My supervisor (whom I have worked with for eleven years) listened to my case summary and then just asked, “Are you sure you’re not the one who needs therapy?”
I told her that was not constructive feedback. She told me to maintain my boundaries and consider whether I was experiencing “a mild folie à deux or a very compelling narrative framework.” I told her I would think about it. I am still thinking about it… I also googled “Orpheus & Greek mythology” again at 11pm on Thursday, which I am choosing not to disclose to anyone.
He arrives early again, so we’re back to that. But he somehow managed to sit in my office already when I come back from the restroom, and I can’t imagine my receptionist just let him in? I make a clinical decision to stop noting these things as anomalies and file them under “client’s unique presentation.”
DT: You’re a few minutes early.
Dream: (I notice mild affront, as if I’ve caught him.) I was not aware punctuality was calibrated so precisely.
DT: It isn’t. It’s just… never mind.
Dream: I found I did not… wish to wait outside.
DT: (Maybe he should bring that interesting reading material again the next time.) How have you been this week?
Dream: (He looks older today. Not in a real way, his face is unchanged, but there’s a weight to how he sits.) I visited the Soft Places.
DT: The what?
Dream: (The ghost of something passes over his face. Is it amusement?) It is… complicated. I sometimes go there to think. To… remember.
DT: And what did you remember?
Dream: Orpheus. When he was very young. Before he understood what I was and simply thought I was his father.
DT: Simply.
Dream: (He glances at me.) You are very perceptive. (He isn’t sarcastic or facetious, I can tell.)
DT: Words hold meaning.
Dream: (He looks slightly surprised and then smiles. Barely.) Yes, they do. (The smile disappears.) It was… not painful. Remembering. It was simply him, demanding I lift him up to see something he could not reach. (I notice a frown.) I cannot remember what it was he wanted to see. Only that he asked.
DT: And did you? Lift him up?
Dream: Yes. (He pauses.) It was easier, then. When the answer to what he needed was… simple.
DT: As opposed to what he needed later?
Dream: (I notice both hands press briefly against his thighs, a gesture I’ve come to understand as stopping himself from doing something. Speaking? Falling apart?) Yes.
DT: Last week, you said you couldn’t teach him how to be with grief.
Dream: (The brow furrows again.) Yes.
DT: I’ve been thinking about that. Who taught you?
Dream: (I notice immediate tension.) I beg your pardon?
DT: Grief. Loss. How to cope. Who showed you that was possible?
Dream: (Four minutes of silence. The paperweight is getting a workout. I genuinely need to know what it is about that object. If I moved it, would we lose all progress?) I am… not certain anyone did.
DT: (And there it is.) Can you tell me about your parents?
Dream: (Something happens to his expression. It’s like a door slams shut.) My parents?
DT: If you’d like to. You don’t have to.
Dream: I already told you that my mother is Night and my father is Time. Does our previous conversation about them not suffice?
DT: (I have made a professional commitment to therapeutic neutrality but at this point I feel I’ve earned some kind of coping badge.) Well, you spoke about them, but you told me very little that wasn’t evasive. (He does that weird thing with his spine again that makes me worry it might snap.) What were they truly like? As parents?
Dream: (He tilts his head, very slightly.) Vast.
DT: (I wait.)
Dream: They were… (He seems to search.) They were what they were. One does not expect closeness from someone who moves on. Or warmth from a dark void.
DT: One doesn’t. But did you?
Dream: I am not a philosopher.
DT: Fair point. (Maybe not entirely true.) Did you feel seen?
Dream: (He appears to genuinely consider this.) I felt… brought into being. Which is perhaps a different thing.
DT: It is a different thing. How is it different in your opinion?
Dream: (He looks at his hands.) To be seen, one must first be… looked at. I think perhaps I came into being, and then I was (he gestures vaguely) released. Into function.
DT: Released into function. (I write this down, because sometimes clients hand you the thread and all you have to do is pull at it.) That sounds lonely.
Dream: (I notice a quick blink.) I did not experience it as lonely at the time. I experienced it as… correct. As the nature of things.
DT: And now?
Dream: (The pause is not long, but it is heavy.) Now I wonder what I might have learned, had anyone thought to… (He shakes his head.) This is not a productive line of inquiry.
DT: (I disagree quite strongly but I don’t say it.) You mentioned last week that Calliope said you loved your function more than you loved Orpheus. (I notice his jaw tighten.) Where do you think you learned that? That function comes first?
Dream: (I watch the realisation arriving on his face in real time)
DT: (I wait. For six minutes.)
Dream: I was not taught that love and function were separable things.
DT: Because nobody separated them for you?
Dream: (His voice is very measured.) I was given a realm. A purpose. Before I was given…
DT: Before you were given what?
Dream: (He looks at me, and something in his face is… raw. Last week was grief. This is something different.) I… do not entirely know what I was not given. I have no words for its absence.
