Nancy Smith faced problems deeper than most. This is the account of how she tried to unlock doors leading to health.
As you read, observe the professional skill of the counselor. At the conclusion of the excerpt, we have provided an evaluation of the counseling sessions to help you apply numerous principles in your own ministry.
Winter Past (now reissued as All I Need Is Love) is published by InterVarsity Press.
“May I help you?” The receptionist’s voice sounded medical and routine, giving the impression that calling a psychiatrist’s office was a perfectly normal occurrence. As my index finger curled around the receiver of my wall phone, I quickly replayed my options. I could hang up. With a twitch of my finger I could cut her off. The small piece of paper containing the clinical address, phone number, and the names of the psychiatrist and her two associates could be discarded and forgotten in the trash.
Again the receptionist offered the invitation, “May I help you?”
I saw my index finger relax its grip on the receiver, and I heard myself say, “Yes.” With that “Yes” I unknowingly accepted the opportunity God had planned and placed in my life. I viewed the victory as the ultimate defeat, surrender to the dark enemy within me, depression.
In her same mechanical voice the receptionist said that Dr. Michaels could see me. At the time I knew nothing of Dr. Emily Michaels, but God knew both of us, and the receptionist was his link.
On August 18, 1972 my little yellow Volkswagen (nicknamed “The Yellow Lemon”) tooled along the interstate to the clinic. Once there, I found a tastefully appointed room done in pale greens.
I have this habit of holding little conversations with myself when the going gets rough. “I can’t believe this. Here I am holding U.S. News and World Report as though I’m going to catch up on the balance of trade payments while I wait for the doctor.” I could run.
“Nancy?”
Medical science would never confirm it, but when Dr. Michaels called my name, my heart felt like it was beating from a location somewhere within my stomach.
“I’m Dr. Michaels.”
I stood up and instantly forgot the balance of trade problem, the run in my nylons, and the reason I was in the office,
“How was your trip?”
“Fine,” I lied.
“Would you like to follow me to my office?”
I noted that she did not wait for a reply so I followed. She did not compare with the subconscious archetypal figure of the psychologist I had envisioned. She looked too much like a person and not enough like a psychologist.
“Have a seat.”
There were two chairs. “She’ll probably watch which one I choose.” As she adjusted the drapes in the office I sat in the chair nearest the door.
“Can you tell me a little about why you came?”
“Well, ah, I’ve been a little bit down.” I smiled.
“Down?”
“Depressed.” Silence. “A friend suggested that maybe a psychiatrist might be able to help me.”
“Let me clear something up. Dr. Walker is a psychiatrist. She has a medical degree and she’s able to prescribe drugs in addition to practicing psychotherapy. I’m a licensed psychologist. I’m trained to practice psychotherapy, but I can’t prescribe drugs.”
I nodded. As I took a deep breath I figured I might as well get down to brass tacks. “Last month I went on a summer missionary visit to Jamaica and I got sick. The doctor here said I had . . . well, they called it conversion hysteria.”
She nodded. Thank God, she’d heard of it before.
“It, ah, was my legs.” Suddenly I wanted to stop this story. I folded my hands.
“Do you mind if I get a little information?” She took out a steno pad from her desk. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Are you married or . . . “
“Single.”
“Do you work?”
“Yes. I’m a teacher. I teach English.”
“Oh, I know how that is. I used to teach.” She smiled slightly.
“Do you live with your family.”
‘Well, it’s pretty confusing.” I always prefaced the story about my family with that remark. Her questions seemed very unpsychological and routine, so I prepared to give her my routine comments about my family. “My parents died some time ago. After my father died, my mother remarried. Then she died when I was nine.” I fingered my car keys. “I have a half brother, Jimmy.” I paused to let it sink in before I added the more complicated elements of the plot. I could see Dr. Michaels was following nicely so far. “After my mother died my stepfather remarried. A woman named Joann. She had a child by a previous marriage, Johnny.” By this time I was fumbling with my keys and smiling quite a lot. “Joann and my stepfather, they, ah, got a divorce.” Dr. Michaels was taking this like it was all quite normal, so I added the final touch. “My stepfather remarried again, to a lady named Rita.”
Dr. Michaels just sat back in her chair and stared at me for a second. Finally she spoke. “You mentioned you were depressed. What’s that like?”
I was amazed at-how I was at a loss to describe a feeling that had been with me for so long. “It’s, well . . . it’s really bad.” Suddenly a vivid image appeared. It was a student’s composition I had wounded with red ink. Such comments as, “Be specific. Use lively adjectives.” Here I am babbling, “I feel really bad.” Such style.
“When was the last time you felt this way?”
“I have a lot of times when it really gets me down. Last spring it was so bad my pastor suggested I go in the hospital.”
‘What happened?”
“The doctor gave me some medicine. But it keeps coming back.” I was now staring very intensely at the carpet. “I get lonely. It’s just empty. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Nancy, do you ever think of suicide?” She stabbed close to home with those words, but I was relieved that she asked the question.
“Yes.” I looked at my hands. “I’ve thought about it. But I’d never do anything.”
She nodded her head as though she understood the intensity of my struggle. I wanted her to know everything now. I wanted this stranger to stop the hurt. I wanted her to reach down and pull the ache out. But how could I let her know? I could never make anyone know or understand. The past had erupted, the present was drowning me, and the future . . . the future. It was lurking with waves of emptiness, empty days, empty nights, empty apartment, empty soul. What was there to lose in telling this stranger about what happened with my stepfather? I knew it would happen. She’d give me the solution to the problem and everything would be fine. At least that’s what was supposed to happen. Only things would never be fine. I’d played the game too many times and I was tired of it.
How many well-meaning people had rushed to identify my problem and to hastily apply their solution? “Nancy, you need to have devotions every day.” Nancy would rush to her Bible and pray and stumble even more. “Nancy, there’s unconfessed sin in your life. Get right.” Nancy would confess sins of omission and commission only to feel further away from God. “Nancy, you need to forgive others.” Nancy would forgive and yet grow more bitter. ‘Nancy, your Body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Take care of it.” Nancy would go to the doctor and come away with fistfuls of pills, but no improvement. “Nancy, the joy of the Lord is your strength if you’d only praise him more.” Nancy praised God and slipped still further. Yes, I knew how the game worked, but I was tired of losing.
I expected Dr. Michaels to offer a quick solution, after which I would take her solution and fail again. That was the way the game worked. I neither liked nor disliked Dr. Michaels. She was the doctor and I was the sick. The conversion hysteria proved that. While staring at the molding around her desk, I decided to play the game once again. I would tell her about my stepfather. “Something happened in the hospital that, ah . . . brought back . . . I thought about something I hadn’t thought about in a long time.”
‘What was that?”?
My mind was now pressed tightly against the brick wall of indecision. Do I want her to know? What words do I use to tell this stranger about the ugly, repulsive, private thoughts going through the canyons of my mind?
She interrupted my silence. ‘What happened?”
Within ten minutes Dr. Michaels learned of the rape. She pressed for details, agonizing details my mind had blotted out for too many years. On this day the slime of repressed memories finally began to trickle out. In the swelling silence of the office I had no concept of the vast amount of poison that was in my mind, nor of the enormous effort that would be required to remove the venom. The silence was now insufferably thick. It bloated my thoughts so I couldn’t talk. It caked itself to the walls, to the corners of the room.
Finally I lifted my eyes to Dr. Michaels. It was such an unfamiliar face. I could not allow myself to study it. But it was this unfamiliar face that now knew about Nancy Smith. She looked too much like a person.
What seemed like eons later, I was able to break the silence. “Do you think you can help me?”
‘Yes, I think I can help you, Nancy.”
Her arrogance overwhelmed me.
She continued. “Nancy, I’m sorry I pressured you, but this had to come out. You were exploding with it. I’m pleased you told me.”
