"Dr. Laing, I still don't understand the theoretical basis of your therapeutic approach to schizophrenia. Could you please explain it?"
R.D. LAING: "Certainly. The basis is love. I don't see how you or I can be of any help to our clients in a visionary state unless we are capable of experiencing a feeling of love for them. Therapy, as opposed to mere treatment, requires that we have a capacity for loving kindness and compassion."
GRADUATE STUDENT (perplexed): "But Dr. Laing, what is your clinical methodology for developing this approach?"
- Overheard at a talk given by R.D.Laing in New York
Tess was curled sideways into one of the armchairs with a blanket over her lap. She was waiting for Gallagher to finish making tea and join her. She stared into the distance, the Black ViKing held loosely in one of her hands.
Gallagher approached from the kitchen with two cups of tea in his hands and the clipboard tucked under one arm. He set the cups down on the table that separated them, eased himself into the armchair with a sigh and arranged the clipboard on his lap. "When you're ready to tell me about showers," he said, "I'm ready to listen."
Tess leaned her head on one hand and looked at him. "I think we need to talk about something else," she said.
"Oh?"
"Yes," Tess said. "I had another lay down, a wee rest. And before I lay down, I put the Black Queen under my pillow just in case she had anything to whisper in my ear while I slept." Tess paused. "And do you know what she said?"
Gallagher shook his head, no.
She said . . . "Tess, when you were two months-old your biological father put one of his neckties around your throat and tried to kill you."
Tess dropped her chin to her chest and laughed quietly. "I forgot I said that." She lifted her head to look Gallagher in the eyes. "I'd forgotten I said that. You should write that down. It's probably important."
Gallagher tapped the clipboard with his pen. "It's already written down and circled with a question mark next to it," he said.
"Really? You're pretty good, Gallagher. Are you sure you haven't done this before?"
"You're not the only one who prays for divine guidance, madame."
Tess snickered. "I could almost get used to that, you know. Ma-dame. It has a nice ring to it." She adopted a southern drawl, "I'm a ma-dame in ma-damn house up in space, having ma-damn existentialist crisis." She laughed out loud and slapped one hand against her knee. "Ha! Ha! I kill me!"
Tess caught her breath and sank back into the chair. "Why didn't you laugh, Gallagher? That was funny. In fact, you hardly ever laugh. What's up with that?"
Gallagher cleared his throat. "I guess I'm just not the kind of person who laughs easily, madame."
"Well, you should," Tess replied. "It's good for you. That, or else get yourself boffed silly. And," she added, "I can hear every squeak of your bedsprings and you are NOT getting any boffing action." Tess raised one pinky, sipped at her tea, batted her eyelashes, and gave Gallagher a knowing stare. "There's a real pretty chambermaid down on the second floor, want me to introduce the two of you?"
A red flush rose across Gallagher's face. "Madame, the day I need you to line up my boffing opportunities for me, I'll let you know."
"Okay," Tess said with a shrug of her shoulders. "But if you change your mind, just say the word. She's real pretty. And I could go out for awhile..."
"Let's get back to matters at hand, shall we?" Gallagher interrupted. "Is there anything else you've said or done that you forgot about?"
Tess grew quiet once more. "Yes. I'd earlier said that the first time my father held me, he held me carefully so my head wouldn't fall off. And then I said practically the same thing earlier today -- that it felt like my head was going to fall off. Maybe it's just an uncanny coincidence?" she suggested.
"I'll write it down in case it's not," Gallagher said. "Anything else?"
"Yes," she said. "I have pain. Here." She lifted her chin and made a downwards sweeping motion with one hand. "All the way down my throat to the middle of my chest." She rested her hand between her breasts. "And across my shoulders too, sorta like an X-marks-the-spot-place. But this is probably a good thing," she added. "It probably means progress."
"Can I ask you something, Tess?"
"Sure," she said. "You can ask me anything. Go ahead. Shoot."
"How long have you been being brave?"
"Brave?" Tess questioned. "Everyone's brave. I guess I've been brave as long as anyone else."
"When were you brave?" Gallagher asked.
"I was brave in the war," she said. "And I was brave when I lost my mother, and my AC, and Limh."
"How do you know you were brave?" he asked.
"Because I didn't cry and I did those things even though I was scared."
"Is that what bravery is?" Gallagher asked as he scribbled on the clipboard.
Tess sat back and stared off into the distance. "Yes," she declared. "That's what being brave is. Sometimes you just have to do things that you don't want to do. That's just Life. Everyone has to do those sort of things."
"And does everyone have to not cry?"
Tess pressed the Black ViKing up against her mouth. "I guess I'm just not the kind of person who cries easily," she mimicked. "But there's something else," she said, "something more important that happened today."
"What's that?"
I remembered that Limh isn't talking to me but then I also remembered that I'm not not-talking to Limh. I sent her a note. I told her that I loved her and I needed her to love me too, and to just beam that to me because I'm in trouble." Tess shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I don't know what she's going to say about that but I'm just not going to look at her answer until I'm ready to look. Besides, that's what it's going to take, isn't it Gallagher?"
"What's it going to take, Tess?"
"I need to be loved back to fix-ed-ness. Right?"
Gallagher looked her in the eyes. "Right," he agreed. "It was a good thing you did today."
Tess shivered and drew the blanket up over her shoulders. "Are you loved, Gallagher?"
Gallagher stopped doodling upon the clipboard. He looked down at his pen. Silence filled the room with the presence of a quiet hush. His Beautiful Phuckedupedness brushed up against his shin. He cleared his throat. "Yes," he said after a few moments. He lifted his chin to look Tess in the eye. "But we're not going to talk about that right now."
"You're a good person, aren't you, Gallagher?"
Gallagher crossed and uncrossed his legs, causing his bunny slipper's ears to wiggle. "Yes," he said after a long pause.
"Okay," Tess said. "As long as you know that."
She sighed.
"When this is all done," she said, "I know where I'm going to be and that's going to be an okay place, but I'm not too sure how I'm going to get there. If I get scared," she said, "will you hold my hand?"
"I will," Gallagher assured her.
"Okay," Tess said. "You do that, and I'll just keep telling the pieces of this story as they fall into my head. And as I'm capable."
Tess sighed sadly and cleared her throat. "I need to take a break now, Gallagher," she said. "I need a smoke. Let's come back to this later, okay?
"During the existential crisis, one feels cut off from the deeper self, higher power, or God -- whatever one depends on beyond personal resources to provide strength and inspiration. The result is a most devastating kind of loneliness, a total and complete existential alienation that penetrates one's entire being ... This deep sense of isolation appears to be available to many human beings, regardless of their history, and is often a central ingredient of spiritual transformation. Irina Tweedy, a Russian woman who studied with a Sufi master in India, wrote in The Chasm of Fire:
"The Great Separation was here ... a peculiar, special feeling of utter loneliness ... it cannot be compared to any feeling of loneliness we all experience sometimes in our lives. All seems dark and lifeless. There is no purpose anywhere or in anything. No God to pray to. No hope. Nothing at all...
"This sense of extreme isolation is reflected in the desolate prayer of Jesus on the cross: "My God, my God. Why hast Thou forsaken me?" People who are lost in this place frequently cite the example of Christ's darkest hour in an attempt to explain the extent of this monumental feeling…