DT: (Oh, I think he does!) It doesn’t have to be precise. It sometimes helps to remember what we wished for before we… gave up wishing for it? Of course only if that’s not too painful.
Dream: It is… that. (The following silence lasts three minutes, during which he looks at his hands again.) However, I thought… I believed that what I gave him was love. And purpose. But he might have needed something I did not know how to provide. Because no one had provided it for me…
DT: And what is that thing?
Dream: (He is still looking at his hands.) Perhaps to be held… through confusion and pain.
DT: (I should probably say something clinical and useful here.) Yes. (Very useful. Not.)
Dream: (He looks up.) I should have failed beside him rather than above him.
DT: (My eyes are doing something professionally unacceptable and I’m hoping he won’t notice. But he probably did.) That’s a bit harsh, but…
Dream: It is also, naturally only approximately, several thousand years too late.
DT: (I cannot help it. I almost laugh, and I really shouldn’t.) Timing isn’t everything.
Dream: (He gives me The Look™️ B: the one that is reproachful but not unkind.) I find your optimism… vexing. Occasionally.
DT: (Good. That means it’s working.) Can I ask you something?
Dream: (He nods.)
DT: If Orpheus were here right now, what would you want to say to him?
Dream: (Four minutes. He seems somewhere else entirely. When he returns, his voice is almost inaudible.) I would say… that I am sorry. That I sometimes did not know how to be his father without also being… (He seems to reach for the elegant version and finally gives up on it.) Without being this. (He gestures at himself.)
DT: And is that enough?
Dream: (He meets my eyes.) No.
DT: (Man, that hurts.) But is it true?
Dream: It is.
DT: (I let that sit for a bit.) How are you feeling right now?
Dream: (He seems to take stock.) Tired. But… somewhat lighter. Which is strange, given the subject matter.
DT: That’s how it works. At least sometimes. (I glance at the clock. I have built in buffer time.) You said something last week, right at the end. That love feels insurmountable.
Dream: (He remembers. Clearly.) Yes.
DT: I’d like to come back to that next time, if that’s alright.
Dream: I already thought about it. (He briefly closes his eyes.) I think perhaps what I meant was… that to love someone you cannot protect is a form of terror. And I have spent a very long time refusing to be terrified.
DT: (Help… I write that down.) And now?
Dream: (He stands slowly and looks at the paperweight, then at me.) Now I am in therapy. (He says it with complete sincerity, which is somehow the funniest and saddest thing at once.)
DT: Same time next week?
Dream: (He is already at the door.) I find I… look forward to it. (He says this as one might confess to a minor character flaw.) It is disconcerting.
DT: Looking forward to things is allowed, you know?
Dream: Is it? (I think he’s really not sure but he leaves before I can answer...)
— — —
Notes:
Client shows increased investment in the therapeutic relationship and reduced avoidance.
Significant developments this session:
Return to parental figures. Early relational environment characterised by a striking absence of modelled intimacy. “Released into function” is very precise: He was, by his own account, “made” and then simply expected to fulfil his function.
Clear emergence of intergenerational transmission: Client received “purpose” and role without the experience of being emotionally held or seen. He then replicated this pattern with Orpheus in place of presence, vulnerability, and “failing beside him instead of above him” (his phrase).
First genuine integration of self-compassion alongside accountability: Client recognised that his failures as a father were not born of indifference. It does not erase the grief or the guilt, nor should it, but it begins to place both within a larger context.
Note the difference from earlier sessions, where all emotional content required excavation.
End-of-session disclosure (he looks forward to sessions) is encouraging. Attachment to the therapeutic process is forming, which presents its own clinical considerations (dependency, termination planning, the fact that I am increasingly unsure what termination would even look like in this case).
Key themes for continued exploration:
“Love as terror”: This connects to his relationship with vulnerability and control.
His parents. We have barely touched the surface. How does one form a secure attachment to Night and Time? I suspect this is where the rigidity originates, as adaptation, possibly oppositional. Perfectly reasonable if your earliest caregivers are, by definition, boundless and constantly changing.
The question he asked as he left (“Is it?” in response to being told that looking forward to things is allowed): He did not wait for an answer. I don’t think he was asking rhetorically. I think he genuinely doesn’t know.
Risk: Grief appears to be integrating rather than escalating. Hopeful signs. Continue monitoring closely.
— — —
Personal notes:
I moved the paperweight to a slightly more central position on the desk before he arrived. I don’t know why. I’m not telling my supervisor. She would have thoughts.
The note I definitely won’t put in the file: “To love someone you cannot protect is a form of terror.” I keep returning to it. I think he handed me something today that I didn’t know I needed. Is this countertransference, or is it possibly just true?
I’m going to need a longer lunch break. And possibly a different supervisor...
