Session 01
My name is Suzette Cole, M.D. I've been practicing psychiatry in Forrestburg, Mississippi since the late Seventies. Few women applied to medical school back then, particularly in the Deep South, and I was an anomaly. At first, my patients were a mixture of men and women, but I doubt if I helped any of the men. It's not my fault that men who like their women dark and petite found me sexually attractive. I never encouraged such attention. I've always dressed conservatively. Dresses, mostly, with full skirts, a minimum of jewelry and cosmetics, closed toe shoes, glasses, never contact lenses, and no nail polish. For the work day, I wear my hair pulled back into a ponytail. The overall impression I try to create is neat, clean, and efficient, but definitely not sexy. So why in hell did so many of my male patients make a play for me? I asked my own therapist, Bill. His real name is Guillime and, like me, he has a Creole heritage. We went to med school together and I trusted him, still do.
He actually smirked and said, "Shit, Sue, have you ever looked in a mirror?"
Flabbergasted, I answered, "What the hell does that mean?"
He shook his head. "It means that no matter how quietly you dress, you can't hide the fact that you're beautiful. For therapy to work, we have to build trust with the patient so he'll reveal enough for us to help him. Combine that with any man's natural response to beauty, well ..." He shrugged. "Close emotional bonds form all the time. You know this."
It was my turn to shrug. "So I have to keep dropping my patients and refer them to someone else? How can I build a practice doing that? Soon I'll be broke enough to look for a government job." I shivered. "Can you imagine? Working in the hopelessness of the state hospital in Whitfield? Christ, it's too grim to contemplate."
Bill patted my hand. It wasn't professional, but he had been my friend long before he became my therapist. "Have you considered limiting your practice to women?"
I shook my head. "I don't get that many. Maybe they don't feel comfortable with me."
He nodded. "Maybe they feel intimidated by your looks?"
I bristled and raised my voice. "And the men pick me BECAUSE of my looks?"
He smiled and patted my hand again, obviously trying to calm me. "We're all only human and it's very hard to control our physical reactions. We're drawn to beauty, women as well as men. Don't you feel this when you see a handsome man? Aren't you more likely to engage with him instead of someone less attractive? You know this to be true. You also know that the trick is to find the beautiful in all things in all ways, and a large part of helping a patient in a troubled relationship is to get him or her to understand this. This can be easier to achieve with women because they're wired to find the best mate and BEST includes security and kindness, but even that search begins with physical appearance.
"The trouble with men is that the search often ends there. A man finds beauty, or his version of it, and, if he obtains it, well, 'job done' so to speak. He doesn't want his newly found beauty to change, ever. A woman will find a suitable candidate and obtain him, but her search for the BEST never ends. She continues to search, at least subconsciously, and this often results in a permanent feeling of discontent. And this discontent can lead her to try to hone her choice, urge him to achieve more, earn more, buy more for her, etc. There's a saying. A woman marries a man hoping he'll change and he doesn't. A man marries a woman hoping she'll stay the same and she doesn't. Meanwhile God sits in heaven laughing his ass off.' Understand?"
Of course I already knew most of this. But in my studies, it came in dribs and pieces. I'd never heard anybody put these ideas together so succinctly or lightheartedly before. I smiled despite my discomfiture. "So tell me, oh swami, can I limit my practice to women? I mean, wouldn't that be like refusing to treat somebody just because he's black?"
Bill shook his head. "I don't think so. More women than men seek psychiatric treatment anyway so you'll have a larger pool. A typical man is more reluctant to admit that he needs help. And I know that 'men and women are equal in all ways' is one of the new mantras, but you and I both know that's bullshit. The sexes tend to have distinct differences in their responses to the world, differences that are now being quantified by scientific studies. The distaste that the mantra reflects is based on the assumption that the female response is ipso facto inferior. You don't feel that way and you're a woman, so, isn't it logical to conclude that you may have a better chance to help women than a man has?"
I frowned. "Maybe, maybe not, but I'm tired of things as they are. I guess I'll try your way."
And it worked. I had a few women patients already. I began using the insights that Bill had articulated with them and achieved mostly good results. And whenever I had to drop a male patient, I made sure to let him know that I was now concentrating on women. Soon word spread and my practice grew, helped by the fact that I also kept late hours for my patients who worked or had to wait for their husbands to get home and watch the children. For the past thirty years I've treated only women and developed an emphasis in helping them with the two most common complaints, depression and sexual problems, two closely related issues.
During the early years I had three patients who really stood out to me and I decided to chronicle their cases. Of course, I've changed all the people and place names to protect their identities. They might recognize themselves, but nobody else could. And, for the two who are still alive, I got their permission before starting. One has been gone from us for decades, the dear lady, and I got permission from her next of kin.
I call the three women Genivieve, Nanette, and Vanessa. I already wrote the stories of Gen and Nan in the form of novels from the third person omniscient point of view. But I am first and foremost a doctor and writing fictionalized accounts in that way presented difficulties. My second attempt is better than the first, but still not entirely satisfactory.
