Couch is a series about psychotherapy.
Dr. Yalom, I would like a consultation. I’ve read your novel “When Nietzsche Wept,” and wonder if you’d be willing to see a fellow writer with a writing block.
No doubt Paul sought to pique my interest with his email. And he succeeded: I’d never turn away a fellow writer. As for the writing block, I felt blessed by not having been visited by one of those creatures and I was keen to help him tackle it.
Ten days later Paul arrived for his appointment. I was startled by his appearance. For some reason I had expected a frisky, tormented, middle-aged writer, yet entering my office was a wizened old man, so stooped over that he appeared to be scrutinizing the floor. Almost able to hear his joints creaking, I took his heavy battered briefcase, held his arm and guided him to his chair.
“All I know about you comes from your short email,” I said. “You wrote that you were a fellow writer, you’ve read my Nietzsche novel, and you have a writing block.”
“Yes,” he said. “And I’m requesting a single consultation. That’s all. I’m on a fixed income and can’t afford more.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “Tell me what I should know about the block.”
“I have to go back to my grad school days,” he began. “I was in philosophy at Princeton writing my doctorate on the incompatibility between Nietzsche’s ideas on determinism and his espousal of self-transformation. But I couldn’t finish. I kept getting distracted by such things as Nietzsche’s extraordinary correspondence, especially by his letters to his friends and fellow writers like Strindberg.
“Gradually I lost interest altogether in his philosophy and valued him more as an artist. I came to regard Nietzsche as a poet with the most powerful voice in history, a voice so majestic that it eclipsed his ideas, and soon there was nothing for me to do but to switch departments and do my doctorate in literature rather than philosophy.
“The years went by,” he continued, “my research progressed well, but I simply could not write. Finally I arrived at the position that it was only through art that an artist could be illuminated, and I abandoned the dissertation project entirely and decided instead to write a novel on Nietzsche. But the writing block was neither fooled nor deterred by my changing projects. It remained as powerful and unmovable as a granite mountain. And so it has continued until this very day.”
I was stunned. Paul was an old man now. He must have begun working on his dissertation well over a half-century ago. I had heard of professional students before, but this was bizarre.
“Paul,” I said. “Fill me in about your life since those college days.”
“Not much to tell,” he said. “Of course the university eventually decided I had stayed overtime and terminated my student status. I took a job as a librarian at a state university, where I stayed put until retirement, trying, unsuccessfully, to write all these years. That’s it. That’s my life. Period.”
“Tell me more,” I said. “Your family? The people in your life?”
Paul seemed impatient and spat his words out quickly: “No siblings. Married twice. Divorced twice. Mercifully short marriages. No children, thank God.”
This is getting very odd, I thought. So talkative at first, Paul now seems intent on giving me as little information as possible. What’s going on?
I persevered: “Your plan was to write a novel about Nietzsche, and your email mentioned that you had read my novel ‘When Nietzsche Wept.’ What feelings did you have about my novel?”
“A bit slow-going at first,” he said, “but it gathered steam. Despite the stilted language and the stylized, improbable dialogue, it was, overall, not an unengrossing read.”
“No, no,” I said. “What I meant was your reaction to that novel appearing while you, yourself, were striving to write a novel about Nietzsche. Some feelings about that must have arisen.”
Paul shook his head as though he did not wish to be bothered with that question. “There’s something more important for us to discuss,” he said. “For many years I had a long correspondence with my dissertation director, Professor Claude Mueller. You know his work?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m familiar with his biography of Nietzsche. It’s quite wonderful.”
“I’m exceptionally glad you think that,” Paul said, as he reached into his briefcase and extracted an enormous three-ring binder. “I’ve brought that correspondence with me, and I’d like you to read it.”
“When? You mean now?” I looked at my watch. “But we have only this one session, and it is so much more important that we — ”
“Dr. Yalom, trust me, I know what I’m asking. Make a start. Please.”
I felt a bit flummoxed but acquiesced and held out my hand to accept the ponderous binder. Paul explained that the correspondence extended over 45 years and ended with Professor Mueller’s death, in 2002. Much care had gone into this binder. It seemed that Paul had saved, indexed and dated everything that had passed between them, both short casual notes and long discursive letters.
I read the first several letters and saw that this was a most urbane and engaging correspondence. Professor Mueller obviously had great respect for Paul. Despite the roles and the half-century dividing them, they quickly dropped formal titles of Mister and Professor and used their first names, Paul and Claude.
A couple of letters into the correspondence, I had an “aha” moment when I came upon a passage that possibly offered the key to understanding this entire surreal consultation. Paul wrote: “So you see, Claude, what is there left for me but to look for the nimblest and noblest mind I can find? I need a mind likely to appreciate my sensibilities, my love of poetry, a mind incisive and bold enough to join me in dialogue. Do any of my words quicken your pulse, Claude? I need a light-footed partner for this dance. Would you do me the honor?”
