One day in the life of Group Personal Jn group
Viewpoint: by therapy
Susan X,
a
no.
patient
Today Fiona has broken down. She
starts to sob as all seated and she tries to talk through the sobbing and she half-covers her face and her body rocks backwards and forwards in anguish. "They say it's a very big operation... I don't know what I'll do if John dies... I just don't know... I just don't know ...' she has to wrench each word out from inside with great difficulty, it even hurts to listen, 'I can't look after Robert on my own... I can't, I can't... he had one fit after another... there was no end to it... if John dies and I am left alone with Robert I'll just do away with both of us... it's the ' only thing left She would like to say more, but her voice chokes. There is a long silence now. No one else in the group dares to speak. There is only Fiona's sobbing. And I have a terrible, sinking feeling that I did this to her. :soon as we are
A small incident It happened three weeks ago, when we all stood up after the session and Dr. Gabriel handed us our cards. When he gave me mine I suddenly grabbed hold of his hand and pressed it to my cheek and I said: 'I love you, I love you, I love you...' and my eyes closed. I didn't know I was going to do this, it just happened. No one mentioned this incident in the group the following week, or the week after and I thought they don't really mind, not even Fiona. I had been worried about Fiona, because she is always against me, no matter what I say or do. She hates me for loving Dr. Gabriel; no one else is allowed to love him, only she. Fiona is about 38; she has a slim, tense body and a narrow, defiant face. She leads a busy social life with her husband, so it is strange that Dr. Gabriel should he the core of her existence. But lately she has turned against him, and has become much easier and gayer and I thought: thank God, she has grown out of Dr. Gabriel at last; thank God, she is almost cured. But suddenly today she is back where she was two years ago, when I first came here. Tormented by jealousy She looks as though she 34
were
3
dying
with
grief.
She is
wringing her hands and moaning and sighing, and her face is distorted, but she is smartly dressed. Three weeks ago she looked attractive and lively, but now she is worn out with not having eaten or slept for days. And I can see how it all come about, how for the last three weeks she has been tormented by jealousy, because of what had happened between Dr. Gabriel and me and I can see how for the last three weeks the ulcer in John's stomach has been growing and growing, because of his worry over Fiona... and I can see Robert writhing on the floor in an epileptic fit because of his parents But as I watch Fiona persistently moaning, as if she were never going to stop, I slowly hot up with anger ?am I not even allowed to hold Dr. Gabriel's hand? Is a whole family going to be wiped out if I have a moment of bliss? Why did she never grab hold of his hand then? She has been coming here for seven years now, much longer than I. Why doesn't she rather scream into my face that she could murder me? Why does she have to throw the dead bodies of her husband and child at my feet? Oh, I don't know what I feel?I'm angry, I'm frightened, I'm fed up, but I can't put it into words, so I just sit here silently in the long silence. ...
Who always sits in the middle Outside the sun is shining, but in here it's dark; the curtains are drawn. The muffled noise of a car driving past, the faint, double click-click of two women walking down the sunny pavement are on the other side of it, but for us on this side there is only the electric light, spreading like sad water in an aquarium. And in this gloomy little world, there is one, who has drawn the curtains so, and has made the light shine so, and has grouped the people so?a small, silent man, who always sits in the middle. When we file in at the beginning of the session and hand him our cards I try to slip into the chair next to him, or into the one that is not quite so near to him on his other side, but mostly Fiona and Sandra get there first. But today I did take the chair nearest
r
to Dr. Gabriel just before Sandra wanted to sit in it, and so she has to sit in the one that is a bit farther away from him.
but to me it just seems like showing off: look, what a wonderful baby I've got, he's not epileptic; he even manages to get his own way and look, we've got a car, we go visiting, we have friends?aren't we lucky? The others seem to swallow it all, but I think: smug bitch. But I dare not say anything today; I feel I have no right to interrupt her, because I have taken the best chair away from her, and I have held Dr. Gabriel's hand and she never has, although she has been coming to the group two years longer than I. But at the same time I am also pleased with her, because she dared to start speaking after Fiona, and so broke the long silence that weighed on us heavily. Sandra's problems always brighten up the whole group; they are normal problems, agreeable to listen to, not terrifying and heartbreaking like Fiona's.