I too was pleased it was out. But now I was waiting for her pat answers, the solution: prayer, God, the Bible, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. But instead . . .
“Well, do you want to give this a try?” Pause. “It won’t be easy. Therapy is work-real work-for you and for me.”
All that I could think was, “The cat is out of the bag. See where it runs.”
“Can you come back Monday?”
“Okay.” I had a lot to think about. A lot.
You never throw away what is stored in attics. Never. Attics, with an aura of desolation, mustiness, and hues of anemic browns, seek to delude onlookers with a melancholy song of abandonment. A broken vase, a packet of letters from another time, a faded army uniform, or perhaps the once cherished and much cuddled doll . . . now in a catatonic trance. Unused? Perhaps. But abandoned? Never. The enigmatic truth is that attic things achieve a kind of everlasting life. Sooner or later we all make pilgrimages back to the attics of our lives. With hushed reverence on solitary afternoons, the uncanny fingering of relics begins. We allow ourselves to bathe in memory and make associations. Dreams, desires, joys, and sometimes aches. In the attic we are alone with our thoughts.
Sunday morning, early. I lingered in the attic of my thoughts. So much to finger, contemplate, and reexamine. Chaotic thoughtsl No amount of work would bring order to my thinking. On this Sunday morning I could not leave my attic thinking. Over and over in my mind were the facts. I was branded with psychological problems. Now I had to face a whole ugly area of my life I had forgotten was there.
To compound the problem, I was now allowing a psychologist to tamper with my life. Was this psychologist even a Christian? There was certainly no Bible nor prayer during my session with her. Now I was concerned with where all her prying questions would lead me. “I’ve only made things worse. There’s nothing I can do with my life. I can’t do anything right.”
The kind of attic thinking I had subjected myself to was truly exhausting. Yet I forced myself to go to Sunday school and church. Forced is a good word choice here because that is exactly what was required to make myself walk down the hallway to the Sunday school room. I sat down, rigid, and allowed the panic that was welling up inside me take full control. Someone was called on to pray. As I bowed my head I squeezed my eyes; my heart was racing. I imagined that I was a dust ball in the most inconspicuous corner of the room. It was a mistake to have forced myself to come. I now felt myself losing all control. I was sure I would not make it to the end of the lesson. I wanted to run, to flee, to vanish from all people.
The attic thoughts from the early morning were now beginning to tumble out at breakneck speed. I told myself I must stop this. To get control I compelled myself to study the pleats in my white skirt. I fingered the pleats. I straightened them. I counted them. I was slowly calmed to the point that I was able to catch the teacher’s words. With heavy breaths I opened my Bible to 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
The verse pierced me. “Nancy,” I began lecturing myself, “how could you have forgotten that verse! And you call yourself a Christian. All this emotionalism you have been allowing yourself to wallow in must make God sick. ‘God hath not given us the spirit of fear.’ You messed that promise up good.”
Then I heard the Sunday school teacher mention love. I don’t know when the tears started to come, but I noticed them now, silent and hot on my cheek. Never before had I cried in public. My attic thoughts centered on the fact that love to me was just a word with no feeling whatsoever attached to it. “You are such a selfish person. ‘Spirit of love’? Don’t kid yourself. You’ve never given an ounce of love to anyone.” The teacher was now mentioning how few people cared enough to come on visitation.
Visitation. I suddenly saw a way to begin clearing up my problems. I would make myself love people! With clenched fists I determined to go on visitation faithfully. I would put myself on a schedule of caring for people every Monday night at seven o’clock. “I’ll stop thinking about myself and start caring about other people if it kills me!”
Now I began to catch the last words of the lesson; something about a real Christian, a victorious Christian having complete self-control even in the worst of life’s storm. There were a few references to well-known verses from Philippians 4 like, “I can do all things through Christ,” and “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” It all seemed so simple and clear. God gave every Christian a sound mind. Those people with unsound minds, emotional problems, had done something to damage their relationship with God. I reasoned that my sins had caused me to have this unsound mind.
Suddenly my attic thoughts were in sharp black-and-white focus. I told myself that emotional problems are sinful. Christians have no reason to suffer such problems. Christians have no business calling an emotional problem an illness. It’s old-fashioned sin against God. The Lord expects us to be content in every situation. I was discontented and troubled. And that was sin, pure and simple. God was the answer to every problem. So many people had told me before that all I had to do was to snap out of those blue moods and trust the Lord. Didn’t the verse say, “I can do all things through Christ”? Yes, those people had been right. I didn’t need to mess up my life with psychology. All psychologists will do is dredge up the past. Didn’t Paul also say in Philippians, “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before”? It was wrong for me to go to a psychologist for help. After all, the verse didn’t say, “I can do all things through bellyaching to people like Dr. Michaels.”
It was all so very simple . . . or so it seemed then. I actually thought my emotional problems were licked. Victory at last. Presto! No more loneliness. No more embarrassing hospital stays. No more weeping in the middle of the night for no reason, and no more selfishness. All I had to do was “turn to God” like so many Christians had told me to do, snap out of it, and get active in church and visitation. God will give you a sound mind if you stop sinning.
My “victory” lasted something like two minutes and twenty seconds. That is the time it took for me to walk from the Sunday school room to the main auditorium for church. I simply could not stand to sit down among such contented, happy Christians. These people had no fears, no lack of power. I was not good enough. I could not stand to be an unsound mind in the midst of these loving sound minds. These people were successful Christians. There were no problems here . . . except for me. And so I fled. I remember literally running from the church to my car. The next thing I recall was looking at the speedometer. I was doing seventy.
As I sat alone in my apartment that Sunday, I gave up on God. Yet even though I tried to rule him out, he remained alive and full of power, operating and energizing my life to heal me. In desperation, God’s desperation, I found myself driving to keep my appointment with Dr. Michaels.
I sat on the edge of the couch. My muscles were tense. My eyes stared straight ahead. My mind blocked out the music’s attempt to soothe me. My thoughts centered on what I thought would transpire in the forthcoming hour. I had arranged the scenario like this: Today Dr. Michaels would drill me with more embarrassing questions and details about what happened with my stepfather. All of that out of the way, she would finally open her Bible and drop pearls of wisdom at my feet about forgiveness, confession, Bible reading, and so on and so on and so on, ad nauseam. Oh yes, she would also throw in some psychological jargon-maybe even some more advanced stuff than what we got in Psychology 101.
However, at the end of the hour-long appointment Dr. Michaels had still not zapped me. Instead, she ended the session by saying, “Nancy, it’s like you’ve made a pact for life with yourself. That pact says, ‘Don’t ever tell anyone about the terrible, ugly hurt in life, the rotten times, your mom leaving you alone, what happened with your stepfather.’ ” She spoke quietly, like she was inside my attic thoughts with me. “You have worked so very hard for independence from these things in the past. But you missed so many depending experiences.”
How many times had I been told not to depend on people? What Dr. Michaels was saying sounded all wrong. We are supposed to depend on God, not people, I couldn’t buy what she was saying.
Dr. Michaels read my thoughts. “Nancy.” She leaned forward in her chair. The words were whispered, slow in coming, but full of conviction. “It’s not wrong to depend. You’ve stumbled along as much as you can alone. Now you’re going to get some help.”
Somewhere deep within myself I clutched at her words. Oh, how I wanted to believe I could be helped! In the two-week period before my next appointment how many times did I turn those words over in my mind? “Now you’re going to get some help. … Now you’re going to get some help. … Now you’re going to get some help. … “
Meanwhile, I endured two Sundays of self-recrimination at church. Somehow I was able to sit through the services, but I sat with a chip on my shoulder. Since my flight from church earlier, every mention of God’s caring or loving or meeting needs struck heavy chords of resentment within me. I dismissed this as yet another example of what a putrid Christian I was.
