The Passionate Psychologist: A Mystery by Jacob Rubin, Ph.D.

By John Reisman

John M. Reisman is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at DePaul University in Chicago. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and Michigan State University and is the author of A HISTORY OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY and PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN. This is his first Jacob Rubin mystery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469111957

John Reisman

John M. Reisman is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at DePaul University in Chicago. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and Michigan State University and is the author of A HISTORY OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY and PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN. This is his first Jacob Rubin mystery.

Book preview

1

The Meeting

My name is Jack Rubin and I am a psychologist. Please don’t be alarmed by my profession. Psychologists can’t read minds and they don’t know everything, though I must admit we do know more than we let on.

My story begins at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. There, several thousand psychologists gathered in the oppressive heat of August to see old friends, to advance themselves in the profession, and to attend the scientific meetings. The atmosphere of the convention is always humid, hectic, and confused, but this year seemed to be particularly chaotic. More psychologists than ever were anxiously looking for new employment. More meetings were being scheduled and rescheduled up to the last moment. Fewer familiar faces were glimpsed and then lost, and there were more than the usual frustrations of several attractive talks being assigned to the same time slot.

For me the highlight of each convention is the William James Invited Address. This is delivered by that psychologist who, like James, has gained both public and scientific recognition for contributions to psychology. It carries with it much prestige, a handsome medallion, and a modest cash award of $1,000. What made me especially eager to attend the address that year was that the recipient was Arthur Logan, a friend of mine from graduate school days.

When Art became somewhat popular I am sure that I was more surprised than most people who had never known him. There is something wrong about a friend, a person you know and with whom you are familiar, becoming a celebrated public figure and also achieving a measure of recognition and fame within your own field. It suggests you take stock of your own accomplishments and in a way brings death nearer.

Therefore I was both proud and a little apprehensive as I approached the ballroom level of the hotel where the address was to be delivered. Proud, because I took some satisfaction in knowing him from the days when we were students and because in those moments I recalled some of the things he had done that I could not help but admire.

There had been an evening on television when he had dealt skillfully with a beautiful, young actress who was rude to him. He permitted her to make her insults, while he maintained a professional calm and stared intently into her eyes. He carefully allowed several seconds of silence to elapse after she was finished. Then he leaned over, kissed her full on the mouth, and said, I believe in doing, rather than saying, what the situation demands.

I liked that, even the actress liked it, and I am sure millions of viewers were equally impressed by his charming way of confounding his opponent. Art was a master at using compliments and affection. But then he could take any emotion and twist you into believing it was its opposite.

That was five years ago, before his second best seller came out and the rumors about him in the profession began to circulate. Some of the stories were the usual put-downs of someone important, anecdotes about Art’s egotism and vanity. However, there were more ugly intimations, whispers which if true by only a fraction made one wonder whether the Association would do better to expel him on the grounds of unethical behavior than to present him with any award, let alone the William James. But I wasn’t really thinking about that then. My concern was to get into that ballroom and get a seat.

Already the crowd had spilled out of the room and into the hall. A group of people had blocked the doorway, some straining to be as close as possible without going inside while others tried to break free. I—to borrow a phrase from a favorite American comedian—cut a path through that wall of human flesh and, just as I hoped, found an empty chair in the first row.

Three speakers were scheduled and were already seated on the forestage. One would chair the meeting and would introduce Art. The second would comment on Art’s talk. And the third would have to be Art himself, yet none of them looked familiar. Two of them wore suits, but the third was wearing a sport shirt and a yellow neckerchief. This fellow had a beard and long dark hair. He had casually left his shirt unbuttoned so that the hairs on his chest were exposed. In every way he set himself apart from his colleagues, but it was his eyes, clear, blue, piercing like sharp slivers of ice when they fixed upon someone, that told me this was Art.