Is she just being greedy? Sandra is the youngest among the women. She has brown, velvety eyes, and thick, dark hair, and a creamy complexion, with rounded cheeks that flush up when she talks. She is a picture of well-being and fulfilment and she has everything: an attractive house, a healthy husband and a normal baby. Why does she need this treatment? Why does she need Dr. Gabriel? How unfair, when I have to go hungry. She still has all the things that I have lost and that I only carry the memory of now, like a heavy stone. Sandra speaks of her problems in a whining voice, like a spoilt little girl and this voice of hers convinces me that she is loved and protected. He cried the whole time while we were there; he just "Would not stop.... It was so annoying, because he's always been so good when we took him visiting
Black leather jacket and Chelsea boots While Sandra goes on talking, I start to think about Peter who has left the group. Peter was a small, dark, live-wire man, with a stream of smooth talking pouring out of his mouth, as if his brain had attacks of diarrhoea. He was just a crazy, mixed-up kid of 35, in a black polo-neck sweater, black leather jacket and Chelsea boots. He was only here for a year, but never before in the group had anyone talked so often and so much, so exclusively about himself.
before;
I don't know what got into him! But of course we sat in the car and drove bome, I was so angry with him! I suppose it's my fault really, I can't cope. I don't know why other Women can and I can't?' she complains in an appealing sort of way, trying to win everybody's sympathy,
be stopped the minute
Barbara
Firth
>
J
''
35 '
One
day
in the
life of Group
no.
3
she was that soft girl with the peachy quality whom I had a mother-son relationship with in Brighton... by the way, I've made up my mind to give Barbara a divorce, I don't mind her going off with David just now; actually I want her to go off but let's get back to Daphne, my relawith him tionship with her is now completely reversed, which is tremendously fascinating really... incidentally, that was the time when I started to develop a guilt comI talked about Judith two weeks ago, she was plex the stocky, dark, Scottish-Jewish girl, who undressed, when I was fifteen and a half... I went completely paralysed, but I'll go into that in detail in a moment I have just realised that my last painting is really a reflection of my relationship with my eldest son ?you know?' Whenever I was about to interrupt him angrily, he would say 'you know?' in a charming, disarming sort of way and I would hold back. He was a glutton for talk and savoured every word, obviously enjoying himself. He got a pleasure out of exhibiting all his failures and humiliations; he sat there contentedly, picking his wounds with minute interest. His strange, twisted joie-de-vivre attracted me, and I would have liked to make friends with him outside the group as well. But then he started to go off with Sandra to an espresso after each session. As I stood in front of the Clinic and watched their backs walking away from me, I wanted to bend down and pick up a handful of pebbles to throw at his hateful, black leather jacket and at Sandra's ugly, imitation fur coat. But there were no pebbles, and so I just walked off to the tube station alone. ..
...
...
...
is breathing One afternoon I cried my heart out in the lavatory after the session. I felt as though I were suffocating. Here in the group, speaking is breathing and Peter and Sandra and Fiona were sucking all the oxygen away from me. Margaret followed me into the lavatory and tried to console me. 'You shouldn't be left on your own like this,' she said, 'you must come home with me.' And immediately, there loomed up a picture in my mind of her husband sneaking to my door in the middle of the night.... 'I can't, I can't,' I said terrified, 'maybe I would break
Speaking
up your
marriage.'
'Could you, in this condition?' she asked doubtfully and glanced at my red eyes and tear-stained face and dishevelled hair. Why, she is quite normal I thought, and straight away I felt more sober myself. I washed my face and bathed my eyes and combed my hair. While I made up, I scrutinised myself in the mirror: coarse, unruly brown hair, hazel eyes, wide face, large mouth?how many million times had I gone over it before? But when I was ready, I still didn't dare go with Mar-
garet and just little flat. 36
went
home alone
to my
shabby
empty
Wiser and shrewder than the rest Margaret is the oldest among the women and she has been coming to the Clinic for ten years, hardly ever uttering a word, but she keeps coming. She is pale and thin, with an apologetic walk, but her hair is dyed blonde and her eyes are very blue, as if she didn't want to apologise for being alive after all. Sometimes, when I see her sitting there so silently, I wonder if she is choked up with anger. But then I think: maybe she is wiser and shrewder than the rest of us, by refusing to exhibit all her failures and shortcomings for the others to gloat over. Today she is much livelier than usual; she takes off her cardigan, she walks boldly across the room to get an ashtray, she lights herself a cigarette and she even starts to chat with Sandra, which is quite extra-
ordinary. I have never heard Margaret chatting with anyone before and suddenly I feel terribly left out. Everyone else here can make friends, even Margaret, only I can't. Or is it just pretending? Is she only pretending to be so gay today to cover up her anger? Surely she must have been angry with me, when I pressed Dr. Gabriel's hand to my cheek?
