Group Therapy: Personality Profile of Group Member (2004)

[During the period February through March 2004, I was in group therapy at the D.C. Department of Mental Health, Spring Road Clinic, under the direction of group leaders, Drs. Nicole Rafanello and Debra Kosch.

http://grptherapy.blogspot.com/

The group included me together with a middle aged male and a middle-aged female.  The following is a psychological profile of the male group member, based on subtle clues he disclosed in group.  Consistent with the requirements of the D.C. Code, the group members remain anonymous.  The male was non-psychotic.  It was my opinion that the male showed the consequences of childhood abuse, as described by Leonard Shengold, M.D. in the book Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation.

I wonder if Drs. Rafanello and Kosch observed what I observed?  Incidentally, Dr. Rafanello is one of John Hinckley's doctors, and has testified in federal court in support of Mr. Hinckley's petition for extended leave from St. Elizabeths Hospital where he is housed.

https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?1981cr0306-267]

PERSONALITY PROFILE -- SOUL MURDER VICTIM – GROUP MEMBER

Predicate Thinking

Low-cost housing / apartment / anus

Cleanliness of apartment / keeping bowel free of feces

Enema / Jesus (Pure, holy deliverer come to clean the world of sin)

Feces / money / sin

Loss of money (running low on funds) / loss of feces / narcissistic loss (narcissistic injury / rage

Bank account (holds money / anus (holds feces)

Anal sphincter / barrier / control

Disclosure of personal facts / bowel movement / only done under external compulsion / (laxative/enema)

Inquiry into personal facts / breach of anal sphincter / rage

Inquiry into personal facts / cadaver-like appearance / “Now be still while I do this”

Envy based on loss of narcissistic integrity / change-goals in therapy / rage / “It’s not fair: You get away with not stating goals or even wanting to change in therapy (“You get to keep your fecal mass in your ass. While, I, on the other hand, am forced to give up my fecal mass, which I experience as a narcissistic loss. I envy you.”

Identification with the aggressor / acts parental in therapy / advocates letting go of the past, getting on with life, forgiving parents

Jesus Myth

No sexual interest

Not interested in relationship with women

Was only interested in relationships with men

Moralistic (a moral narcissist) / moral cleanliness / sent to Earth to free man from sin (feces)

Performed no useful work, trained as a carpenter but didn’t practice his profession (lived on the “dole”)

Deliberately provoked the authorities

Schreber fantasy (“Fuck me, God. Fuck me!”) [Schreber was a famous paranoiac, analyzed by Freud, who fantasized about being fucked by God.]

[Notice how even in my private writings not meant for publication, the game-playing never stops, as demonstrated by the following paragraph.  According to Dr. Shengold, chronic game-playing--turning everything into a joke--can be a consequence of child abuse.]

Fictional profile of individual in group therapy. Resemblance to any person living or dead is pure coincidence. Cf. Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C. No. 96-CV-961 (September 1998) (a pattern of omissions or coincidences, in itself, does not necessarily have any probative value).

Subject is a middle-aged male in group therapy. The group therapy is expressly devoted to work on “interpersonal issues.”

Subject’s stated goal in therapy is to keep his apartment neat (or clean).

Non-disclosure. Subject does not readily disclose personal, or emotionally-charged facts about himself.

Subject is active in housing issues: specifically, an organization devoted to promoting low-cost, affordable housing for D.C. residents.

Subject states he is running low on funds

Subject relates in a parental and competitive way with the other male in group; routinely attacks and devalues the other male without provocation

Tends to act parental. This is in part defensive: namely, identification with the aggressor. The subject’s behavior is an ingratiating behavior aimed at seeking the approval of group leaders (warding off aggression from group leaders) and a way of concealing his aggressive designs on other group members.

See M. Baker, “Healing, Each in Her Own Time.” The New York Times Magazine, page 122, March 7, 2004.

The 21-year-old sitter, whom we had found through a reputable service, arrived at our house with movies for the kids. He was friendly and polite and helped the girls with their homework. He even told them to respect me because I worked hard to put him in a good school. I liked that.

Jon, the baby sitter, taught [our 9-year-old daughter] how to kiss in front of “Monday Night Football” and made her promise not to tell. I was nauseated when she explained “the MTV kissing” they dud and showed me how he sat her upon his lap. She recounted how she learned to give him hickeys. Still. I remained calm. It was only the next morning, when I saw a colleague at work and he asked how I was, that I sobbed. All I was able to say was “Someone took advantage of my daughter.”