At home I busied myself with lesson plans for the courses I would be teaching in a few weeks when school started. But somehow there were always too many hours left over. Time was an enemy that always seemed to win. Hour after hour of bustling activity, full rich life, and adventure came pouring from the TV set as I sat staring into space. My apartment was small, and at times I felt so trapped, so confined, so lonely that I would run to my car to escape. Once on the road I had absolutely no destination. I would drive for forty, fifty, sometimes a hundred miles.
I went to my next appointment with Dr. Michaels as much out of curiosity as anything. Same comfortable couch, soft pillows, and soothing music. Same tense, rigid Nancy Smith still trying to figure out when Dr. Michaels would spring the Bible-prayer routine. How much longer before she would reveal the “solution,” pat me on the back, pronounce me “cured,” and send me on my merry way? After all, this was my third visit. How much longer could it take?
Walking to her office I determined I would find out where she displayed her Bible. As we exchanged artificial pleasantries I did my best to locate it.
She interrupted my search with a question. “Can you tell me how you feel about me now that you have told me about your experience with your stepfather?”
No answer came to her question. I didn’t know how I felt toward her. I gave her a blank look and shrugged my shoulders.
She repeated the same question as though it were a brand new one. “How do you feel toward me?”
There was a long silence. She leaned back in her swivel chair and scratched her head.
Dr. Michael’s next question almost led me to believe she had ESP. “Nancy, if you were upset with me, how would you feel?”
I quickly put the head scratching data away in my attic files, then I attempted a fake smile.
I did not get a smile back. She repeated the question in a more demanding tone. “If you were upset with me, how would you feel?”
I was beginning to get the idea that she wanted an answer. I turned the question over in my mind. How would I feel? I was getting very uncomfortable with the whole idea of my even sitting here talking to her about such a silly thing as my feelings. To end the silence, I blurted out a quick, “I don’t know.”
About this time the little voice inside me started to help me out of this sticky situation. “Come on, Nanc. How would you feel? Let’s play school. Okay. Fill in the blank. If I were upset with Dr. Michaels,” by this time the “if” could easily have been omitted, “I would feel ” No answer. “Try again, Nanc. I would feel ” I strained for an answer. Still nothing.
Finally Dr. Michaels “condescended” to help me answer her question. “Well, would you feel upset enough to feel like leaving this room?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Did you hear yourself? You tell me what you’ll do or not do, but never how you feel. You won’t let yourself feel.”
Why was she making such a big deal about the way I feel? I didn’t really grasp what she was getting at.
“Nancy, Christians aren’t always honest about what they feel inside.”
All I knew was that feelings were what were giving me trouble. Why shouldn’t I ignore them and concentrate on being a good Christian?
“Christians are really quite good at covering up their feelings. Christian ‘ethics’-we tell ourselves, ‘I’m not supposed to get mad or hate or think wicked thoughts. Christians just don’t do that.’ “
Is Dr. Michaels suggesting it is all right to feel angry or upset? No. Everything in me told me that Christians are not to have those kinds of feelings.
“Nancy, so many times we lie to ourselves, ‘No, I’m not angry.’ But we’re fooling ourselves. Feelings are there even if we ignore them. But God wants us to be honest about our feelings so we can be honest with him.”
My mind was groping for some verse to tell her that feelings were wrong. The whole idea of paying attention to your feelings left me horrified.
“Nancy, there’s a difference between feeling and doing. You’re responsible for what you do with your feelings, but you can’t help having feelings. Feelings are. They’re there. And God wants us to be honest with ourselves and with him about how we feel.”
Something in her last statement struck a chord of genuine fascination. “God wants us to be honest.”
On the long trip home after the session, I thought about God wanting me to be honest. Heavy stuff. A lengthy Socratic dialogue with my psyche ensued as I chugged along the interstate.
Therapy is no easy street where your therapist tidies up your life. It is your efforts to grope and struggle with yourself that will eventually bring results. Let me warn that the process is slow and painful. Many of these dialogues with myself left me inundated with tears. I surmise I hold the world’s record for the most tears shed on the interstate.
My first running encounter with myself as I maneuvered my way out of heavy city traffic ran something like this: “Okay. I know God wants us to be honest. He’s the God of Truth, that much I know. But that stuff about feelings. So what if I don’t feel things? She said I don’t ever let myself feel. Well, what does she want me to do, walk around with my guts hanging out with feelings? It’s wrong to be angry and mad. Does she want me to be angry and mad?
“So maybe she’s right. I don’t let myself feel. Oh, Nancy, there’s no use covering up how I feel; after all, God knows. I really don’t know how I feel about stuff half the time. Maybe you want me to get honest, God. Okay, Lord, you already know how rotten I am, so I might as well get honest with myself. Help me to feel, if that’s what you want.”
As I talked that day in the car, it was a new way of communicating with God. No sweet platitudes, no fake, gushing praises. It was prayer in work clothes of desperation. After stumbling in depression’s darkness for so long it was so relieving to find something in the darkness. Honesty. I embraced it as a drowning man embraces a life line. In the weeks that followed I clutched at honesty, digging my fingernails deep into its fiber, clinging to the hope that honesty with myself and God would somehow lead me out of depression.
As I tenaciously held onto my first insight gained in therapy, I actually expected that all my problems would clear up automatically. Instead, it only led me through other doors. A long journey had begun in earnest. Dr. Michaels would now be able to probe into my past.
Probe into my past? But what had some of my friends told me? Aren’t psychologists and psychiatrists walking on dangerous ground when they tamper with the past? “Forgetting those things which are behind,” says Paul. Isn’t Satan the one who wants us to wallow in the muck and mire of past traumatic experiences?
Later I found out that was exactly the point. The past can be Satan’s territory. That is why we, as new creatures ingrafted in Christ who are experiencing emotional difficulties, must go back into our past and claim the subconscious for Christ. The battle for full Christian life and joy is often fought on the battleground of the past. Together, Dr. Michaels and I would take Christ’s power into my past and reconstruct it with God’s reconciling and redeeming love, adding a new dimension of honesty, cementing feelings to all my past experiences.
As we dissected the past I began to see poor patterns in my life, systems set up for failure, incorrect responses to people and situations, unbiblical cycles of thought-all of which contributed to my present depression and neurotic lifestyle. In later stages of therapy, the past would be strong enough to build a solid present. Once the present is established, then I could take Paul’s advice and “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
The Rice Krispies had reached that soggy state of lukewarm idleness. No one could have coaxed them to snap, crackle or pop. Tears dripped into the cereal bowl, and I sat at the table trying to figure out why.
A steady drip, drip, drip from a leaky kitchen faucet slowly entered my awareness. I couldn’t help but snicker at myself when I noticed that every time a tear plunked into the cereal bowl the kitchen faucet also dribbled in syncopation. The game came to an abrupt halt when I found myself dashing to the sink and slamming the full force of my body against the faucet to stop the dripping.
“What’s wrong with me? For God’s sake, what’s wrong? I don’t know who I am anymore. Why am I crying? I’m going crazy. I know it. I can’t figure this out. I mean . . . I can’t stop crying. And who am I talking to?” I began rubbing the chrome with a dishtowel, polishing the faucet to a high sheen. ‘Well, I’m feeling something. Are you happy, Dr. Michaels? Is this what you want? I sure am feeling something! God only knows what! I hope you’re pleased, kind doctor! What are you going to do with yourself, Nancy? Well, for openers, how about if I stop talking to this sink. Get out of this apartment. I don’t care where I go. Just get out of here.”
At the beginning of the next session I said, “Look, Dr. Michaels, I’ve tried this business of letting myself feel. You know what happened? I ended up blubbering all over the place Saturday morning.” There was silence. Dr. Michaels just sat there. Maybe she still did not understand. “For no reason! For no reason at all, I cried all morning!”
“Nancy, I think maybe there are some reasons. You just aren’t aware of them yet.” She spoke very calmly and quietly.