More and more dissatisfied As I look across at Margaret, I realise that Brian isn't in his place. He has been staying away from the group for the last two weeks, ever since that incident and immediately I think: he is so angry with us that he can't bring himself to face us. Brian has been coming to the group for seven years, and together with Fiona and Margaret he forms the hard core of this group. He is about forty-five and lives with his wife and mother. But after seven years, he still hasn't solved his problem of being torn between these two women. He only seems to be getting more and more dissatisfied, as one week after another passes by and big chunks of his life fall away from one Wednesday to the next. He no longer believes that there is a good time waiting for him just around the corner, when he walks out of the Clinic after the session. 'I suppose Dr. Gabriel does his best for us,' Brian says this every now and again, with a sneer in his voice, 'I suppose there isn't really anything that he can do for us; he'll just give us the usual sermon at the end of the session, which won't really help any of us, and then we'll all go home into the same old rut, but I suppose he's only human, not God.' A depression settles on the room, whenever Brian talks like that. His accusations only roll off Dr. Gabriel, who just sits there and listens; there is nothing we can say that could possibly hurt him. We are nothing to him, only his patients, and he is nothing to us, only our doctor. He never loses his temper; he never bursts out laughing; his eyes never fill with tears; his voice never chokes with emotion. We can say what we like to him during the session, and after the session we can go where we like and do what we
One day
like.
in the
life of Group
no.
3
All I would like to do is to stay here with him, but
that is where he draws the line.
I must stop laughing The only man in the group today is Alan, and he is sitting next to Sandra. He is fair and sun-tanned and short and muscular. He would look much better Moving about on a beach in trunks than sitting in this dark room in tight-fitting clothes. I watch him Wriggling in his chair?he slides right down till he is almost lying on it and he pushes his legs into the fiddle of the room. Then suddenly, he jerks himself tnto a sitting position and he stretches his arms full length above his head. On his face there is a broad Srin, and when Sandra stops talking he suddenly bursts out laughing for no reason. Then he gets angry
With himself. I must stop laughing!' he shouts and brings his fist
down
on
to his knee with a terrific
startles him for again.
a
slap.
The
moment and then makes him
pain laugh
1 took to him straight away, when he arrived a year ago. Is this how far you've got in seven years? Is this all the work you have done so far?' he attacked us after ?nly half-an-hour and looked as though he were going to explode. I was taken aback?no other patient had ever turned on the group like this before. Instead trying to please us, so we should accept him, he
immediately rejected
us.
I thought he would bring about some big change, but now we are still sitting here and after the session we still go our separate ways. Alan is the only unmarried man in the group and as I am divorced, I thought: we could go to that espresso where Peter and Sandra had gone last year. But Alan rushes off after the session, and in my heart of hearts I am relieved that he does. Perhaps we are not ready for a love affair yet, but when will we be? Alan is about thirty and I am even more than that. Today he is sitting next to Sandra, and I watch him turning towards her now, as if she were the only one in the group who mattered. And I wonder whether he is going to go off with her in the end? Is he really interested in her? Or is he just trying to punish me, because I have fondled Dr. Gabriel's hand? one of the supporting cast Ruth is sitting next to Alan, but I only just noticed her. She is so unobtrusive that she quite melts into the background. Even her eyes are hidden behind a pair of spectacles. As I watch her curled up in her corner, like a little grey mouse, I try to picture her wearing contact-lenses, and a full, bouncy hair style, and maybe a turquoise linen dress?she would be a different woman. Sandra, on Alan's other side, is in a red, sleeveless summer dress, against which her dark hair looks dramatic, as if she were the heroine of this
Only
One
day
in the
life of Group
play. Ruth, with pullover, is only
no.
