The spring and summer of 1988, I made an effort to relax and take care of myself, limiting my hours with the children to no more than eight a day, joining a health club (and using it), and, the most significant change, ignoring my reservations about becoming involved with a co-worker. During the Grayson Day Care case, Diane Rosenberg split up with a man she had been living with since college. We became close, apart from the intimacy of our work. I resisted, for more than a year, risking our friendship by introducing romance, not only because I was putting companionship in danger, I was also chancing the loss of an intelligent and dedicated colleague. I had no illusion that if we were to become estranged lovers we would be capable of returning to the harmony of our platonic relationship.
To be blunt, our first few attempts at sex were self-conscious and a little comic. If, as Freud observed, there are six people in every bedroom — the lovers and the ghosts of their parents — then the bedroom of two psychiatrists is as crowded with spirits as Halloween. I suggested a change of scene might relieve the awkwardness and we took our first vacation in years together. The two weeks in Paris were idyllic in every way. We shed more than our clothes. Assuming the naive skins of tourists, we discovered our bodies could dance in the dark without poltergeists mocking our rhythm.
Taking time away from my work seemed to improve my results. In July, “Timmy” made a series of dazzling breakthroughs — a rapid integration of his multiple personalities that began with a deeply moving and eerie scene in which the various selves were introduced to each other. Also, my book on incest was well received and debated in a healthy way, even by its critics. August brought the opening of the clinic, although some of the construction wasn’t finished; the revelation to our friends that Diane and I had become an item was greeted with less surprise and disapproval than either of us had expected; and I worked hard to finish the book about the Grayson trial, inspired by “Timmy’s” bravery facing his painful memories and what I had learned from his remarkable insights into the methods and motivations of his abusers.
The last week of August, Gene appeared. He had followed his mentor to Minotaur. Its research and development labs were in Tarrytown, thus Gene had moved his family to northern Westchester county. I hadn’t heard from Toni since our Rosenhan conversation. Gene told me she hadn’t been much use to him; he stopped seeing her after only three sessions. “It was a practical problem anyway. I had to make this decision and it was tough. I was scared to stay and scared to go.” He wanted to see me professionally. He felt the new job — he was going to be project director for Minotaur’s new machine — would put him under unbearable pressure. Unbearable was his word.
“I don’t see adult patients anymore, Gene. I’m devoting all my time to the clinic. The few adults who come here will see other therapists. I specialize in working with children who have been severely abused. I’m not up to date treating adults.”
“You mean they’ve made therapy new and improved?”
“There’s always good work going on. It’s no different than anything else. If you came to see me you’d have to play Candyland and draw pictures with Crayolas.”
“Sounds okay to me. I’m pretty good at Candyland. I’m better at Monopoly.”
I laughed. “You sound healthy to me, Gene. Are you sure you really feel the need for therapy? Feeling pressure at taking a new job is realistic, you know.”
“Well … thanks. But …” He sighed. “Forget it.”
“No. I don’t want to forget it. Go on. But what?”
“I remember you saying I could always come and speak to you. For a tune-up, you called it.”
“A tune-up?” That sounded like Rafe the cocksure therapist. As if I were a master mechanic and people were machines that could be regulated with precision. I had promised him I would always be there to listen. He had trusted me with his tenderest feelings and now I was too busy?
I explained that I had moved from White Plains. The new clinic was in Riverdale. He said the drive was no problem and that his schedule was flexible, since he was a project director. He came at lunchtime, the hour I took off as part of relaxation from compulsive work. The construction of rooms for monitored interviews started at that hour, since we tried to keep the mornings quiet. The work crews were installing video cameras behind one-way mirrors — to lessen their obtrusiveness and improve the coverage for the sake of testimony. Our objective was to meet the requirements of the law without inhibiting the children. Every minute of contact had to be recorded or we could be accused of influencing the process and yet, particularly for early sessions, the obvious presence of cameras is distracting. We planned to show the children the equipment and the one-way mirror, then go into the regular rooms — they don’t seem much different from a cheerful kindergarten — and forget their existence. (Although some therapists tape without telling the children, I felt that was unfair. Unfair and too similar to the kind of lying typical of abusive adults.) We were going to videotape whether or not the law was potentially involved. How could we know in advance, for one thing, and the tapes should provide a useful tool for therapists to review and evaluate.
Gene recognized the video cables on his way in. I explained over the noise of the drilling and apologized.
“Are we being recorded?” he asked. He was in jeans, a wrinkled white button-down shirt and Top-Siders. His black hair was long, one bang cutting off an eyebrow. The style seemed too youthful for an adult. His face had few lines. With a little hair dye he could pass for an eighteen-year-old. Maybe he wasn’t clinging to youth emotionally; perhaps, chemically, he wasn’t a man yet. How could I know? (Joseph Stein, with whom I had renewed our childhood friendship after a twenty-year hiatus, had become a world-renowned neurobiologist, devoting all his energies — as have dozens of other talented people — to discovering how the brain works. Although Joseph still had faith that one day science would be able to locate the precise mechanism the drives every action, thought and feeling of humans, he frankly admitted to me that, as of today, we know very little; each discovery leads to more questions.) Gene not only wanted to be a boy — so did his body. What, in the end, do we really understand about rates of aging? It so often seems that everything in human nature can end up being argued as to which is first, the chicken or the egg. I wanted to keep an open mind. After years of training and work I was less sure of all theories. And how confident could I be of technique? Gene and I didn’t seem to have changed much. We were back where we started, asking the same questions.