From nowhere a thought tracked across my mind and I found myself blurting out, “Things would be different if my mom were alive.” I was surprised by what I said.
“How would they be different?” she asked softly.
“With my stepfather. That wouldn’t have happened.” There was more silence. “I loved my mom. I loved her a lot.” As I said this my mind replayed a pleasant scene from long ago. My mother had surprised me with a little puppy. I allowed myself to think about how kind and gentle she was. Even though no words were spoken, I felt very comfortable sitting with Dr. Michaels thinking about a happier time in my life.
After the session I did much reminiscing about my mother. Hazy memories almost forgotten in the sixteen years since my mother’s death came to mind. Hazy memories of picnics, birthdays, private little jokes, long walks, special moments.
A phone call also helped. My stepmother, Rita, called collect (as was her custom) to find out how I was since I left the hospital. After she talked to me for a while, Rita asked if I wanted to talk to my stepfather. Every nerve in me screamed out with utter repulsion. “Don’t make me talk to him. I can’t stand it!” I told myself. Yet I found myself talking to him.
“What did you do, forget I lived here?” he joked.
I played the game and let him talk. For years I had played this game and became quite skilled at it. Only now the game took on a deadly nature. When I finally hung the receiver on the hook, my hands were sweating. My teeth were clenched as were my fists, and I walked around the apartment in a rage. I wanted to explode but I was incapable. I felt like calling him back and screaming my true feelings, yet I couldn’t.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I could not handle the strong feelings alone. I thought of Dr. Michael’s phone number on a little card. Should I bother her? I debated the question for ten minutes. Then in a cold sweat I dialed the number. I kept remembering her words as I waited for the operator to reach her. “I want you to call when it gets to be too much.”
Patiently she listened as I unburdened myself about the phone call. She concluded by saying, “You know, Nancy, you may not believe this, but I’m pleased that you called. You’re used to letting your feelings store up. Now we’re starting to put them out in the open. I want you to remember what you are feeling now. When you see me next Saturday, tell me all of it so we can really use the time and get somewhere.”
I would not admit it to myself at the time, but Dr. Michaels cared and something deep inside of my soul wanted to let her in to help.
“Dr. Michaels, how long am I going to have to live like this?”
“This is something that hurts, but I want to be honest with you. It’s going to have to hurt. All the pain from too many years is going to have to come out, like pus from a bad wound.”
I was silent for a long time.
Finally Dr. Michaels said, “Nancy, I can’t tell you how long this will take, but I know God wants you healed.”
I found myself dwelling on the loving, kind, caring family I didn’t have. More thoughts from the past concerning my mother entered my thinking. These thoughts from the past were contrasted by bitter thoughts about my stepmothers, Joann and Rita. And more and more dark thoughts about my stepfather gnawed at me. Waves of feeling were swelling, omen of a tidal wave. It was only a matter of time.
Finally poison, hate, and venom gushed out in the flood of a frenzied phone call to my stepfather. I expressed raw hatred and disgust for him. I wanted to hurt him deeply for hurting me. I wanted him to realize he was responsible for all my difficulties and failures in life. He was to blame for everything.
After the phone call I found myself in suspended animation. Although Dr. Michaels did not suggest or encourage the phone call, many sessions were devoted to the powerful feelings swarming around the entire issue of the rape.
Painfully honest, brutal sessions followed the phone call to my stepfather. These grueling sessions left me physically as well as mentally limp. The bottom of my false self was falling out. I had no desire to do anything except sleep or sit motionless for great periods of time.
I begged Dr. Michaels to have Dr. Walker prescribe something to help me endure each day. A mild dosage of Valium was prescribed. The medication altered my body chemistry, stabilizing me enough so I could continue to work on finding the root causes of my depression during this tense time.
The period after the phone call to my stepfather was a crucial time. The hostile emotions that sprang up were a part of me I did not know existed. What really lurked inside Nancy Smith? This first stage of therapy, this self-exploring, was like colliding with your own furniture in the dark, so much a part of you, yet so strange and different in darkness. It was a strange experience of feeling things. I found myself craving and seeking out solitude. Yet at the same time, more than ever before, I had an almost insatiable desire to know someone cared.
“Parents to put their arms around you and tell you everything will be all right.” I ached for that fantasy to come true. “Someone care about me, please.” Still weeping and physically exhausted I phoned Mrs. Hawkins. Instead of Mrs. Hawkins, Pastor Hawkins answered the phone. He had the awkward task of trying to comfort a Nancy Smith who lacked the ability to receive the caring she craved. He was defeated before he began.
In desperation Pastor Hawkins suggested, “You know, I don’t think this doctor is helping you very much. I mean, if this is the condition she puts you in after a session, Nancy, how can she be helping you?”
Pastor Hawkins was sincere in his suggestion. Therapy is not only difficult for the client but also for those who genuinely care about his or her welfare. To the observers of Nancy Smith, four months of therapy had brought only negative changes in her condition and explosions of feelings. Those who cared about me only wanted to ease the pain and stop the suffering. “Nancy didn’t used to be this way.” It was natural for Pastor Hawkins to assume it was the therapy that was having an adverse effect on me. However, his remark put me into a tailspin of confusion. What little trust I was beginning to experience in Dr. Michaels was now on shaky ground.
“I ought to tell Dr. Michaels to hang it up. Nobody can help me. I wish she could but she can’t. What is she trying to do to me? I can’t stand this. I can’t go on.” Pastor Hawkins would be disappointed, but I felt God did not have any answers for me either. No one could help me. In the silence of the apartment a pain was now developing. There did seem to be a way out. I walked into the bathroom and stared at the medicine cabinet. I opened it and took out the little bottle of Valium. I could stop the hurt. If things did not get better there would be a way out.
For some reason, I ended up keeping my Saturday appointment with Dr. Michaels.
“Well, I guess you want to know how things are going. I’ve been busy.” I proceeded to tell her a lie about how wonderful my week had been. I concentrated on my teaching activities and quite carefully deleted any mention of Pastor Hawkins and his suggestion. After all, I did not want to embarrass Dr. Michaels.
“Nancy, what happened to all that anger you had?”
Why did she have to bring that up? I told her I was feeling fine. “I don’t know what happened to the anger. I don’t want to think about it.” In the silence of the next three minutes I wondered why I wasn’t angry right then. Finally the silence got to me. “You know, I, uh, don’t know what to do when you don’t say anything and just stare at me.”
“Well, Nancy, sometimes I don’t know what you’re thinking, and I want to give you a chance to bring up things to talk about.”
That was a pretty straight answer. Okay. ‘Well, you know, yesterday-this is funny-I have these electric curlers in the bathroom. When I looked at them, I thought about something that happened a long time ago.” After my mother died, the lady next door used to curl my hair and comb it out the next morning before school. One morning when I knocked she didn’t come to the door. I waited twenty minutes, but she didn’t come. Finally in tears, I took the curlers out of my hair and went to school feeling ugly.”
Now I had the courage to look into Dr. Michaels’ face to see if she was laughing at me. She wasn’t. Instead, she was silently reliving the experience with me. I was now brave enough to do a little psychological guesswork. “Maybe that’s why sometimes I’m a bother to people now. Like I felt like a bother when I tried to call Mrs. Hawkins after I left here last Saturday. I felt so lonely.”
“Why did you feel lonely? Can you remember when you felt lonely before?”
“You mean in the past?”
“Yes. Like the curlers.”
I was really doing some searching now. “No, no, I can’t remember anything. I mean I don’t think I was lonely. My brother was always there.”
“Why did you call Mrs. Hawkins rather than anyone else?”
“Well, it was late and Donna works and was probably in bed. I’m not seeing many people these days.” I stopped for a minute and listened to my own words. “I’m more lonely than I’ve ever been before.”
“Maybe you seem to be more lonely now than before because you are allowing yourself to feel for the first time. And you feel lonely.” I appreciated the way Dr. Michaels never acted like she had all the answers. We were searching together. She gave suggestions I could feel free to accept or reject.