3
her
small, sensitive face and beige of the supporting cast. 'Do you think he cried so much because he didn't like these people?' she asks Sandra helpfully. 'Maybe that's why he stopped as soon as you left.' Alan bursts out laughing again and Sandra laughs with him, and then the two of them start to talk to each other in low tones, and I wish Ruth hadn't been so helpful. Can't she see that Sandra doesn't need her help, that she doesn't even bother to answer her? Sandra dismisses Ruth, because Ruth has no husband and no baby and no glamour, while she herself has all of these. Probably, Ruth is acutely aware of this, but I suppose she has to join into the conversation somehow, because she is new and afraid of being left out in the cold. But what chance has she got in this group against Sandra and Fiona? If it isn't Sandra stealing the limelight as a success-symbol, it's Fiona with her tragic outbursts?even now, when she doesn't say a word and only sits in her chair grief-stricken, we are all terribly aware of her. And if it isn't either of them, it is I grabbing hold of Dr. Gabriel's hand, so poor Ruth must feel that she doesn't come into it at all, no matter how hard she tries.
today is how to avoid danger?' As soon as Dr. Gabriel opens his mouth, everyone else shuts up. His voice is hesitant, as if he were not quite sure, whether he has understood us and whether we understand him? He is a very small and fragile man, and this makes me insecure: how can he cope with seven angry, frustrated people like us? because you are afraid that something terrible will happen, if you let yourself go, if you allow yourself to really express what you feel.' He has a Continental accent, but I don't know what country he comes from. Sometimes, I imagine him in his drawingroom: it is full of antique furniture and there are velvet curtains and silver... or maybe he just eats in the kitchen, which smells of garlic and he shouts to his wife has he bad table manners? '... but the whole group is trying to avoid today what the people feel towards each other here in this room; they only talk about their problems outside, because they think something terrible will happen if they let loose their real feelings....' 'But something terrible will happen!' we all cry out in alarm. 'You always say the same things over and over again!' Fiona shouts at him, 'I'm sick and tired of
Has he
you.. We are alt
one
heart of gold? Suddenly, the door opens and Daniel walks in, very late. I think: ah! I never expected to see him again. Like Brian, he has been staying away from the group for the last two weeks, and Ruth told us that he intended to give up this treatment altogether, because he was making better progress without it. But I feel that he was only afraid of attacking Dr. Gabriel in a fit of jealousy, because he stood next to me, when I said: 'I love you..to Dr. Gabriel. Maybe it took Daniel three whole weeks to cool off after that. Daniel is a sweet, shy man. He is about 35-40, he has a family, and his hair is going grey. But I think his main ambition in life is just to be very good. He has a pale face and a serious expression and he wears glasses; he looks like an earnest schoolboy who is studying hard to get a lot of good marks. In the group he is very polite and very cautious, never interrupting anyone; perhaps he is hoping that the others will say of him: isn't he kind? isn't he considerate? don't you think he has a heart of gold? Yes, yes, Dr. Gabriel will nod with a smile. But I am only waiting for the time when Dr. Gabriel will start to scrape off the gilt in his nonchalant way, and reveal how black Daniel's heart really is inside. And I would like to see Daniel's face fall, and then I would like to stroke his sweet face and hug him and console him But now he just sits there, far away from me, silently, not quite knowing yet what this group is about, because he only joined it recently. a
...
Something terrible will happen 'I wonder if what the group is 38
really talking
about
..
...
our
with him. He can understand possibly know what it feels anger inside, which has been swell-
exasperated
minds, but he
cannot
like to carry a big trembling ing there for twenty, thirty, forty years there all the time, ready to break loose And even here, in this place of all places, we cannot let it loose. Once I threw an ashtray at Brian and immediately Peter drew away from me, as if I were a leper and he said I was a terrifying woman. I just thought: crybaby. But it put me off expressing myself for a long ...
time. 'I don't know if I make clear what I mean?' It is all clear, clear and frightening?but what is the good of that? He cannot convince us that we will be accepted by other people, if we turn into ugly monsters. And again, we are left to cope on our own with that big anger. Dr. Gabriel is different from us. He is the only one in this room who can be his natural self without turning into a monster. He is so quiet and withdrawn, and yet there is more vitality in him than in all of us put together. I don't know what it is: perhaps a small spontaneous gesture of impatience, perhaps an involuntary note of surprise in his voice, or his eyes. They are a liquid yellow-brown, warm and smiling. But then suddenly his eyes narrow shrewdly; be glances at his watch and my heart sinks. When be stands up, they become pitiless and cool and he hands us our cards. Perhaps the next group is already wait' ing downstairs. And we file out sheepishly, with an empty, yawning dissatisfaction. It is a long wait till next Wednesday and even then?what is it we are waiting for?
