I think I came closer in this session than in many of the previous ones to encouraging the kind of shift I am after for my patients. It did not come through my explanation of the concept of conceit but from the surprise of suggesting that Zach simply be a friend to his friend. The element of surprise was important. Startled by my comment, Zach had a glimpse of another way of relating. It made sense to him in the moment, not just conceptually but personally. The Zen poem connotes a similar feeling, returning by an unused path. Could that also be mindfulness, coming back via an intrinsic but unfamiliar resource to find the unexpected? But when I read the poem to Zach at a later date, instead of hearing “violets,” he heard the final word as “violence.” A Freudian slip, we might conclude.

In our culture, we often have trouble distinguishing selflessness from submission, but they are very different things. Lukas was inclined to keep his feelings bottled up, but this scenario could not go on forever. His feelings were coming out in spite of himself, and his marriage needed more contribution from his side if it was to thrive. I think Lukas wanted his husband to understand what he needed without having to articulate it. There is a risk involved in speaking up, the age-old risk of loss of love. I didn’t think Lukas gave himself enough credit in his relationship; I didn’t think he valued himself enough. I meant it when I told him it was up to him to educate his partner. Sex was one important theater for this kind of exchange; I doubted that it was the only one.

Tarrant paints a vivid picture of how challenging this can be. In one of my favorite

passages, he puts it like this:

If you are used to living in a small room and suddenly discover a wide meadow, you might feel unsafe. Everyone thinks that they want happiness, but they might not. They might rather keep their stories about who they are and about what is impossible. Happiness is not an add-on to what you already are; it requires you to become a different person from the one who set off seeking it.

Violette had a wonderful feeling for the joy of connection and the benefits of generosity. She was a selfless person in many regards. But her upbringing had not made enough room for healthy aggression, and this had made it difficult for her to balance the inevitable give-and-take of separation and connection. Beneath her compliant exterior lay an aggression that made her feel guilty and removed from the people she loved. Surrender was not going to be Violette’s rhinoceros. She knew about surrender already. Her rhinoceros was much more likely to look like a rhinoceros.

He [Winnicott] was by no means a Buddhist, but I believe he, too, healed by modeling being. He mostly used mother/infant vocabulary to describe his mode of relating, but this did not stop him from describing, in disarmingly frank terms, his own internal process:

It is only in recent years that I have become able to wait and

wait . . . and to avoid breaking up this natural process by making

interpretations. . . . It appals me to think how much deep change I

have prevented or delayed . . . by my personal need to interpret. If

only we can wait, the patient arrives at understanding creatively

and with immense joy, and I now enjoy this joy more than I used to

enjoy the sense of having been clever. I think I interpret mainly to let

the patient know the limits of my understanding. The principle is

that it is the patient and only the patient who has the answers. We

may or may not enable him or her to encompass what is known or

become aware of it with acceptance.