Humor Zone: Family Therapy

Accelerated Generativity Therapy

A personal update from the field, regarding a profound family therapy.

Dottie Weckles, Ph.D.

Dr. Weckles is a pioneer in the field of in-home family therapy for single persons. Here, she summarizes field research conducted to date. She is a graduate of the Hochgarten Universität of Munich, and is now on the faculty of the doctoral program at the Einstein University of South Africa.

I have discovered a dramatic approach to psychoanalysis that actually transcends psychodynamics through action, yet impacts psychodynamics in a therapeutic manner. Surprisingly, this also expands the therapist as a person.

The seeds of this approach germinated in my providing in-home family therapy. I saw a side of my clients that allowed me to formulate a much richer and more rewarding picture of family pathology, deviance and sickness. Then the breakthrough struck me like a prussian helmet: I could also provide family therapy in-home with individuals. The obvious problem was that they would require someone to interact with in order to create an observable family system. That would be me! It was this act of interacting that led to a cascade of innovations: verbalization, communication, direction, and even more profound: the arousal of feelings that could give greater life to my clinical intuitions. I call this breakthrough "contra transference," where transferential feelings and issues ABOUT transference cancel each other out, allowing for advanced psychoanalysis.

The First Case

I was quite concerned, because his bad reaction to antidepressants, his questionable choice to terminate his cable service, and his irrational guilt were raising his risk of suicide. This led me to a rash, yet intuitive act which, whether it was inappropriate or merely questionable, was the precipitant that catalyzed a synergistic breakthrough.

I asked Karl to marry me.

You could say this was a clinical metaphor, a bit of Ericksonian smoke and mirrors, Jungian videography, Perlsian BASE jumping, or Rorschachian blotting. His rapid overcoming of depression confirmed my instincts. I decided to extend my evaluation of this man by living with him for two weeks. Since this was a new approach, I decided I would charge no fee for my time. I was able to avoid having intimate physical relations, which would have been a breach of professional ethics, by insisting that we wait until we were married.

Since it was imperative to maintain this clinical metaphor of marital plans, I had to consent to a three-day trip to Las Vegas that weekend. Perhaps I allowed myself to be manipulated there, but the smoky casino environment, the heady excitement of gambling, and the free drinks may have affected my judgment. When he led me into the Elvis Wedding Chapel at two in the morning, I said, "I do."

Perhaps I was also distracted by the discomfort of the strawberry I consented to have tattooed onto my tender inguinal region. In any case, I no longer had an excuse to avoid sex, and was unable to think clearly enough to fabricate an additional clinical lie with which to avoid the act.

For some reason, I remember little about the rest of that morning, although I believe the act did, in fact, occur because of subsequent discussions with my client in which he stated he was not a necrophiliac and recommended I seek therapy. As a psychologist, his inappropriate attempt to assess me, and his lack of objectivity suggested strong transference. I realized that supervision would potentially be valuable at this point because I was having difficulty with some counter-transference. Also, I was discovering just how challenging it was to work with someone who thought they were my husband when they were actually my client. And then there was the matter of providing this new active form of psychoanalysis for the first time. Pioneering is not as easy as it looks in the textbooks! This was more difficult than my giving up cigar smoking in my experience as a Freudian analysand.

I sought assistance from a highly published and renowned analyst, who had made important strides in integrating family systems and brief therapy concepts with analysis, a Dr. Strumpfkin. I could not be certain that my new approach would elicit an understanding reaction, even from a man as forward-thinking as Dr. Strumpfkin, and so I couched my countertransference as a personal marital problem.

His assessment was that my client had a characterological depression exacerbated by his reactive depression to the death of his previous wife. He felt this was complicated by severe ambivalence brought about by his fear his desire for sex with me, given that I was old enough to be his mother.

His analysis of Karl's psychodynamics were quite brilliant. Dr. Strumpfkin considered my client's statement that he was not a necrophiliac to be an expression of fear of aliveness that would be a betrayal of his deceased wife. To fully surrender to his most intimate passions would be to accept her death. Dr. Strumpfkin said that my husband could not tolerate the vulnerability that his cravings for my body, very much alive and supple, would create. Add to this my sexual maturity and experience, and the peak level of desire I was experiencing at this time in my life. Dr. Strumpfkin thought that my slender body might be intimidating, and that Karl might be more at ease if I were heavier.

I would go farther yet. I feel Karl erred, intending to say necrophobic, rather than necrophiliac. His rejection of necrophobia indicated a reaction formation to deny that his feelings were the opposite, that is, that he was afraid of death. Further, it was through feeling alive again that he would more fully feel his fears. This clinging to non-aliveness, or death, led to his Freudian slip, saying he was not a necrophiliac, thus creating a double reaction formation.

Therefore, I agree with Dr. Strumpfkin's interpretation, but for the opposite reasons as his, making my conclusions twice as brilliant. Karl feared the feelings of aliveness that my sexually experienced body could arouse in his. His first wife had never been with another man, as they were together since high school, with the exception of her encounters with an ex-priest who provided Scientology sessions to the family, and cello lessons for her when she was between the ages of eight and fifteen.

Successful Treament, Permanent Setback

The treatment of my client ended abruptly when I experienced a sudden depression of my own. You see, I had told my husband I would be at a conference in Munich for two weeks and could not be reached very easily. Unfortunately, my husband learned of my temporary clinical marriage and living arrangements through a coincidence involving one of his friends and a private detective. Before I could reach him to explain, he abruptly suicided.

My parents had to care for our children because of my depression, and I experienced strong suicidal feelings of my own, when his body was recovered from the trunk of his Citroën several days later. At that point I was gaining weight like a sieve.

Dr. Strumpfkin, whom I had led to believe was my therapist when, in fact, he was unwittingly functioning as my supervisor, indicated that my problem was now outside of his scope of practice and transferred my care to his advanced student, Dr. Kaupf.

This time period is somewhat difficult to recall clearly, but it was gratifying to find that Dr. Strumpfkin's feelings for me had warmed, and he proposed marriage. My spirits lifted dramatically when we began living together, even though, because of his religious convictions, he forbade us having sex before marriage. I was somewhat relieved, as I needed to absorb all the changes, experiences and insights. Strangely, though, having my sexuality tightly bound and gagged, and left wondering when she will be released, has its own erotic aura.

As of this writing, we are in our second week of living together, and I have become quite preoccupied with writing a book which will also serve as my dissertation for a second Ph.D. I am going to pursue, although I intend to take a break this weekend so we can fly to the Riviera. He doesn't know it, but I hope to persuade him to marry me there--how romantic! What could liberate Karl's spontaneity more than the surf, the sun, and the smell of Italian crowds?

He even confessed that my increased weight had an overwhelmingly powerful effect upon him. When he takes me as his lover, it will be explosive.

We also need to get away because I noticed someone, perhaps one of his old clients with a thought disorder, has been observing us with a camera at times.

Of course, I have refined my approach to in-home family therapy of single persons as a result of these dramatic learning experiences and look forward to presenting them in detail in my book. I invite readers to correspond with me about conducting formal research.