The “parties” always ended in drug-induced blackout during which Jana retreated and J. woke up, oblivious to everything her “twin” had done.
This ability to split was the crux of the patient’s problem, Sharon decided, and she targeted it for therapeutic assault. J.’s ego had to be integrated, the “twins” drawn closer and closer, eventually confronting each other, reaching some sort of rapprochement, and merging into one fully functioning identity.
A potentially traumatic process, she acknowledged, unsupported by much clinical data. Very few therapists claimed to have actually integrated multiple personalities, so the prognosis for change was poor. But Kruse encouraged her, supporting her theory that, since these multiples were identical “twins,” they shared a “psychic core” and would be amenable to fusion.
During hypnosis she began introducing J. to small bites of Jana: brief glimpses of drives down a highway, a signpost or hotel room that Jana had mentioned. Camera-shutter exposures of neutral material that could be easily withdrawn if the patient’s anxiety rose too high.
J. tolerated this well- no outward signs of anxiety, though she didn’t respond to any of the Jana material and disobeyed Sharon’s post-hypnotic suggestion that she recall these details. The following session was identicaclass="underline" no memory, no response at all. Sharon tried again. Nothing. Session after session. Blank wall. Despite the patient’s previous suggestibility, she was completely noncompliant. Determined, apparently, that the “twins” would never meet.
Surprised at the strength of the patient’s resistance, Sharon wondered if she’d been wrong about twinship making integration easier. Perhaps just the opposite was true: The fact that J. and Jana were physically identical, but psychological mirror opposites, had intensified their rivalry.
She began researching the psychology of twins, especially identicals, consulted Kruse, then took another tack: continuing to hypnotize the patient but backing away from attempts at integration. Instead, she adopted a more chummy role, simply chatting with the patient about seemingly innocuous topics: female siblings, twins, identicals. Leading J. through dispassionate discussions- was there really a special bond between twins, and if so, what was its nature? What was the best way to raise twins as children? How much of the behavioral similarity between identicals was due to heredity, how much to genetics?
“Riding with the resistance,” she termed it. Taking careful note of the patient’s body language and speech tones, synchronizing her own movements with them.
Exploiting the hidden message, in accordance with Dr. P. P. Kruse’s theory of communication dynamics.
This went on for several more months; at a casual glance, nothing more than two friends gabbing. But the patient responded to the shift in strategy by slipping deeper than ever into hypnosis. Showing such profound suggestibility that she developed total skin anesthesia to a lit match, eventually adjusting her breathing to the cadence of Sharon’s speech. Appearing ready for direct suggestion. But Sharon never offered one, just kept on chatting.
Then, during the fifty-fourth session, the patient slipped spontaneously into the Jana role and began describing a wild night that had taken place in Italy- a party at a private villa in Venice, peopled by weird, grinning characters and fed by flowing booze, abundant dope.
At first just another Jana orgy tale, every prurient detail recounted with relish. Then, halfway into the story, something else.
“My sister’s there,” Jana said, amazed. “A fucking wall-flower over in that corner, in that ugly unvarnished chair.”
Sharon: “What’s she feeling?”
“Terrified. Scared shitless. Men are sucking her nipples- naked, hairy. Baboons- they’re swarming over her, sticking things into her.”
Sharon: “Things?”
“Their things. Their scummy things. They’re hurting her and laughing and there’s the camera.”
Sharon: “Where’s the camera?”
“There, on the other side of the room. I’m- oh, no, I’m holding it, I want to see everything, the lights are all on. But she doesn’t like it. But I’m filming her anyway. I can’t stop.”
As she continued to describe the scene, Jana’s voice faltered and quivered. She described J. as “exactly like… looking exactly like me, but, you know, more innocent. She was always more innocent. They’re really going at her. I feel…”
Sharon: “What?”
“Nothing.”
Sharon: “What did you feel, Jana? When you saw what was happening to your sister?”
“Nothing.” Pause. “Bad.”
Sharon: “Very bad?”
“A… a little bad.” Angry expression. “But it was her own fucking fault! Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, right? She shouldn’t have gone if she didn’t want to play, right?”
Sharon: “Did she have a choice, Jana?”
Pause. “What do you mean?”
Sharon: “Did J. have a choice about going to the party?”
Long silence.
Sharon: “Jana?”
“Yeah. I heard you. First I thought yeah, sure she did- everyone has a choice. Then, I…”
Sharon: “What, Jana?”
“I don’t know- I mean I really don’t know her. I mean we’re exactly the same but there’s something about her that… I don’t know. It’s like we’re- I don’t know- more than sisters. I don’t know what the right word is, maybe part- Forget it.”
Pause.
Sharon: “Partners?”
Jana, startled: “I said forget it, enough of this shit! Let’s talk about fun stuff, what I was doing at the fucking party.”
Sharon: “All right. What were you doing?”
Jana, baffled; after a long silence: “I don’t… remember. Aw, it was probably boring anyway- any party she’d go to had to be.”
A door had been opened; Sharon restrained herself from nudging it further. She let Jana ramble on, waited until all her anger dissipated, then ended the session, certain that a breakthrough had taken place. For the first time in more than three years, J. had allowed the twins to coexist. And had offered a new clue: The word partner seemed to have strong emotional loading. Sharon decided to pursue that, brought it up the next time she hypnotized J.
“What’s that, doctor? What did you just say?”
Sharon: “Partners. I suggested that you and Jana are something more than just sisters. Or even twins. Perhaps you’re partners. Psychological partners.”
J. is thoughtful, silent, starts to smile.
Sharon: “What’s funny, J.?”
“Nothing. I suppose you’re right- you usually are.”
Sharon: “But does it make sense to you?”
“I suppose so, though if she is my partner, she’s certainly a silent one. We never talk. She refuses to talk to me.” Pause. Her smile widens. “Silent partners. What business are we in?”
Sharon: “The business of living.”
J., amused: “I suppose so.”
Sharon: “Would you like to talk more about that? About being a silent partner?”
J.: “I don’t know. I guess so… Maybe not. No. She’s so rude and unpleasant, I really can’t tolerate being around her. Let’s change the subject, if you don’t mind.”
J. didn’t show up for the next session, or the next. When she finally reappeared, two months later, she seemed composed, claimed her life was going great, she just needed a tune-up.
Sharon resumed hypnotherapy, continued her attempt to get the “twins” to meet. Five more months of frustration, during which Sharon began thinking of herself as a failure, wondered if J.’s needs couldn’t be better served by another therapist, “one with more experience, perhaps a male.”
But Kruse encouraged her to continue, advising still more reliance on nonverbal manipulation.
Another month of status quo and J. disappeared once again. Five weeks later she materialized, bursting into the office while Sharon was seeing another patient, calling that woman a “fucking wimp,” telling her, “your problems don’t mean diddly,” and ordering her out of the office.