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56 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
I believe that the way psychotherapist and client answer these questions greatly affects the approach and outcome of therapy. The following is a case in point, and in this and the next three chapters we may see more clearly just how universal and important spiritual issues are, and to what extent and with what kind of approaches they should be addressed. Names of people and places have been changed to protect anonymity.
THE CASE OF A.T.
In 1979 when A.T. began treatment she was a bright 27-year old married graduate student in biology. Five feet, six inches, 145 pounds, sturdy and athletic in build, tanned and loving the outdoors, with a natural earthy attractiveness, she usually dressed casually in jeans, dress or shorts. She related to people in an interesting, sensitive, responsive, verbal, at times a bit overly intellectual manner. Intelligent, educated and excelling in the best American schools, admired and respected by peers who elected her president of the graduate student body, happily married to a physician—she had, you would think, all that life could offer.
Although showing no apparent personality or emotional weaknesses, clear-thinking and expressive of a full range of emotions, at times A.T. showed an unusual, misty far-away look in her eyes and complained of an ill-defined void in her life. She entered treatment also complaining of a lack of motivation in pursuing her spiritual life. To my way of thinking she was expressing the yearning to contact a deeper, more meaningful level of love, but was blocked by some fear.
As treatment progressed it was apparent that she used her intellectual and verbal skills to control her interactions with people and distance herself when she felt threatened. She was over- concerned with being reasonable and rational and hesitated to show childish feelings, as she felt they expressed “unreasonable” needs and wishes. Instead of expressing feelings she would describe and explain events in elaborate detail, in a manner, which controlled and quieted her emotions. At times when she appeared sad to me, with tears welling up and her lip quivering, she would deny this feeling, saying, “There’s no reason to be sad. Dwelling on sadness is a morbid self-indulgence that leads nowhere. Why are so many people sad when all they have to do is force their mind elsewhere?” So along with her over-control and distancing was occasional sadness. Why did she have to exert such intellectual