“We are only ever are true selves when we think no one is watching.” – Boratus
“Mr. Heffler, your 1 o’clock is here.” Carol said through the intercom.
“Send her in, Carol.” I replied, pressing the little button.
1pm and I’m already wishing it was 4:59. I like my job, I really do, but there are always those days when you just don’t want to be there. I’m a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist by trade, one of the best in the city actually. I’d been at it for a year when that 1 o’clock came in. The day had been a “snoozer”. It’s not that I didn’t care about people’s problems but there are a lot of problems that are pretty common and that morning I had to sit through the top three, one of them twice. I hoped that this next patient might help to wake me up a bit. It would be especially difficult since a nice lunch was doing its best to make me sleepy. The short notes on this patient said: Angela Gambini, sexual repression. It certainly wasn’t “habitual smoker” like my 11:00.
I lifted my head up from the short notes to behold the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. Almost 2 metres tall, long curly golden locks that spilled over her shoulders, and an hourglass figure, though the top half was much larger than the bottom. A blue business suit with a white blouse attempted to give her more of a professional air than a sexual one but it failed miserably. Her breasts really couldn’t be contained by it and the cut of it still hugged her slim waist and showed off her ass. Her shoes only had an inch heel but at her height she really didn’t need any help up. God had sent me an angel or perhaps a minor goddess. I glanced back down at the short notes. Sexual repression? Her? There had to be some mistake! All she did was walk in and I already started to get hard. Well, guess that just proved that
I
wasn’t repressed.
“Hello, Ms Gambini.” I said, offering my hand.
“Hello, Dr. Heffler.” She said shaking it with a light grip. She was obviously nervous. Most of my patients were the first time.
“Please, have a seat.” I said gesturing to one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Now, my secretary said there was a small problem with the payment to deal with.”
“Oh yes.” She said, quickly reaching into her purse. A moment later a wad of bills landed on my desk.
I picked it up and looked at her curiously. “Cash?”
“My husband thinks this type of help is bullshit. Excuse me. And so I can’t have it showing up on the credit cards or checking account.”
“I see.” I counted the money and then threw it in a drawer. I’d have Carol deposit it later. “So I guess you won’t need a receipt then?” I smiled.
“Oh no.” She smiled back, a little more at ease.
“Now let’s discuss what you feel the problem is.”
She looked around the room and caught sight of my couch. Yes, just like in tv and the movies. She smiled when she saw it. Everybody does that. They all look for it and are so happy to see it actually there. Then she turned back and seemed to talk to her hands.
“I can’t tell you my problem.” She said as she fidgeted with the bottom of her suit jacket.
“Excuse me, Ms Gambini?”
“Angela, please.”
“All right, Angela.” I acknowledged. “Now, it’ll be a little difficult for me to help you if you won’t tell me what your problem is.”
“Not won’t. Can’t.” She corrected.
I sighed inwardly. It’s not good for patients to see that you’re getting frustrated. “Ok. Can you tell me why you can’t.”
“I’d feel too awkward and too guilty.”
“Guilty?”
“Yes, guilty and I can’t tell you why.” She said looking at her lap.
That’s right. Make it as easy as possible, why don’t you. Ugh!
“Well if you can’t tell me and you can’t tell me exactly why you can’t tell me then we seem to be at an impasse.”
“Oh no, there’s an easy way around it all.” She said still looking down and fidgeting.
“Really? And what would that be?”
This should be good.
“Hypnotize me.” She said finally looking up into my eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“Please, I want you to hypnotize me.”
“I’m sorry, Angela, but that’s really not how this works. I don’t force confessions out of people through hypnosis. Besides, if you really don’t want to tell me what the problem is then you’ll resist being hypnotized.”
“Oh but I won’t!” She insisted. “You see I read about how people can be made to say and do things when they’re hypnotized and then forget them when they wake. What I want you to do is hypnotize me so I’ll feel relaxed and you can ask me about my problem but when we’re done you’ll make me forget that I told you. That way you can help me but I won’t feel so embarrassed.”
“But if you forget what we discussed then the session becomes meaningless.” I stated.
“But what if I keep coming back and each time you make me remember the last session so we can continue and then forget again when we’re done. We can keep going until you’ve fixed my problem and at that point I’ll want to remember and I will!”
Well, this certainly wasn’t going to be a boring session! She thought she had it all figured out but she didn’t seem to realize that she needed to remember each session so that she could mentally digest it before we met again. If we did it her way it would just seem like one long session to her and become difficult to deal with. On the other hand, if I put her under and then gave her the suggestion that she didn’t mind confiding in me then I could overcome the embarrassment issue and we could continue with normal session thereafter. It was worth a shot.
“All right, Angela. We’ll try it your way.” I said as I got out of my seat. She immediately got up and started toward the couch. I stopped her.
“No, you may sit here. It’s better if you’re seated the first time. On the couch there’s more of a chance of you falling into a real sleep rather than a trance.”
She looked disappointed. She really wanted to try out the couch. They all did.