A thunderclap of understanding burst in my mind. Now I know why Paul insisted I read the correspondence. How had I missed it? Paul is trolling for another dance partner! That’s where my novel about Nietzsche comes in! No wonder I’ve been so confused. I thought I was interviewing him, whereas, in reality, he is interviewing me.
I looked at the ceiling for a moment, wondering how to express this clarifying insight, when Paul interrupted my reverie by pointing to his watch and remarking: “Please, Dr. Yalom, our time passes. Please continue reading.”
In the first dozen letters there seemed a clear student-teacher relationship. But gradually, halfway through the year, the teacher-student roles began to dissolve. At times, it was difficult to discern who was the teacher and who the pupil. Their relationship grew more intimate and more intense with each exchange of letters. Though they wrote of matters intellectual and artistic, I wondered if I held in my hands the ashes of the great love, perhaps the only love, of Paul’s life.
Maybe Paul is suffering from chronic unresolved grief. Yes, yes — certainly that’s it.
As time went on I entertained one hypothesis after another, but in the end none offered the full explanation I sought. Then I saw an exchange of letters that gave me pause. “Paul,” wrote Claude, “your excessive glorification of sheer experience is veering in a dangerous direction. I must remind you, once again, of Socrates’ admonition that the unexamined life is not worth living.”
Good going, Claude! I silently rooted. My point exactly. I identify entirely with your pressing Paul to examine his life.
But Paul retorted sharply in his next letter: “Given the choice between living and examining, I’ll choose living any day. The drive to explain is an epidemic in modern thought and its major carriers are contemporary therapists: every shrink I have ever seen suffers from this malady, and it is addictive and contagious. Explanation is an illusion, a mirage, a construct, a soothing lullaby.”
I read this passage a second and third time and felt destabilized. My resolve to posit any of the ideas fermenting in my mind wavered. I knew that there was zero chance that Paul would accept my invitation to dance.
Every once in a while I looked up and saw Paul’s eyes riveted on me, taking in my every reaction, signaling me to go on reading. But finally, when I saw there were only 10 minutes left, I closed the binder and firmly took charge.
“Paul,” I said, “I’m uncomfortable because we’re coming to the end of our session, and I’ve not really addressed the very reason you contacted me — your major complaint, your writing block.”
“I never said that,” he replied. “I know my words: ‘I wonder if you’d be willing to see a fellow writer with a writing block.’”
I looked up at him expecting a grin, but he was entirely serious. He had said he had a writing block but had not explicitly labeled it as the problem for which he wanted help. It was a word trap, and I fought back irritation at being trifled with.
“Well then,” I said, “let’s make a fresh start. Tell me, how can I be of help to you?”
“Your reflections on the correspondence?” he asked. “Any and every observation would be most helpful to me.”
“All right,” I said, opening the notebook and flipping through the pages. “As you know, I had time to read only a small portion, but over all I was captivated by it, and found it brimming with intelligence and erudition at the highest level. There was no doubt he had the greatest respect for your comments and your judgments. He admired your prose, valued your critique of his work, and I can only imagine that the time and energy he gave to you must have far exceeded what he could possibly have provided the typical student. And of course, given that the correspondence continued long after your tenure as a student, there is no doubt that you and he were immensely important to one another.”
I looked at Paul. He sat motionless, his eyes filling with tears, eagerly drinking in all that I said, obviously thirsting for yet more.
Finally, finally, we had had an encounter. Finally, I had given him something. I could bear witness to an event of extraordinary importance to Paul. I could testify that a great man deemed Paul to be significant. He needed a witness, someone of stature, and I had been selected to fill that role. Yes, I had no doubt of this.
Now to convey some of these thoughts that would be of value to Paul. “What struck me most strongly about your correspondence,” I said, “was the intensity and the tenderness of the bond between you and Professor Mueller. It struck me as a deep love. His death must have been terrible for you. I wonder if that painful loss still lingers and that is the reason you desired a consultation. What do you think?”
Paul did not answer. Instead he held out his hand for the manuscript, and I returned it to him. He opened his briefcase, packed the binder of correspondence away, and zippered it shut.
“Am I right, Paul?”
“I desired a consultation with you because I desired it,” he said. “And now I’ve had the consultation, and I obtained precisely what I wished for. You’ve been helpful, exceedingly helpful. Thank you.”
“Before you leave, Paul, one more moment, please,” I said. “I’ve always found it important to understand what helps. Could you expound for a moment on what you received from me?”
“I regret having to leave you with so many riddles,” he said, “but I’m afraid our time is up.”
He tottered as he tried to rise. I reached out and grabbed his elbow to steady him. Then he straightened himself, reached to shake my hand and, with an invigorated gait, strode out of my office.
Irvin D. Yalom is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and a psychiatrist in private practice in San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy,” from which this piece is condensed and adapted.
Details have been altered to protect patient privacy.