“Sometimes I think I’m thinking about myself too much. Like Pastor Hawkins said, if I keep busy with other people. … ” I stopped my train of thought because I realized that keeping busy with other people was not working for me. “. . . No, it doesn’t work.” “Yes, you’ve tried to keep busy all your life. Now it’s time to be honest. You are lonely. You don’t have any close friends with the exception of Donna.”
“Oh, I have friends. I’m the laugh of the teachers’ lounge.”
“Okay,” Dr. Michaels conceded, “You aren’t an isolate. But no close friends. Why?”
“Well, my moodiness.”
“That’s true. But what else?”
“I don’t know.” I now wished she’d drop the whole subject. ‘I don’t make the effort. I don’t ask people to do things. I wait for them.”
“Like you’re bothering them? Do you feel like you’re bothering me?”
I laughed. You’re getting paid for me bothering you, Emily Michaels! ”NO! I guess I’m oversensitive. Like if I call someone and ask him to do something and he can’t do it, I feel hurt.”
“Yes, I think that’s true. You are extremely sensitive. And l think that deep down inside you think you’re bothering me.”
‘Well, sometimes I am a bother.”
“That’s possible. I don’t know. Like the lady with the curlers. Maybe she just had a cold or was sick. I don’t know. But like you said, I may be wrong. But I think a lot of it is just in your own mind.”
“Okay, so what do I do about it?”
“Sometimes it just takes real guts to be honest about how we are. Nancy, do you know why you really called Mrs. Hawkins? What did you really want her to tell you?”
There was quiet, and then I answered Dr. Michaels’ question. “I wanted Mrs. Hawkins to say, ‘Nancy, I love you. I care about what happens to you.’ ” I was amazed at my answer. It was as if someone suddenly turned the lights on in my mind. I began to answer automatically all of Dr. Michaels’ questions with a wisdom I didn’t know I possessed.
“Do you know why you called Mrs. Hawkins instead of anyone else?”
“Because she’s like my mother.” I could not believe what I was saying, yet something deep inside me was affirming it was true.
“Yes. How is she like your mother?”
“She really cares about her family.” I was warm inside just thinking about how kind and gentle Mrs. Hawkins was. I was not bothered by the tears that began to flow. “She’s the kind of person you’d be proud to bring your friends home to and say, ‘This is my mom.’ “
“Not like Joann or Rita. You didn’t even want to go home.”
I nodded my head and grabbed a Kleenex.
Finally! Tears of sorrow for my mother’s death. Delayed for sixteen long years. Gone underground . . . buried . . . denied. But now this Saturday-released
I allowed myself to cry unashamedly all the way home. At the same time the tears flowed, a tinge of electricity swelled within me. It was a quiet delight, a sense of excitement at my discovery. There was a reason for all the nagging depression, the sadness. Finally some of that nebulous hurt was identified. Now I knew why I wept.
I can’t tell you how good those overdue tears felt! Welcome tears! Purposeful tears! Now I was aware of direction in Dr. Michaels’ efforts. This therapy was helping. After months of hard fighting, I claimed my first victory. I was determined to go on!
God’s love was touching me through Dr. Michaels. God gave me a burden bearer. Burden bearing, real burden bearing, is not a pleasant ministry. There is nothing sweet-smelling about the foul odor and repulsive sight of another’s wounds. Dr. Michaels was more than a clinical psychologist. She was a person who could experience hurt and pain, a person who cared. She could dirty her hands with my pain because she too had had wounds that Someone had to comfort and clean.
December 19, 1972.
“Did you ever feel out of place back then?”
“Yeah, well I suppose there were times in the past. Like when my mother died.”
“Exactly.”
“I mean when you’re young, you need a lot of things.”
“And you were always in the way.”
“I mean there were a lot of housekeepers and problems raising two kids. It’s hard for a man to raise two kids. I know that. He always said he didn’t have to raise us. He could have just put us in a home after my mom died.”
“Yes, he could have. And he always reminded you of that fact.”
“You think maybe that could make me feel this way now, like I’m always in the way, interfering?”
“There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Those old scenes. I focused on the floor rather than Dr. Michaels’ face. “I hate to go back there, even with you. I get embarrassed. It sounds like it could never have happened.”
“But I know it happened and I want to hear all of it.”
“You know, I want you to know. I guess I want someone to feel sorry for me.”
“Okay, maybe you do. Is that so bad? You probably do. But all your life, you’ve been slapping your hand and telling yourself it’s wrong to want that. And so you’ve been covering up. It’s too big a wound to keep covering up. Nancy, we’ve got to go back and let that pus out.”
How could I begin to let her know about Joann? This stepmother had so overwhelmed me that even as I sat in Dr. Michaels’ office her power crippled my thought and speech patterns, reducing my perceptions to that of the still frightened child. “Joann was mean.”
The words were just not adequate. An image flashed into my mind of her powerful hands gripping my brother’s head and pounding it into the wall. I relayed the scene to Dr. Michaels. Then I told her of the shame and hot tears I tried to hide the day Joann shaved my head like a boy’s. But you could never stop Joann -never. Her punishments, the slaps, the beatings, the bruises-they were over swiftly. But the standing punishments, they lasted.
In the summer, late at night, we would be forced to stand for long periods of time in the utility room darkness for being “bad.” “Let the rats get your Joann would yell. The winter standing punishment was worse. We had to stand on the back porch without a coat in the cold. As these old scenes were relayed a new thought struck me. “Joann must have been crazy. You need punishment, but that was crazy. She must have been sick, really sick. I understand now.”
Dr. Michaels interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t be rational now. Tell me what it was like then.”
The ugly pus oozed. I remembered the cleaning tasks that I was forced to repeat again and again and again, day in and day out. Cleaning! Cleaning! Cleaning! Pots, pans, bathroom, floors. I recalled shining all the chrome fixtures in the bathroom over and over, cleaning miles of baseboards only to be slapped when Joann found dirt in a crevice. I cowered on the floor near the bucket of pine-scented water and said again and again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” as she struck me for not cleaning the floor to her satisfaction.
Next came the vivid picture of my brother, Jimmy, standing in his underwear, his skinny bruised body about to be beaten yet again by a drunken Joann. The scene was so real I smelled the stench of heavy cologne and cheap beer reeking from her. That was the one day, the only day, I ever tried to stop her. I grabbed that mighty hand and tore the watch from her wrist only to be thrown to the floor and hit and hit and hit. Finally she left me in a heap cringing under the dining table.
There was now a long silence in Dr. Michaels’ office. Finally I spoke. “I wish it didn’t all happen.”
It seemed Dr. Michaels was now speaking from a place far away. There was such sadness in her voice. “That’s not the way God meant for people to be when he created this world. Not at all.” She shook her head. “It shouldn’t be like that.” She was quiet for a moment, deep in her own private thoughts. Then she focused again on me. “Nancy, it is amazing, it’s a miracle you have come out of a situation like that as well as you have. God must really want you for something special, very special.”
Dr. Michaels didn’t realize it then, but her words were like a bouquet of caring from God. Petals of love were falling into the old wound. Someone cared.
As I rose to leave, Dr. Michaels touched my shoulder. “Do you mind if I say something?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Are you sure? It might embarrass you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Sure you can take it, huh?”
She really had me worried now.
“I just want you to know that I really, really care about you and what happens to you.” Quiet. “Did I embarrass you?”
I simply did not know what to do with those words or with the gentle hug she gave me. No one had ever told me such a kind thing. I did not say a word, but Dr. Michaels understood.
How do you bury a Volkswagen? The Yellow Lemon was dead-not just sick this time- dead! I refused to face reality. I turned the ignition key again. Zero compression.
I called the garage where just that morning I had spent $97 for a tune-up and repairs. “No.” They did not know what the trouble was. “Yes.” They would send a tow truck out to pick it up and take it back to the garage.