The person with whom Art was laughing began to rise. He had to be the Chairperson, Kevin Noble, which meant that the solemn looking isolate was the analyst Walter Birnbaum. Smiling for silence, Noble took in the audience as if it had gathered to do him honor, and then addressed it.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the William James Invited Address. My name is Kevin Noble, and it is my pleasure to introduce to you today our speaker and to indicate, however unnecessarily, why he was selected for this most prized award.

"James was a warm, generous human being of catholic interests. Hypnotism, religion, the stream of consciousness, the self, mediums and the supernatural were but a few of the subjects to which he gave his attention. A physician and a physiologist before he was a psychologist, and a philosopher during his later years, James is remembered by us mainly for his theory of emotions. Yet perhaps due to his own bouts of depression, James was deeply committed to mental health. He freely gave a helping hand to Clifford Beers and the mental hygiene movement, and charmingly advised that one could raise one’s self-esteem by lowering one’s aspirations.

Many of James’ colleagues were critical of him precisely for rendering psychology popular and for taking seriously every aspect of human experience. He was so open to anything that it was feared the public might confuse his broadmindedness as characteristic of the fledgling science of psychology. Fortunately, I think, that never happened.

I was beginning to lose consciousness.

"Our speaker embodies the liberal spirit of James together with his gift of firing the public imagination. Professionally, he has blazed new trails in the practice of psychotherapy and has stimulated searching reexaminations of the concepts of transference and counter-transference. Arthur Logan received his doctoral training at the University of Michigan, was a Veterans Administration trainee, and did postgraduate studies in psychoanalysis with Reik. For years he made brilliant contributions to the journal literature and taught and practiced a relatively orthodox form of analysis. It was during that time, he has just informed me, that he grew increasingly dissatisfied with the constraints imposed upon the analyst’s role.

After flirtations with marathons and other group experiences, he concentrated upon his private practice and the use of daring innovations. The astonishing success of his book Not By Bread Alone, which eloquently argued for human needs that transcend the biological, established him as the sensitive spokesman for a new generation of college students and professionals. Not By Bread Alone was followed by Behind Closed Doors, another best seller which dealt movingly with themes of alienation and distancing in human relationships and which hints at an amusing oral-anal progression that suggests Dr. Logan may still be unconsciously influenced by his analytic training and arouses some amusing titillation when speculating about the title of his next book.

Noble glanced at Art and smiled, and Art smiled back and waved. Birnbaum sat uncomfortably, waiting like a frog in a swamp.

Consistent with that thesis, Noble continued, "is the title of Dr. Logan’s talk for us this morning. You may have noted in your program that it is mysteriously listed as ‘To be announced.’ I must confess that like yourselves I have been in the dark and have been anxiously awaiting the title to be divulged. Just a few moments ago my suspense was ended when Dr. Logan whispered it to me, and now, ladies and gentlemen, I can reveal it to you. Dr. Logan will be speaking with us this morning on ‘Making Your Patients Happy.’

"This seems to me to be a singularly engaging title. It is consistent with the increasing emphasis upon contractual arrangements in psychotherapy and the obligation upon the therapist to assure results. There is also the notion of joy as a human emotion that should be encouraged and expected as a result of treatment. But enough of my speculations.

Without further ado, allow me to present the celebrated author, lecturer, psychoanalyst, and, I would like to think, though we have only known each other a short time, in fact it would not be inaccurate to say just the few minutes before this meeting, my friend, Arthur, Art Logan.

There was much applause as Art walked to the stand, jiggled the microphone, and then seemed to ignore it. His beard had bold strands of gray, but the hair on his head was evidently dyed black and was thick and wavy. He looked completely in control of the situation, with no more tension than if he were leaning at a bar waiting for a beer. From time to time as the applause wrapped him in the warmth of its greeting he waved and smiled at someone in the audience, but there was no hint of any recognition directed toward me, though he scanned me and my row at least twice. I began to feel uncomfortable about having made the effort to hear the talk and see Art, especially since I had avoided reading anything Art had ever written, including a term paper on the Rorschach.

