Have you ever wondered about your analyst? What is it he or she gets out of immersing themselves in your emotional problems (besides your money, of course)? Has it ever occurred to you that your analyst is an emotional voyeur--a person who derives satisfaction from observing others' emotions, just like a sexual voyeur gets off watching others having sex? And are they really that different?
Ingrid Larsen stepped from her late model Lexus sedan in the parking structure beneath the building on Berkeley's Shattuck Avenue that housed her office. Ingrid was a bit early because she had driven her husband Scott to the Oakland airport for an early flight. Scott was a consulting structural engineer who frequently traveled to troubled projects throughout the world. Given the trip was to the Norwegian oil capital of Stavanger, the project likely involved an off-shore drilling platform. It had come up suddenly, as his projects frequently did, so he hadn't had time to share any details with her, coming home late the night before and simply saying, "I'm off to Stavanger for a week first thing tomorrow morning. Can you give me a ride to the airport, or shall I get a car?" This kind of short term emergency international travel was typical of his engineering practice.
Ingrid was a clinical psychologist. She had no need to travel as there were plenty of troubled souls she could counsel just in the East Bay where she and Scott lived. Her practice and Scott's paid well, and they had a lovely home high in the Berkeley hills. Their marriage was a second marriage for each, Scott's first having come apart because his first wife couldn't live with his travel schedule and his promiscuity, and Ingrid's because . . . well, she and her husband each thought promiscuity was fine for themselves, but not for the other. Scott and Ingrid, although not swingers, were not overly committed to the concept of monogamy, for themselves or for their spouse. Each understood the other might have a dalliance from time. When it occurred, they often shared the details--over a bottle of good wine and an afternoon in bed.
Ingrid had met Scott when he was on a trip to Stockholm on business. After a mutual seduction and a week spent at her late parent's cottage on an island in the Stockholm Archipelago, they had decided that they both wanted more and living on opposite sides of the planet wasn't going to work. Ingrid had lived in Berkeley while obtaining her doctorate in psychiatry and thought the weather in California was far better than Stockholm, so she moved to Berkeley to live with Scott. She. Of course, with immigration issues, the need to obtain a medical license in California, and the need to convince Scott's parents that the leggy Swede he brought home to visit for Thanksgiving wasn't just another bad marriage choice, it wasn't as simple as it might sound. But it had worked out and they were happily married.
Scott was by genealogy also a Scandinavian (Norwegian), but he had been born and raised in Minnesota, the third generation of Americans descended from the wave of Northern European Immigration that flooded America's northern tier in the late 19
th
and early 20
th
centuries. He was a big man, well over six feet and barrel chested. His hair was blonde, and his thick beard was a red-blonde mix. Culturally he was purely American, speaking no Swedish or Norwegian prior to meeting Ingrid. Having grown up in Minnesota, he like Ingrid, vastly preferred the weather in California.
Ingrid was an attractive woman in her early forties--a classic Swedish beauty with thick strawberry blonde hair and a somewhat voluptuous figure. She was, like many Swedes, tall (about 5-9). Ingrid thought her hips were too broad, but Scott loved them, especially when they made love, almost as much as he loved fondling her full breasts. He also liked her long shapely legs, which Ingrid thought to be among her best features. Another characteristic Scott liked was the faint remnants of a lilting Swedish accent she had worked hard to rid herself of. When she wanted to seduce her husband, she would amp up her accent. It drove him wild. When she was sexually stressed the accent would return or she would even resort to pure Swedish.
Friday was a working day for Ingrid, so she was dressed professionally as she entered the Starbucks in the lobby of her office building, a tan skirt that stopped just above her knees, white blouse, jacket that matched the skirt, and a string of pearls. She wore dark brown heels, as always, a conservative 2 1/2 inches in height. She had a pair or two of 'come fuck me' pumps with taller heels (one black and the other a screaming red), but those weren't for office wear. Those were for Scott. Notwithstanding Scott's travel schedule the couple had a full and robust sex life.
Ingrid's first appointment wasn't for another hour which gave her time to get a coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby and to think a bit about the couple coming into see her. Like all Swedes, coffee was an essential aspect of life to her. She asked the barista behind the counter for her usual Tall Pike with cream.
Ingrid never ordered the drink without thinking about how her grandfather, a carpenter back in Stockholm, had always put cream in his coffee and then poured the creamed coffee into a saucer from which he drank. Being a typical Swede he really would say little or nothing in explanation. Growing up in a Swedish family was a bit like going to a silent movie, except there was no organ music and no subtitles. Just silence, unexplained emotionless silence. Her initial exposure to the volatile Italian family of her first husband was a shocking experience.
She sat at a table in the corner of the room letting her too hot coffee cool a bit as she watched people coming and going, getting their coffee and hurrying off to the elevator banks she could see through the glass walls in hopes that they could get to their job by the appointed hour. As her own boss, she didn't have that problem. When her coffee had finally cooled enough for a first sip it occurred to her, as it did every morning, that perhaps her grandfather had been putting the coffee in the saucer just to let it cool more quickly. She smiled at the thought. Her grandfather had built the island cottage near Stockholm where she and Scott had fallen in love.
Her first appointment for the day was a couple she had met at a fund-raising gala she and Scott had attended a few weeks ago for the Berkeley Rep theater. They had briefly discussed her marriage counseling practice and they had called a week or so later to make a joint appointment. She did a lot of marriage counseling, so it wasn't unusual for both partners to come in together to see her, especially on their first visit when Ingrid was trying to understand exactly what their problem was. Larry and Brenda Halversteen were an attractive couple, who had appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties when she had met them. They were open and chatty, but they really hadn't told her much about why they felt they needed help from a clinical psychologist. This wasn't that unusual. Frequently when people came to her, she had to spend some time digging to understand what their problem was. Even when they defined the problem in advance, it frequently turned out to not necessarily be the problem they wanted, or needed, help with. As she sat drinking her coffee, she let her mind role through her check list of questions and techniques she had developed to get people to open up.