While I waited for the tow truck to come, I struggled to surrender the problem to my wise heavenly Father. “Lord, you know I can’t afford a big repair bill. You know how to take care of this best.”
A mustached mechanic said, “Lady, that generator froze up the whole engine. She’s locked up solid.” He shook his head as he made his remarks. I knew that was a bad sign.
“How much is all of this going to cost me?”
“Mmmm. We’d probably get you a new engine for five, six hundred.”
Late that afternoon I collapsed on my bed. I put my hands behind my head and tried to concentrate on the air conditioner as it labored to refrigerate my bedroom. It seemed to pound out “Five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars.”
My eyes fell on my Bible on the night stand. “The victorious Christian. What a joke . . . at least for me.” I suddenly thought of a verse, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
“In everything give thanks?” I grabbed another Kleenex. As I began thinking out loud I started to shred it into little bits. “Thanks, God, for letting the only person I ever really cared about die. And thanks, God, for the hell you let Joann put Jimmy and me through, the beatings, the cursing and yelling, the lonely nights. Thanks for letting my stepfather rape me. Thanks for the sickening feeling I get whenever I have to be alone with a man. Thanks for reminding me of all the scum. Thanks for messing up my life so much I now have bills up to my ears from having to see a psychologist. Thanks for all the pain I have every time I spill my guts to her. Thanks for all the love you denied me and gave to everybody else. Thanks for the rotten ache in my heart that hurts so much the sobbing won’t stop. And, oh, yeah, thanks for the engine going today. Just one more thing to be thankful for, God.”
The ache I was feeling settled in a tight knot in my throat and I sobbed. Anger and pity surged into frustration. I wanted to strike back. But at whom? How? The rage boiled within me and I could not release it.
As I dialed Dr. Michaels’ now familiar number the rage seemed to cool. While I was listening to the phone ring, I realized how ridiculous it was to call my therapist because of a burnt-up car engine. Fortunately, Dr. Michaels realized there was more involved than a V.W. engine. The anger with God which I for so long denied (because Christians are not supposed to be angry with God) was finally surfacing for me to inspect.
After I recounted the whole rotten day to her, she made several nonpsychiatrical suggestions: Call the garage and ask to speak with the owner instead of the mechanic. Have someone else look at the engine. Borrow money from the bank and get it fixed. Get a lawyer. Call your brother and see what he would do. For each of her suggestions I countered with a “Yes, but . . . ” The last “Yes, but . . . ” went something like this:
“I can’t call my brother.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t understand. He always depends on me. I don’t come to him.” I whined this last comment and wasn’t expecting her strong reply.
“Well, maybe it’s about time you did!” No calm, clinical psychologist speaking now. This was Emily Michaels, the disgusted person, fed up at my refusal to accept any help. She continued, “Really, Nancy, you are just about to cut yourself off completely.”
I could not believe this was Stoneface Michaels speaking.
“Maybe it’s about time you started to depend on someone else. Maybe that’s why God let you get into this mess.”
The remark was not exactly compassionate, but it was theologically sound. Our conversation ended with Dr. Michaels’ suggestion that I borrow a car and come see her.
In her office the next day, Emily Michaels quickly reminded Nancy Smith of Nancy Smith. “I’d like to know what happened after you phoned me. Did you follow any of my suggestions?”
“Yeah, I called every rental place in the phone directory. The V.W. place didn’t have anything but a stick shift, so I called all the places in the book just to be doing something. And I slammed a lot of doors, kicked things, then I finally borrowed a car and went to a lawyer.”
“So you put it into a lawyer’s hands.”
“Yeah, but it won’t do any good. I’ll probably end up having to buy a new engine, and owing the lawyer and you.”
Dr. Michaels surprised me-when she remarked, “I’m glad you’re telling me this. A year ago you would never have called and let me know how upset you were.”
‘What good does it do to tell other people. They don’t want to hear about your problems unless they’re paid.”
“Oh, unless they’re paid.”
‘Well, they don’t. Look, I just have a superabundant need for caring. I’ll never find anyone to care that much.”
“You expressed that beautifully-superabundant caring.”
I just stared at her.
“You know, Nancy,” she continued, “I’ve had people call me up and say something like, ‘I’m going stir crazy. Can I come over and let’s do something?’ “
I resented her attempt to reduce my problems to such a simple solution. “I was too angry to call anyone.”
“You were pretty angry. Maybe you still are. I might still be if I were in your shoes. Maybe you’re not ready to give it up yet.”
“Give it up? What do you mean? How?”
“You probably still are angry.”
Bang. She got me. I reacted with more anger. “So tell me, doctor, what can you do about itl I’ve been coming here thinking maybe I’ll get straightened out!”
“Nancy, I think you have the idea God is responsible for some of this. You don’t feel he cares.”
She hit on a crucial conflict. I had to admit to her and God “This is the way I feel.” It is a bewildering experience to come face to face with the fact that you are angry with the almighty Creator of heaven and earth. It was this very anger which had blocked the flow of love between God and Nancy Smith for too long. No magic wand, no miracle healing, but a skilled, surrendered Christian psychologist was God’s instrument.
“What could he do to let you know he cares?”
“Change things. Circumstances. Like my car.”
“But I mean more than that-people-how would people change?”
“People can’t change and I know it.”
“But if they could, how would you have God change people? Make people realize how terribly, terribly hard things have been?”
”Yeah.”
“Make people care. How could I make you feel God cares?”
Quiet.
“Nancy, I think you said it earlier?”
“What?”
“You said you had a need. A super need. A superabundant need for caring.” More silence. “But you never tell anyone. It’s like Joann is still there and you’re sick. But you won’t tell anyone, and you build this thick wall around yourself. If anyone shows you any caring, you toss it aside. Nancy, I understand why, but I want you to see it. You don’t want to be hurt again. Isn’t that how you feel?”
All I could do was nod. This session was a turning point. The anger was finally in the open. I was still alone. I was still without the car. I was still hurt. I was still very much angry with God.
But God is a God of truth. And he loves honesty. How he must grieve as we Christians cover up the gutsy stuff, the ugly thoughts, the fears, the doubts and, yes, the anger-hidden even from ourselves. How God yearns for us to bring the gutsy stuff to him in honesty. He’s God. He can handle it.
It was not an easy process, but as I released my anger in honesty, God slowly began to replace it with his limitless love.
I found myself transfixed to the television screen. Message from My Mother was an average movie at best. The plot involved a teen-age girl discovering tapes made by her mother before her death. The tapes were a means of new growth and understanding for the girl. For Nancy Smith, the movie was God’s tool to purge the mind of hurt, anger, and emptiness so he could fill her with something much better. Dr. Michaels had begun the process many months before, but only God could complete it.
As the movie progressed, I threw my feelings to God out loud. “God, I miss my mother. I wish I could remember her face, look into her eyes again, listen to that voice, or feel the gentleness of her hands.”
There is something mysteriously therapeutic about putting out those feelings, those gut feelings carried around for years, into audible words. Somehow as the words gushed out and I listened to myself, I realized God was also listening. God and me, leveling. All that
I felt for so long I suddenly realized God also felt. The tears poured out till God wrung all the hurt dry.
At ten o’clock the movie ended. I turned the television off and wandered into the kitchen. There had to be a way to find out more about my mother. I was driven with insatiable determination. An amazing series of thought patterns came into play. Ideas flooded my mind. Aunt Helen, my mother’s sister! She knew my mother better than anyone else. She would be able to tell me what my mother was really like. She could answer all those questions I had about my mother. But where was she now? After my stepfather’s remarriage we were not allowed to see Aunt Helen. Seventeen years. Had it really been that long since I’d seen her?