The applause suddenly stopped, its cessation as seemingly unprovoked as its onset. Art looked at his audience hushed in expectation, coolly taking it in with those icy blue eyes. I could see no paper. I could see no notes. Unless he had memorized his speech, he was going to improvise it. I wondered how embarrassing it would be to make an exit.

Dr. Noble, ladies and gentlemen, he began, "Freud is dead, and the barriers he helped construct between the therapist and his patients no longer need exist. We are human beings, and our patients are human beings. We are joined by common bonds of humanity and by common human needs.

"As I look out into your smiling faces I feel love, and I want you to love me too. Why the hell else would I be here, talking to you and knowing that you are sitting back on your behinds waiting to be stimulated or entertained or, even better for some of you, to be bored, unless I could hope to feel a thrill of love coming over me from you!

"If I need love, me a rich, well-educated, healthy, successful psychologist, how much more do our patients need love? Those pathetic human beings come to us afraid and hung-up. They want love too, and they can’t give it. They want love, and they can’t take it. They want love, but only on their distorted, screwed-up terms.

"Each of us hungers to be touched. To feel a hand. To be patted on the back, or on the bead, or on the cheek, or on the rear. To feel the cool, warm, tingling softness of skin, the yielding firmness of breasts, the array of caressing sensations inside the mouth. Harlow was right about his monkeys requiring tactile stimulation. Fritz Perls was right about losing our mind and coming to our senses.

"That’s what we need to do. Come to our senses. Experience our needs and the needs of our patients and forget all the nonsense and fears about being detached and objective. Who needs objectivity? Who wants objectivity? Do you want to be treated by anyone with detachment? Do you want me to be aloof from you?

"Inside our offices we have people … human beings … reaching out to us and willing to pay good, hard cash for a kind word, a verbal stroke. That’s all some of them want. That’s all some of them need. Kindness. Concern. I don’t know about each and every one of you, but I know I couldn’t just sit there for years and years on end, on my end, nodding and nodding while all the time I had this feeling growing bigger and bigger inside me telling me to extend my hand, to lay my fingers gently on a shoulder.

Finally, I broke. Despite my years of training and learning about counter-transference, I responded. I admit that I did it, and the shame is that I did not do it sooner. I took a crying man into my arms and comforted him. He felt better, and so did I. We almost started crying together. But it was out of joy, and a clean feeling running through the bones of my chest because in my guts I knew I had done the right thing.

This was not the Arthur Logan I had known. It was not even the Arthur Logan I had seen on the talk shows. Pressure had built around my head and eyes, and I squirmed in my chair. Some members of the audience looked as if they shared my shock, but the majority looked just fine. Their flushed faces were fixed on Arthur Logan, repeating to themselves a word here and there, laughing when he said something funny and almost crying when he said something that seemed to move them deeply. They seemed unaware of the rambling, disjointed way he was talking, or at least they were not distressed by it. Instead, they responded to his feelings, and they were with him. God help them and psychology, I thought, they were with him!

"The first time I showed love to one of my patients … you know, real love … was like some beautiful dream, like spacing out on grass. She came into my office. Beautiful. Seductive. Yet still so terribly unhappy, as she had been so many times before. Only this time she wept, and from her heart she told me of a life of infidelity and ingratitude … her infidelity and her ingratitude. She always hurt those who really cared for her. Her husband. A good man who had married her when she was pregnant with the child of another man who had abandoned her. Despite his patience and devotion, she was frigid with him, and yet she was running around with everyone else and could make it with them. She said she felt cheap and dirty and worthless. She looked at me, waiting for me to tell her what I thought.

"I felt like going to her. Touching her. Reassuring her. Loving her. And suddenly I was moving. Out of my chair and into that long space between my seat and hers. What would she do if I did what I was feeling? Would she run? Would she scream? Would she sue? If my brain was trying to register any answers to those questions, I couldn’t hear them because al1 I was doing was responding to my feelings. Feeling.