Half an hour later she was sitting in her office chatting with the Halversteens. As she usually did in counseling sessions, Ingrid was sitting in a large armchair facing a comfortable couch. She had a large desk in the office, but she did not like to use it for patient interviews because it created a bad power dynamic. She did not want her patients to feel like they were being interrogated by their high school principal about a rule violation when she was trying to get them to tell her about their emotional problems. Ingrid was facing the Halversteens who were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, looking somewhat uncomfortable. There was a table next to Ingrid's chair and one at each end of the couch.
Larry was dressed in dark blue slacks and a neatly pressed, open-collared shirt. He had a couple of days of dark beard and unruly dark brown hair that had grown enough to be pulled back in a pig tail. He was not particularly tall, perhaps 5-8 or 5-9. Brenda was a relatively short 5-3 or 5-4 and while not overweight had the kind of figure one would call plump, round hips topped by a narrow waist with what appeared to be reasonably large breasts above that. She wore a conservative dark blue dress that buttoned to her neck and stopped just above her knees, although it pulled a bit higher now that she was sitting in the chair. The heels on her shoes were modest. Brenda's thick dark hair was trimmed to a pixie cut that barely came to her chin. Her eyes were blue, a striking contrast to her dark hair. Her make-up was conservative, but it did accentuate her round eyes, thick lashes, and her full lips. As much as it tried, Brenda's conservative dress couldn't fully disguise her ample bust. Both appeared to still have the lean bodies of youth.
Ingrid started, as she always did with new patients, with her basic procedures--hourly rate, billing procedures, and importantly, explaining that, within the limits of the law, she would keep everything said between them confidential. She explained, however, it was her practice to record everything said in their sessions. She gestured at a small portable recorder lying on the table next to her. "I do that so I can concentrate on what you are saying and how you are saying it rather than distract myself by taking notes. After all your emotions are what I work with, and I can't get those staring at a note pad."
Brenda looked briefly at her husband and then they both nodded in agreement. What Ingrid hadn't told them was that she also had a video tape running that recorded their silent agreement to her recording their sessions and the frequent nods and head shakes her sensitive patients often used to communicate their emotions with.
"Now," she asked. "Tell me about yourselves?" The next few minutes was dedicated to Larry and Brenda describing their age (late twenties), occupations (school teacher and commercial insurance agency executive), marital status (married for five years and first marriage for each), where they lived (a very upscale development in Orinda implying that they would have plenty of money to pay Ingrid's fees), educational background (both college graduates, Larry from Call State, Fullerton and Brenda from Princeton), hobbies, and so on. This exercise always took a while and Ingrid scheduled a bit of extra time in the initial session for it.
Finally, Ingrid got to the critical question. "So," she said, "what can I do for you? I assume there is a particular problem you two have decided you need my help with, but you will have to explain what it is to me." This was the point in the initial conversation where most of her clients paused and looked decidedly uncomfortable. No one likes to describe their emotional problems to a stranger.
Brenda and Larry looked at each other and there was a long silence. Finally, Larry spoke up, "We understand that you do sex therapy . . . that is, I mean, sex counseling . . . er, I mean marriage counseling . . . for couples, that is." Brenda was silent, happy to let Larry carry the ball.
"Yes, I do," replied Ingrid. "It's a major part of my practice."
"Oh good." Larry was still looking at the floor rather than directly at Ingrid.
"But," Ingrid continued. " To accomplish anything the two of you are going to have share the details of your problem with me." Larry had done his best to skirt around the issue of sex, but Ingrid easily saw through his effort and ignored it. Turning toward Brenda, she asked her directly, "Brenda, can you tell me what the problems are that you two are having with sex?" Ingrid wanted to involve Brenda directly in this, not wanting her to let Larry do all the talking.
Brenda's eyes widened a bit and she bit on a nail as she struggled to respond. After another long look at Larry she returned her gaze to Ingrid. She swallowed hard and looked down. then speaking quietly said, "We think our sex life is very dull and we would like to change that."
"I see. And is that true for you also Larry?"
He whispered, "Yes." Looking up, he continued, "Yes, we've talked about it, and we want to do something about it."
"Actually that's very good," Ingrid responded. "It's good that you've talked about it and agreed there is a problem and you want to work on it. You wouldn't believe how many couples I see with one partner that thinks their sex life is dull and the other thinks it is just fine. It's also good that you've been talking about it, because talking about sex is a key step in improving it."
"It was hard to do that," Brenda said.
"I'm sure it was, but now that you've started, we are going to talk about it a lot more and it won't always be easy."
The couple looked at each other with discomfort.
Ingrid smiled. "Not to worry. Our objective in these sessions will be to make sex fun for the two of you. There are only two understandable purposes for sex. One is procreation, but if that is what you are interested in you should be seeing a urologist and a gynecologist. Those aren't my fields. The other purpose is fun. Yes, just plain fun. Sex should be like a Robin Williams' comedy and an amusement park with its big rollercoaster all wrapped into one big ball of excitement and enjoyment. That is my field and that's what we are going to work on. Okay?"
The couple nodded in agreement.
"Here's where we start," Ingrid said. "I want to spend the next few minutes with you two telling me about your sex life as it is today. Don't tell me what's unsatisfactory about it or what you want it to be like. We will get to those things later. Right now I need to get to know your current sex life."
