(Appeared
in the Newsletter of the British Association of Group Psychotherapists)
Literary
Allusions
Each
of these passages could perhaps have been written about a therapist.
But
now he spoke to them, asking about the name, and startled them. During all that time he had never spoken,
communicating by signals and grimaces, now and then a grin. He had revealed nothing not even his name
... That was how he felt safest.
Revealing nothing. Whether they
came at him with tenderness or subterfuge or knives. For more than four months he had not said a word. He was a large animal in their presence...
The
English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
He
smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a
quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five
times in life. It faced - or seemed to
face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you
with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood,
believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that
it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.
The
Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
If the latter (the doctor) possess native
sagacity, and a nameless something more,
let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor
disagreeably prominent characteristics of his own; if he have the power, which
must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's
that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have
thought; if such revelations be received without tumult, and acknowledged not
so often by an uttered sympathy, as by silence, an inarticulate breath, and
here and there a word, to indicate that all is understood; if, to these
qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his
recognised character as a physician; then, at some inevitable moment, will the
soul of the sufferer be dissolved and flow forth in a dark, but transparent
stream, bringing all its mysteries into the
daylight."
The
Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorn, 1850
If you
know of any other literary passage that could similarly have been written about
a therapist or therapy, then send it to me (peterzelaskowski@groupworks.info)
and I’ll be delighted to place it in this site.