Viewpoint: by therapy
Susan X,
a
no.
patient
Today Fiona has broken down. She
starts to sob as all seated and she tries to talk through the sobbing and she half-covers her face and her body rocks backwards and forwards in anguish. "They say it's a very big operation... I don't know what I'll do if John dies... I just don't know... I just don't know ...' she has to wrench each word out from inside with great difficulty, it even hurts to listen, 'I can't look after Robert on my own... I can't, I can't... he had one fit after another... there was no end to it... if John dies and I am left alone with Robert I'll just do away with both of us... it's the ' only thing left She would like to say more, but her voice chokes. There is a long silence now. No one else in the group dares to speak. There is only Fiona's sobbing. And I have a terrible, sinking feeling that I did this to her. :soon as we are
A small incident It happened three weeks ago, when we all stood up after the session and Dr. Gabriel handed us our cards. When he gave me mine I suddenly grabbed hold of his hand and pressed it to my cheek and I said: 'I love you, I love you, I love you...' and my eyes closed. I didn't know I was going to do this, it just happened. No one mentioned this incident in the group the following week, or the week after and I thought they don't really mind, not even Fiona. I had been worried about Fiona, because she is always against me, no matter what I say or do. She hates me for loving Dr. Gabriel; no one else is allowed to love him, only she. Fiona is about 38; she has a slim, tense body and a narrow, defiant face. She leads a busy social life with her husband, so it is strange that Dr. Gabriel should he the core of her existence. But lately she has turned against him, and has become much easier and gayer and I thought: thank God, she has grown out of Dr. Gabriel at last; thank God, she is almost cured. But suddenly today she is back where she was two years ago, when I first came here. Tormented by jealousy She looks as though she 34
were
3
dying
with
grief.
She is
wringing her hands and moaning and sighing, and her face is distorted, but she is smartly dressed. Three weeks ago she looked attractive and lively, but now she is worn out with not having eaten or slept for days. And I can see how it all come about, how for the last three weeks she has been tormented by jealousy, because of what had happened between Dr. Gabriel and me and I can see how for the last three weeks the ulcer in John's stomach has been growing and growing, because of his worry over Fiona... and I can see Robert writhing on the floor in an epileptic fit because of his parents But as I watch Fiona persistently moaning, as if she were never going to stop, I slowly hot up with anger ?am I not even allowed to hold Dr. Gabriel's hand? Is a whole family going to be wiped out if I have a moment of bliss? Why did she never grab hold of his hand then? She has been coming here for seven years now, much longer than I. Why doesn't she rather scream into my face that she could murder me? Why does she have to throw the dead bodies of her husband and child at my feet? Oh, I don't know what I feel?I'm angry, I'm frightened, I'm fed up, but I can't put it into words, so I just sit here silently in the long silence. ...
Who always sits in the middle Outside the sun is shining, but in here it's dark; the curtains are drawn. The muffled noise of a car driving past, the faint, double click-click of two women walking down the sunny pavement are on the other side of it, but for us on this side there is only the electric light, spreading like sad water in an aquarium. And in this gloomy little world, there is one, who has drawn the curtains so, and has made the light shine so, and has grouped the people so?a small, silent man, who always sits in the middle. When we file in at the beginning of the session and hand him our cards I try to slip into the chair next to him, or into the one that is not quite so near to him on his other side, but mostly Fiona and Sandra get there first. But today I did take the chair nearest
r
to Dr. Gabriel just before Sandra wanted to sit in it, and so she has to sit in the one that is a bit farther away from him.
but to me it just seems like showing off: look, what a wonderful baby I've got, he's not epileptic; he even manages to get his own way and look, we've got a car, we go visiting, we have friends?aren't we lucky? The others seem to swallow it all, but I think: smug bitch. But I dare not say anything today; I feel I have no right to interrupt her, because I have taken the best chair away from her, and I have held Dr. Gabriel's hand and she never has, although she has been coming to the group two years longer than I. But at the same time I am also pleased with her, because she dared to start speaking after Fiona, and so broke the long silence that weighed on us heavily. Sandra's problems always brighten up the whole group; they are normal problems, agreeable to listen to, not terrifying and heartbreaking like Fiona's.