Resolute determination. “I have to find her. She could tell me so much about my mother.” The names of North Carolina towns flowed through my thoughts now. Charlotte, Burlington, Durham, Greensboro- familiar-sounding names I remembered hearing as a child. Did she still even live in that area? And even if she did, her last name is so common. Johnson. How many Johnsons do you find in the telephone directory of even the smallest towns? Where do I even start? My eyes caught my yellow wall phone and I had the answer. How many long distance calls will I have to make before I even get a hint as to where she lives?
Instead of hindering me, these questions only spurred me on. Ignoring the fact that my search was beginning at ten in the evening, I dialed directory assistance for eastern North Carolina.
“What town please?” the operator asked mechanically.
I wish I knew, I thought to myself. I guess I’ll be systematic and start at the top of the alphabet. “Burlington, operator,” I said with assurance.
“And the party you wish to speak with?”
“Johnson, Phillip and Helen Johnson.”
I grabbed a piece of notebook paper during the brief silence. I expected to get at least seven or eight listings for Johnsons in Burlington alone. This search could run into a little money, I thought. I began to doodle the number eight on the clean sheet of notebook paper, but I was interrupted by the operator.
“That number is 564-3425.”
Just one number? Not seven or eight? Just one? I could hardly believe my ears. As I copied down the number I told myself this was a good start. Not caring about the time or expense this search might involve, I quickly dialed the number. The phone rang three times. I took a deep breath and glanced at the kitchen clock. As a voice at the other end said “Hello,” it suddenly hit me that ten at night is not the best time in the world to be calling complete strangers in search of long-lost aunts. I started to hang up when the voice on the other end of the line said “Hello” again.
I found myself blurting out, “You don’t know me, but I’m looking for a Helen Johnson who might live in your area, at least I think she might. Ah, she had a sister, Miriam, who lived in Kentucky, and my name is Nancy Smith and I’m trying to locate Helen Johnson, I thought you might know of some other Johnsons and possibly they might know her, she has a husband, Phillip, they used to live in. … ” I finally paused to catch my breath. It was then I realized that all the time that I had been talking, the lady on the other end had also been talking.
Now as I listened, she repeated with gathering force, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I allowed her to continue as it began to register in slow motion in my mind that this stranger was trying to tell me that she was the right person. She was Aunt Helen! I was talking with the one person who could tell me everything I needed to know about my mother. As I tuned back in on her, she was still repeating, almost in a state of shock, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Now that I had found her, my mind went blank. I didn’t know what to say to her! Finally I managed a rather awkward, “You’re really my Aunt Helen?”
I got still another extremely positive “Yes!” Then we were both at a loss for words.
”Now that I’ve found you, I don’t know what to say.” My aunt laughed. I laughed. Then we were both silent as we attempted to assimilate the reality of the situation.
Slowly at first, then with more rapidity came a fusillade of questions that had been ready to go off for seventeen years. The exchange was lively.
“Where are you calling from?”
“How is Uncle Phillip?”
“Are you married?”
“Do you still have red hair?”
‘Where is Jimmy?”
On and on the questions continued. The arduous task of putting a confused past into proper perspective had begun. So many pieces, so many memories, so many questions, so very much that needed to be shared.
There was an immediate bond between us. The more we shared, the more it grew. We would never be strangers again. There was such an attitude of warmth and caring that I found myself pouring out all the hurt and pain of the past seventeen years. Those hard places, those suffering places in my life that Dr. Michaels had struggled and labored to enter for months were now laid open for Aunt Helen in a matter of minutes. My stepfather, Joann, the loneliness, the depression, the loss of my mother, the conversion hysteria. As I recounted these things to her, the heavy void, the emptiness, began to lose its strangling grip on my life. Into every crevice where the void had been, a new warmness began to flow.
Oh yes, there was a message from my mother-a kind, sweet, affirming message of love and tenderness, of caring and concern. That was the message that permeated Aunt Helen’s recollections of my mother. There was such joy in Aunt Helen’s voice as she searched for the right words to assure me that my fuzzy childhood memories were not merely a fabrication I had conjured up to satisfy my needs. Those pleasant memories were only a small part of the great reality of my mother’s character and strong love. Seventeen years later they still had impact and influence on my life.
As I listened to my aunt talk, I felt a warmness expanding and growing with me. God was healing. Earlier in the evening I had cried to him, I had shared with him the deep ache I felt inside since I had lost my mother. I had told God I wanted to remember her face, to look into her eyes again and to hear her voice. God heard those prayers, saw my tears, and was healing.
When I related to Aunt Helen what Joann had done to my mother’s pictures, and how I had lost the one remaining photo I had of Mommie, she began to laugh. I didn’t know it then, but the pieces of God’s plan were fitting together. Looking back, I think God was smiling too. Aunt Helen explained that about two months before my mother died she gave my aunt a large box of family snapshots to keep. At the time Aunt Helen was very puzzled by Mother’s insistence that she take the pictures. But now she understood! As Aunt Helen now promised to mail the pictures to me in the morning, along with some of the last letters my mother had written to her before she died, the warmness expanded, and I wiped away tears of joy.
The God of all comfort, the preserver, would allow me to remember my mother’s face, to look into her eyes and to hear her voice again, just as I had asked him.
I glanced at the darkness of night through the bedroom window, and in that stillness I laughed with God. God and I, together in the darkness. The darkness of God! In the darkness of the loneliness, the depression, the hurt, the anger, God was there. In the silences, in every tear, in the fear, in all my doubts and questions, in every inch of bitterness, God’s Holy
Spirit had been moving to heal. Working through Emily Michaels, as a human extension of his love, God’s months and years of labor had reached a culmination . . . tonight. For the first time, I was able to let God love me!
Euphoric shock! The growing warmness of God’s love now swelled within me, and I could actually feel my face glow. God was bathing me in a love and caring he had wanted me to have all along. God was surrounding me with his lovingkindness and cleansing my memories. I slept soundly in the darkness of God that night, possessing the peace of love secured.
The package of photographs and letters from Aunt Helen arrived four days after the phone call. Only God knows just how very precious it was to open the package. When I did, I was so nervous that the pictures slid onto the carpet. Bending down, I saw for the first time in one of the photographs my mother’s smile, her eyes, her facial features. And I made the staggering discovery that they matched my eyes, my smile, my facial features.
I looked like my mother!
I raced through the rest of the pictures in unbelief. I sat stunned and so very pleasantly pleased at the identity these pictures gave to me. Tears now, so many tears of happiness came as I read my mother’s letters to Aunt Helen. God was allowing me to draw courage and strength from my mother’s words. God’s work of reconciliation continued.
In past months and years Dr. Michaels had reminded me time and time again how much the Lord desired to bring healing and wholeness to my life, but still she was not prepared for the method God chose to speed up the process. The technique she employed for our next therapy session together was straight out of Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” After sharing so very much of the ugly, the offensive in my life, God allowed her to share in the new elegance, the grace and symmetry he was giving to my life.
Dr. Michaels did not know it (then again, maybe she did), but without putting it into words, she had planted in me a desire to visit my aunt. In keeping with her practice, she never gave advice, but God sure did let her drop some hints during that session.
The trip to North Carolina was one long conversation with God. I didn’t have much practice in praising the Lord, but by the time I hit Kentucky I could not contain myself any longer. I had to praise God in song. I hardly knew any songs to praise the Lord, it had been so long since I had even wanted to. But one song did come to mind, and over and over I offered it up to the Lord in praise.
God is so good,
God is so good,
God is so good,
He’s so good to me.
Editor’s note: Watching a professional is a joy. It can also be deceptive. One is tempted to say, “It’s so beautifully simple! Why can’t I do that?” Hidden in the surface simplicity are the intricacies of foresight, experience, courage, and skill.
The same is true of the counseling sessions at the heart of Winter Past. So deceptively simple and effective, they leave a pastoral counselor wondering, “Can I do that?” Or perhaps an even better question, “How much of that can I do?”
