions of his failed attempts to form closer relationships. “There are a lot of people, such as colleagues at work, both men and women, who would like to get close to me. It feels good to be socially desirable, to be the one courted by others, rather than to be the one who is doing the courting and who is in need.” According to Daniel, desire and need are always located in somebody else, never in himself.^*

About a year into the therapy, Daniel starts to bring up more and more details relating to his extreme fears, the difficulties he experiences in relationships, and the ways in which he copes and protects himself. These fears manifest also in our relationship.

In one of our sessions there is a long silence.

In the background we hear my wife, who works in the same set of offices as I, walking a patient of hers to the door.

Daniel: Unbelievable, I can hear footsteps in the entrance hall. And believe it or not, all I can see are heels, maybe shoes, but no body, neither a man nor a woman's, nothing else, only heels.

Michael: It sounds as if you feel there is a kind of bubble belonging only to the two of us, with nobody really existing outside it. According to what you say, there isn't really another woman or another man using these offices, maybe just “heels and shoes.”

Daniel: And what a bubble! An airtight bubble. Sometimes it includes you, but usually it doesn't. It's exclusively mine; nobody else can enter. As far as I'm concerned, you aren't a whole person here; only a slice of you is here.

Michael: I'm not a whole person here, only an aspect of me is here. So you experience me as if I've also turned into a pair of heels.

Daniel: Exactly. What bothers me is that sometimes it goes beyond heels, and then there's the danger of the bubble bursting.

In order to survive, Daniel disjoints, creating part-objects and parts of self. This is the only possible way of forming and maintaining his bubble. In another session, he reports a dream reflecting his feelings of extreme belittlement and inadequacy, ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Praise for Michael Shoshani-Rosenbaum’s Dare to Be Human
• Half Title
• RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES BOOK SERIES
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Daniel's Subterranean Bunker: “An Airtight Bubble, It's Exclusively Mine; Nobody Else Can Enter”
• 2. From Liquid to Solid: “I Think She Should Ask Me if I'm Hungry and Not Get Under My Skin or Into My Stomach to Check”
• 3. From Togetherness of One to Togetherness of Two: “The Fox Pretending That He Does Not Want the Grapes Because They Are Sour Is the Best Metaphor for My Life”
• 4. Overcoming Perceived Betrayals—Escape From the Symbiotic Prison: “You Care Only for Your Journal, and What of Me?”
• 5. From Immortal to Mortal: “To Say, ‘I Want and I Love,’ Doesn't Lead to Death or the Abyss, but to a Kind of Belonging and Togetherness”
• 6. Ending and Separation: “I Jumped Off the Death Train at the Last Minute…”
• 7. Epilogue
• 8. Thoughts on Outsides and Insides: A Theoretical Discussion
• References
• Bibliography
• Index