Is she just being greedy? Sandra is the youngest among the women. She has brown, velvety eyes, and thick, dark hair, and a creamy complexion, with rounded cheeks that flush up when she talks. She is a picture of well-being and fulfilment and she has everything: an attractive house, a healthy husband and a normal baby. Why does she need this treatment? Why does she need Dr. Gabriel? How unfair, when I have to go hungry. She still has all the things that I have lost and that I only carry the memory of now, like a heavy stone. Sandra speaks of her problems in a whining voice, like a spoilt little girl and this voice of hers convinces me that she is loved and protected. He cried the whole time while we were there; he just "Would not stop.... It was so annoying, because he's always been so good when we took him visiting
Black leather jacket and Chelsea boots While Sandra goes on talking, I start to think about Peter who has left the group. Peter was a small, dark, live-wire man, with a stream of smooth talking pouring out of his mouth, as if his brain had attacks of diarrhoea. He was just a crazy, mixed-up kid of 35, in a black polo-neck sweater, black leather jacket and Chelsea boots. He was only here for a year, but never before in the group had anyone talked so often and so much, so exclusively about himself.
before;
I don't know what got into him! But of course we sat in the car and drove bome, I was so angry with him! I suppose it's my fault really, I can't cope. I don't know why other Women can and I can't?' she complains in an appealing sort of way, trying to win everybody's sympathy,
be stopped the minute
Barbara
Firth
>
J
''
35 '
One
day
in the
life of Group
no.
3
she was that soft girl with the peachy quality whom I had a mother-son relationship with in Brighton... by the way, I've made up my mind to give Barbara a divorce, I don't mind her going off with David just now; actually I want her to go off but let's get back to Daphne, my relawith him tionship with her is now completely reversed, which is tremendously fascinating really... incidentally, that was the time when I started to develop a guilt comI talked about Judith two weeks ago, she was plex the stocky, dark, Scottish-Jewish girl, who undressed, when I was fifteen and a half... I went completely paralysed, but I'll go into that in detail in a moment I have just realised that my last painting is really a reflection of my relationship with my eldest son ?you know?' Whenever I was about to interrupt him angrily, he would say 'you know?' in a charming, disarming sort of way and I would hold back. He was a glutton for talk and savoured every word, obviously enjoying himself. He got a pleasure out of exhibiting all his failures and humiliations; he sat there contentedly, picking his wounds with minute interest. His strange, twisted joie-de-vivre attracted me, and I would have liked to make friends with him outside the group as well. But then he started to go off with Sandra to an espresso after each session. As I stood in front of the Clinic and watched their backs walking away from me, I wanted to bend down and pick up a handful of pebbles to throw at his hateful, black leather jacket and at Sandra's ugly, imitation fur coat. But there were no pebbles, and so I just walked off to the tube station alone. ..
...
...
...
is breathing One afternoon I cried my heart out in the lavatory after the session. I felt as though I were suffocating. Here in the group, speaking is breathing and Peter and Sandra and Fiona were sucking all the oxygen away from me. Margaret followed me into the lavatory and tried to console me. 'You shouldn't be left on your own like this,' she said, 'you must come home with me.' And immediately, there loomed up a picture in my mind of her husband sneaking to my door in the middle of the night.... 'I can't, I can't,' I said terrified, 'maybe I would break
Speaking
up your
marriage.'
'Could you, in this condition?' she asked doubtfully and glanced at my red eyes and tear-stained face and dishevelled hair. Why, she is quite normal I thought, and straight away I felt more sober myself. I washed my face and bathed my eyes and combed my hair. While I made up, I scrutinised myself in the mirror: coarse, unruly brown hair, hazel eyes, wide face, large mouth?how many million times had I gone over it before? But when I was ready, I still didn't dare go with Mar-
garet and just little flat. 36
went
home alone
to my
shabby
empty
Wiser and shrewder than the rest Margaret is the oldest among the women and she has been coming to the Clinic for ten years, hardly ever uttering a word, but she keeps coming. She is pale and thin, with an apologetic walk, but her hair is dyed blonde and her eyes are very blue, as if she didn't want to apologise for being alive after all. Sometimes, when I see her sitting there so silently, I wonder if she is choked up with anger. But then I think: maybe she is wiser and shrewder than the rest of us, by refusing to exhibit all her failures and shortcomings for the others to gloat over. Today she is much livelier than usual; she takes off her cardigan, she walks boldly across the room to get an ashtray, she lights herself a cigarette and she even starts to chat with Sandra, which is quite extra-
ordinary. I have never heard Margaret chatting with anyone before and suddenly I feel terribly left out. Everyone else here can make friends, even Margaret, only I can't. Or is it just pretending? Is she only pretending to be so gay today to cover up her anger? Surely she must have been angry with me, when I pressed Dr. Gabriel's hand to my cheek?