Frances White, a psychotherapist who is associate professor of counseling psychology at Wheaton Graduate School, analyzes the excerpt you’ve just read, and shares three types of counseling principles:
¥ those any church leader could use
¥ those church leaders with special training in counseling could use
¥ those best left to the professional counselor
Dr. Michaels put it so aptly: “That’s not the way God meant for people to be when he created this world. Not at all. … It shouldn’t be like that.”
No, God did not mean for generations of sin to cripple us in the conscious and unconscious ways so evident in Nancy Anne Smith’s personal account of her search for emotional life. Her pilgrimage from emotional chains to freedom abounds with examples of the application of therapeutic principles. In some instances we watch them being applied by the therapist; in others, we recognize them from Nancy’s musings on the process.
1. What are the counseling principles inherent in Nancy’s story that can be useful to any church leader?
¥ The counselees have to be ready to deal with their own felt needs. Nancy’s friends exemplified this first principle when they wisely left her with the responsibility of calling for the first appointment. The resistance that might have come from even gentle coercion would have interfered with the therapeutic process.
¥ Any unresolved issues between counselors and counselees hinder progress. In the first session, Dr. Michaels’ authenticity is evident when she clears up a misunderstanding about her credentials with a simple explanation. There is no room for pretense on anyone’s part in therapy. Had it been an important issue for Nancy, Dr. Michaels no doubt would have explored it immediately.
¥ Counselees must accept responsibility for the healing process. Instead of giving pat solutions, Dr. Michaels very gently clears up any illusions about therapists having magical potions. For Nancy, the full impact of her own responsibility in the healing process came slowly but surely, reinforced through many tears, as she dialogued with herself while driving home after each session.
¥ The probability of suicide should always be checked out. Dr. Michaels was direct and unequivocal in her investigation of the possibility of suicide, while she checked out the depths of Nancy’s depression and her strength to deal with it. Had she seen suicide as a probable option, she would have been alerted to take direct steps to protect Nancy from herself.
¥ Effective therapeutic communication starts with capturing the feelings the counselees are experiencing. The counselor stepped inside Nancy’s frame of reference and focused on her feelings in her context. The therapist often reflects to Nancy the feelings of the verbal and nonverbal communication. Silences are included in the range of responses. Note that they were never filled in by superfluous interventions. She allows the counselee to be absorbed in experiencing her feelings. Interestingly, the silences often nudged her forward. Note also Nancy’s breakthrough in dealing with feelings about her mother. It is fascinating to study how quickly the responses led Nancy to develop deeper trust and openness that in turn opened the door to explore her emotions on progressively deeper levels. Labeled empathy, the approach is in direct contrast to sympathy, where the therapist would have experienced Nancy’s feelings in a subjective way, and consequently been rendered ineffective to help her probe deeper.
¥ A prime condition of good therapy is the calibre of respect that never knowingly says or does anything that would diminish the counselee’s self-image. Embedded in every word spoken by Dr. Michaels is the principle of respect, or unconditional acceptance for the counselee. Respect is clearly defined by what Dr. Michaels does or does not do. Nowhere in this account does the therapist reject, belittle, argue, disapprove, or even act condescendingly in a shocked or parental way. Study the effect upon Nancy in the various passages where she ponders to herself about Dr. Michaels’ interventions. Dr. Michaels further believes in Nancy’s ability to make decisions in her own way, in her own time, even to her need to contact her stepfather. This not only makes Nancy responsible for her own life, but also gives her a sense of being able to handle it. Further, she recognizes when Nancy has a pressing agenda and allows her the freedom to bring up her topics. Yet she confronts in a caring way when it promotes growth.
¥ A sine qua non of good counseling is genuineness, whereby verbal and nonverbal communication are congruent with the counselor’s feelings and thoughts. How empathic, respectful, and above all authentic is Dr. Michaels’ sensitively timed, yet spontaneously offered, expression of care and concern for Nancy! How appropriately she shared her own experience (a teacher, tool) yet never lets it be an occasion for the chitchat that could deflect from the issues at hand. How straightforwardly she answers even when it must be, “Yes, Nancy, it’s going to hurt.” How beautifully she reinforces Nancy’s faith with her own faith, “I know God wants you healed.” It is evidenced by Nancy’s reflections outside the session that Dr. Michaels’ authenticity rings true.
¥ All counselors have the responsibility to open themselves to opportunities for deeper selfunderstanding as they recognize and deal with their own hurts. Dr. Michaels does not apply her skills in a vacuum. Anything she has not dealt with in her own life interferes with her therapy; feelings are stirred up through the pain of others. She, like us, would find a way to skirt issues that are too close to her personally. Or, she might be surprised by the frustrations, resentments, or other negative feelings that reveal themselves in an anti-therapeutic response. It seems safe to say that somewhere along the line she has dealt with many of her own problems (” . . . because she too has had wounds that Someone had to comfort and clean”).
All these principles depicted in Nancy’s narrative are applicable for the person who is willing to consciously develop them. Within these parameters, support and encouragement can be a powerful impetus to the development of greater strength. Dr. Michaels interspersed her therapy with it (“I see a big change.” “God gave me a burden bearer”). Empathy, as opposed to sympathy, is a great conserver of the therapist’s strength. Those untrained in counseling skills can indicate empathy by simply rephrasing the feeling and content that the counselee expresses.
2. What elements of the article can be addressed only by a church leader with special training in counseling?
Dr. Michaels’ vocation was therapy. Church leaders need to distribute their energies among entire congregations. To give a disproportionate amount of time to a handful of people who see them weekly is not their role. Therefore, the counseling they do should center on problems that lend themselves to short-term therapy where the goals are more definable, where the stages of therapy are more predictable, and the focus is on the conscious rather than the unconscious level of the counselee. Examples are changes in location, job, health, or status; or developmental crises such as adolescent rebellion, parenthood problems, or a midlife crisis.
This does not preclude the need for therapeutic skills that go well beyond encouragement and support; that is, skills that require an understanding of those forces that resist change. The higher level of empathy Dr. Michaels so skillfully demonstrated is an example.
Time and time again she facilitated progress by bringing into focus underlying feelings lurking just below Nancy’s awareness, and by helping her see relationships between feelings, behaviors, and beliefs. Her further use of confrontation to point out discrepancies, resistances, and contradictions is appropriate for a trained leader. Well handled, these skills can pave the way for deeper therapy, even for the one who must be referred to others with greater skills.
3. What elements of this account require a professional counselor?
A pastor who is not a professional counselor does not have the time nor background to do reconstruction therapy such as Nancy needed. Dr. Michaels had the formidable task of leading Nancy to a modification of the very structure of her personality. It meant uprooting long-forgotten emotional experiences and correcting their effect on her perceptions of herself and others. It is long-range therapy that requires an intricate understanding of the dynamics of personality. Dr. Michaels’ interventions included elements that require extensive skill, i.e., working with transference, counter-transference, interpretation, repressed material-all beyond the time, energy, knowledge, and skill of a church leader whose responsibility is not therapy.
What were the clues evident in Nancy’s account that indicated the need for referral to a professional therapist?
¥ First, there was no clearly defined presenting problem. With Dr. Michaels’ help, Nancy mentioned her depression, but she also talked about her crippling conversion hysteria and her family. She evidenced intense emotions that seemed too tangled to sort out.
¥ Second, her problem had a long history rooted in her early background. It meant there probably would be deeply repressed memories that would need to be surfaced by a skilled therapist.
¥ Third, there was a strong, self-punitive, condemnatory tendency that easily became intertwined with her Christianity, making it difficult to differentiate between healthy and neurotic spirituality.
¥ Fourth, there was a denial of obvious feelings which, combined with the above clues, takes skill to remedy.
One final word. Regardless of one’s level of counseling skill, the vast majority of people are helped by those who lend a truly listening ear. It always helps a hurting person to unravel feelings and experience some release from pent-up emotional energy.
Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
