Session 1. Not Your Normal Therapy Session
It was a cold, miserable, rainy, Tuesday in March, in the late afternoon, and I was sitting on the couch in my therapist's office for my bi-weekly session. Dr. Gupta was treating me for depression and sleep disorder which I've struggled with for in the last ten years. I admit it took me a while to admit that I needed to get help. I'd always thought I was supposed to handle it all: the marriage, the kids (ages 13, 14, and 17), and the job.
Admitting to myself that I wasn't able had been a big step. Arranging my schedule, both work and home, so I could make the appointments had taken me a while longer. The therapy had helped for a while, but I seemed to have hit some kind of wall. The depression was drifting back and I was having trouble sleeping again.
Last week, Dr. Gupta had tried to talk me into medications for about the hundredth time. She wasn't trying that today.
We were about half-way through our fifty-minute session when she sighed deeply. "Pam, you've been coming to see me for how long? Three years now?" Dr. Gupta had grown up in India and come to the States after college. She still had that vaguely English, lilting accent from her native country; it was very soothing to listen to.
"Yes, I think so," I said. "About three years."
"And you trust me, you're comfortable with me, right?" I tilted my head and looked at her. I had no idea where she was going with this. It was true that I hadn't been comfortable when we'd first me: she was so different from me that I wasn't sure we could relate. She was about ten years younger than me with dark hair and a coffee-colored complexion. The red dot in the middle of her forehead proclaimed her foreign upbringing. I didn't know if she was married or had children and I thought I needed someone who knew those things from the inside.
But after we'd talked for about fifteen minutes that first meeting, I knew she was the person to help me. And she had been, until I'd hit this wall.
"Yes. Of course, Dr. Gupta. I wouldn't be here if I didn't trust you."
"I'm worried about you. You've been backsliding lately and I don't feel like I've been helping you. Are you being totally open with me? You're not holding things back, are you?"
"No. Why would I waste my time if I wasn't going to tell you everything?"
"Exactly. Neither one of us wants to waste our time. But you haven't let go of your guilt and you have started to backslide. You lack discipline. I'm very disappointed in you lately."
I looked at her and felt my eyes fill with tears. She had never talked so sternly to me before. It was like she was angry. But I knew she was right. I sniffed to try and hold back my tears.
"Can you tell me why I shouldn't be disappointed in you, Pam?"
The tears began to drip down my face then. "No, Dr. Gupta. You're right. I'm disappointed in myself too."
"So, we're agreed that this therapy is not helping your right now. And you will not accept drugs."
"Maybe, I..."
"Enough, I don't want to go through those arguments again. I want to try a different kind of therapy. Something radical. But I think it will be helpful to you. I've been using it more and more with my patients lately and I've been happy with the results."
"Okay. I'll try anything right now," I sniffled.
"You must put yourself completely into my hands. This is not a therapy that is licensed or approved by the psychology boards. But it was developed locally; right at your University in the last two years. It's quite unconventional and as I said, radical. So I need to ask you one more time: Do you trust me, completely?"
I looked at her through my tears filled eyes. She just looked back at me, completely serene, completely confidant. I wished I could have that feeling. "Um, okay." I took a deep breath. "I trust you. What do we do?"
"This is a physically based therapy. It was developed for people who were stuck in place and needed to find discipline and release. It is based on corporal punishment techniques as well as trust and interpersonal relationships. New relationships. Random relationships."
I was stuck on the first part, "Uh. Corporal punishment, Dr. Gupta?"
"Yes, Pam. It is a spanking therapy."