More and more dissatisfied As I look across at Margaret, I realise that Brian isn't in his place. He has been staying away from the group for the last two weeks, ever since that incident and immediately I think: he is so angry with us that he can't bring himself to face us. Brian has been coming to the group for seven years, and together with Fiona and Margaret he forms the hard core of this group. He is about forty-five and lives with his wife and mother. But after seven years, he still hasn't solved his problem of being torn between these two women. He only seems to be getting more and more dissatisfied, as one week after another passes by and big chunks of his life fall away from one Wednesday to the next. He no longer believes that there is a good time waiting for him just around the corner, when he walks out of the Clinic after the session. 'I suppose Dr. Gabriel does his best for us,' Brian says this every now and again, with a sneer in his voice, 'I suppose there isn't really anything that he can do for us; he'll just give us the usual sermon at the end of the session, which won't really help any of us, and then we'll all go home into the same old rut, but I suppose he's only human, not God.' A depression settles on the room, whenever Brian talks like that. His accusations only roll off Dr. Gabriel, who just sits there and listens; there is nothing we can say that could possibly hurt him. We are nothing to him, only his patients, and he is nothing to us, only our doctor. He never loses his temper; he never bursts out laughing; his eyes never fill with tears; his voice never chokes with emotion. We can say what we like to him during the session, and after the session we can go where we like and do what we
One day
like.
in the
life of Group
no.
3
All I would like to do is to stay here with him, but
that is where he draws the line.
I must stop laughing The only man in the group today is Alan, and he is sitting next to Sandra. He is fair and sun-tanned and short and muscular. He would look much better Moving about on a beach in trunks than sitting in this dark room in tight-fitting clothes. I watch him Wriggling in his chair?he slides right down till he is almost lying on it and he pushes his legs into the fiddle of the room. Then suddenly, he jerks himself tnto a sitting position and he stretches his arms full length above his head. On his face there is a broad Srin, and when Sandra stops talking he suddenly bursts out laughing for no reason. Then he gets angry
With himself. I must stop laughing!' he shouts and brings his fist
down
on
to his knee with a terrific
startles him for again.
a
slap.
The
moment and then makes him
pain laugh
1 took to him straight away, when he arrived a year ago. Is this how far you've got in seven years? Is this all the work you have done so far?' he attacked us after ?nly half-an-hour and looked as though he were going to explode. I was taken aback?no other patient had ever turned on the group like this before. Instead trying to please us, so we should accept him, he
immediately rejected
us.
I thought he would bring about some big change, but now we are still sitting here and after the session we still go our separate ways. Alan is the only unmarried man in the group and as I am divorced, I thought: we could go to that espresso where Peter and Sandra had gone last year. But Alan rushes off after the session, and in my heart of hearts I am relieved that he does. Perhaps we are not ready for a love affair yet, but when will we be? Alan is about thirty and I am even more than that. Today he is sitting next to Sandra, and I watch him turning towards her now, as if she were the only one in the group who mattered. And I wonder whether he is going to go off with her in the end? Is he really interested in her? Or is he just trying to punish me, because I have fondled Dr. Gabriel's hand? one of the supporting cast Ruth is sitting next to Alan, but I only just noticed her. She is so unobtrusive that she quite melts into the background. Even her eyes are hidden behind a pair of spectacles. As I watch her curled up in her corner, like a little grey mouse, I try to picture her wearing contact-lenses, and a full, bouncy hair style, and maybe a turquoise linen dress?she would be a different woman. Sandra, on Alan's other side, is in a red, sleeveless summer dress, against which her dark hair looks dramatic, as if she were the heroine of this
Only
One
day
in the
life of Group
play. Ruth, with pullover, is only
no.