Kevin Noble maintained a peculiar expression of a serious smile on his face, while Art continued to drone on about the virtues of passionate engagement, as he called it. Noble’s only variation was to turn from studying Arthur Logan to studying the reactions of the audience. Walter Birnbaum appeared calm, sympathetic, but quite concerned. His attention was riveted on Arthur Logan, and I had the feeling he wanted to reach out to Art and touch him and ask him to pull himself together. My awareness drifted to Art’s wife, Grace, and their three children, and the effects his talk might have upon them. And what was I doing worrying about Noble and Birnbaum and Grace when I should have been paying attention to Arthur Logan’s speech?

"A bond of love has been created between me and many of my patients that has enriched all our lives. My work has become natural, no longer strained and contrived, but a pleasure. I look forward with great anticipation to going to the office each day.

"I see you frowning and snickering at that, Walter Birnbaum. Walter was my teacher, but you never taught me this, did you, Walt? When I saw Walter sitting up here it reminded me of a story I heard many years ago.

"One of my colleagues told me about a young man who was having sexual problems that were interfering with his marriage. He consulted an analyst who advised that he would have little success in overcoming his difficulties until the conflict that unconsciously determined his problem was discovered and resolved. The analysis would be a long, time-consuming, expensive process, and there could be no guarantee that it would be successful.

"Next the young man went to a behavioral therapist. There he was told relief of his problem might be experienced very quickly and pleasantly. All that he would have to do is watch erotic slides and movies. This seemed to be a most enjoyable method of treatment, and for several months it could honestly be said he was exposed to it. His responses to the films were quite appropriate and all that could be desired. However, there was little transfer of these reactions, and his condition in his marriage was still as problematic as ever.

"Finally the young man decided to become his own expert. He reviewed his life situation and concluded his marriage was the major source of stress within it. His career was advancing nicely, and so far as most people could tell, he was a happy, well-adjusted person. The simplest thing to do was to end the marriage.

"When I heard this I was struck by how eminently sensible this decision was. It is true that the young man retained his unconscious conflict and his sexual difficulties. However, he had nicely circumvented them, and under ordinary circumstances could be expected to have a productive adjustment. To me, this story illustrates that the most expert person for deciding how best to live is the very person whose life is at issue. And it also suggests that love can take many forms, other than the ones some experts have decided are mature and proper.

"I think it is safe to say that Walter Birnbaum does not agree with Arthur Logan, just as Arthur Logan has come to disagree with Walter Birnbaum. Each of us is an expert on love and loving. Why should it be necessary for any one of us to conceal our feelings? I still love you, Walter. My heart is full of love, and I am happy. My patients are happy. And there is a warmth and naturalness and genuineness in my meetings with them that I never experienced before and that I would never give up, regardless of all the ethical concerns and references you might cite to prove me wrong.

"I am not advocating that all of us love or make happy all our patients, or even any of our patients. What I am advocating is that you consider a new look in psychotherapy in which you are at least open and receptive to the idea. That you take seriously the possibility of some therapists’ loving their patients ethically, responsibly, and therapeutically.

"Think of it along a continuum. Perhaps most of us can only relate to our patients with a warmth and affection felt by us, but not shared, or that can only be communicated verbally and without physical contact. Others of us can touch and feel, but must stop short of any deeper intimacies. While I, and possibly a few brave, pioneering therapists like myself, have hearts that are so full of love that we can feel peace only if we go all the way.

"For some reason I am sad. My heart is brimming with love for all of you, and I feel sad. I have been honored and I feel on the threshold of further contributions, and yet the lines of Robert Herrick are now going through my brain. I must share them with you:

‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying, And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.’

Thank you very much for your attention, for recognizing my work through this award, and for inviting me to give this address.

With that, Arthur Logan sat down. For a second or two there was silence, and then much applause and cheering. Art draped himself sideways in his chair, dangled one leg over the arm, and avoided looking at-the audience, some of whom were not giving him a standing ovation. Instead, he intently watched Kevin Noble, who stood waiting for the applause to subside so he could introduce the discussant. When it did, Noble beamed with pleasure and began to speak.

"Thank you, Dr.