3
her
small, sensitive face and beige of the supporting cast. 'Do you think he cried so much because he didn't like these people?' she asks Sandra helpfully. 'Maybe that's why he stopped as soon as you left.' Alan bursts out laughing again and Sandra laughs with him, and then the two of them start to talk to each other in low tones, and I wish Ruth hadn't been so helpful. Can't she see that Sandra doesn't need her help, that she doesn't even bother to answer her? Sandra dismisses Ruth, because Ruth has no husband and no baby and no glamour, while she herself has all of these. Probably, Ruth is acutely aware of this, but I suppose she has to join into the conversation somehow, because she is new and afraid of being left out in the cold. But what chance has she got in this group against Sandra and Fiona? If it isn't Sandra stealing the limelight as a success-symbol, it's Fiona with her tragic outbursts?even now, when she doesn't say a word and only sits in her chair grief-stricken, we are all terribly aware of her. And if it isn't either of them, it is I grabbing hold of Dr. Gabriel's hand, so poor Ruth must feel that she doesn't come into it at all, no matter how hard she tries.
today is how to avoid danger?' As soon as Dr. Gabriel opens his mouth, everyone else shuts up. His voice is hesitant, as if he were not quite sure, whether he has understood us and whether we understand him? He is a very small and fragile man, and this makes me insecure: how can he cope with seven angry, frustrated people like us? because you are afraid that something terrible will happen, if you let yourself go, if you allow yourself to really express what you feel.' He has a Continental accent, but I don't know what country he comes from. Sometimes, I imagine him in his drawingroom: it is full of antique furniture and there are velvet curtains and silver... or maybe he just eats in the kitchen, which smells of garlic and he shouts to his wife has he bad table manners? '... but the whole group is trying to avoid today what the people feel towards each other here in this room; they only talk about their problems outside, because they think something terrible will happen if they let loose their real feelings....' 'But something terrible will happen!' we all cry out in alarm. 'You always say the same things over and over again!' Fiona shouts at him, 'I'm sick and tired of
Has he
you.. We are alt
one
heart of gold? Suddenly, the door opens and Daniel walks in, very late. I think: ah! I never expected to see him again. Like Brian, he has been staying away from the group for the last two weeks, and Ruth told us that he intended to give up this treatment altogether, because he was making better progress without it. But I feel that he was only afraid of attacking Dr. Gabriel in a fit of jealousy, because he stood next to me, when I said: 'I love you..to Dr. Gabriel. Maybe it took Daniel three whole weeks to cool off after that. Daniel is a sweet, shy man. He is about 35-40, he has a family, and his hair is going grey. But I think his main ambition in life is just to be very good. He has a pale face and a serious expression and he wears glasses; he looks like an earnest schoolboy who is studying hard to get a lot of good marks. In the group he is very polite and very cautious, never interrupting anyone; perhaps he is hoping that the others will say of him: isn't he kind? isn't he considerate? don't you think he has a heart of gold? Yes, yes, Dr. Gabriel will nod with a smile. But I am only waiting for the time when Dr. Gabriel will start to scrape off the gilt in his nonchalant way, and reveal how black Daniel's heart really is inside. And I would like to see Daniel's face fall, and then I would like to stroke his sweet face and hug him and console him But now he just sits there, far away from me, silently, not quite knowing yet what this group is about, because he only joined it recently. a
...
Something terrible will happen 'I wonder if what the group is 38
really talking
about
..
...
our
with him. He can understand possibly know what it feels anger inside, which has been swell-
exasperated
minds, but he
cannot
like to carry a big trembling ing there for twenty, thirty, forty years there all the time, ready to break loose And even here, in this place of all places, we cannot let it loose. Once I threw an ashtray at Brian and immediately Peter drew away from me, as if I were a leper and he said I was a terrifying woman. I just thought: crybaby. But it put me off expressing myself for a long ...
time. 'I don't know if I make clear what I mean?' It is all clear, clear and frightening?but what is the good of that? He cannot convince us that we will be accepted by other people, if we turn into ugly monsters. And again, we are left to cope on our own with that big anger. Dr. Gabriel is different from us. He is the only one in this room who can be his natural self without turning into a monster. He is so quiet and withdrawn, and yet there is more vitality in him than in all of us put together. I don't know what it is: perhaps a small spontaneous gesture of impatience, perhaps an involuntary note of surprise in his voice, or his eyes. They are a liquid yellow-brown, warm and smiling. But then suddenly his eyes narrow shrewdly; be glances at his watch and my heart sinks. When be stands up, they become pitiless and cool and he hands us our cards. Perhaps the next group is already wait' ing downstairs. And we file out sheepishly, with an empty, yawning dissatisfaction. It is a long wait till next Wednesday and even then?what is it we are waiting for?