Accuses other male [namely, me], who is on Social Security Disability of being in therapy only “to keep the checks flowing." Implies that other male is operating a scam, deceiving Social Security into believing he is disabled so that he can obtain funds by means of fraud.

Subject stated to other male [me] after first session “If you get your book published and make a lot of money, what will you do—how would you change your life?” The other male said he wouldn’t change anything. Subject interpreted other male’s comment as an indication that he is comfortable with his life as it is and has no desire to change in therapy.

Possible interpretation:

Subject is unable to conceptualize internal phenomena. He believes that external changes or external impulse gratification will permit a person to change. He fails to recognize that the other male’s problems are intra-psychically generated, and that wealth alone will not alter his psychological functioning or his social adjustment. Subject is unable to conceive that a person who looks fit and well is not necessarily mentally-well. He [i.e., I] may look fit because of his unusual level of physical discipline in working out strenuously; his ego strength permits him to function reasonably well despite a high-level of intrapsychic stress.

The other male [i.e., me] exhibits a high degree of internalization, and sees his problems as intra-psycically-generated. He feels that external impulse gratification will not result in a fundamental moderation of intrapsychic distress, which is severe in his case.

Subject posed a question to the other male [me] at session on March 2, 2004. “If somebody held a gun to your head and asked ‘What are you getting out of group therapy, what would you say?”

Possible interpretation:

Again, the subject premises his question using a fantasy of an external event. In the example, above, he employed a fantasy of external gratification, here a fantasy of external compulsion. Subject seems to assume, without evidence, that the other male has to be compelled at force to do something. (Possible projection of the idea:: “You need a laxative or enema to give up your shit. No one will voluntarily give up his shit based on a simple request.”

Subject’s fantasy also suggests a projection of his feelings about personal disclosure. For him, the idea of disclosure of a personal fact may be associated with pain or force.

When the other male asked subject about his goals in therapy, subject remained expressionless and silent. (Possibly symbolic of a tightening of the anal sphincter, or what Leonard Shengold terms “anal defensiveness.” See Shengold, L. Soul Murder at 77-78, 115, 121, 126, 131, 152-154, and 296. One of the group leaders came to the subject’s defense and depicted the other male’s behavior as an inappropriate aggressive act. Group leader may have an intuitive sense that posing a question to subject can enrage him.

Note: It is significant that one of the subject’s goals is to keep his apartment clean. One would not suspect that subject would attach so much emotion to so mundane a goal. Subject’s defensiveness and emotionality concerning this goal suggests that the goal is a screen for something highly personal and disturbing to him.

Subject became angered at the other male’s second session when the latter described his “moral narcissism.” The other male said he saw himself as a Christ-like figure who had entered the group to root out corruption.

Possible Interpretation: In subject’s predicate thinking subject might in fact identify the other male with Christ—the chaste moralist who sought out friendships with males. Subject may identify Christ with an enema, and further, identify the other male with an enema: a foreign intruder who breaches the anal “sanctum,” or anal sphincter, to root out fecal matter.

Subject states that he is running low on funds. He appears to envy the other male’s steady income, his monthly disability payments.

Note: A bank account can symbolize the anal cavity. Both anal purging and bankruptcy are referred to as “being wiped out” or “being wiped clean.”

Subject is angered by the other male’s gender issues. The other male states that he is not interested in an emotional relationship with a woman, but would like to have a close male friend. Subject erupted at the other male’s second session: “Why don’t you get real. I never heard of anything like that. You have to be interested in sex with somebody. Studies show that everybody thinks about sex at least a few times an hour. You must be thinking about sex.

[The male group member is apparently unfamiliar with the diagnostic criteria of schizoid personality disorder.  Schizoids tend to be asexual and celibate.  http://www.ptypes.com/schizoidpd2.html]

Note: The most famous historical figure who springs to mind who was not interested in sex with a woman, but sought out close male friends is Christ. Is it mere coincidence that Christ was also a moral narcissist, who according to believers, was sent to Earth to “clean the mankind of sin?”

One cannot rule out a possible folie a deux between the two males. Subject’s [symbolic] sense of himself of an enema-giver [namely, me], and subject’s fear of anal violation.

At the session on March 9, 2004, subject talked about his living in an apartment in South Philadelphia “two blocks south of . . .” He blocked out the name of the street where he lived. After a few minutes, subject recalled that he had lived on “Bainbridge Street.” Subject said that the “apartment was full of dog poop.”

Possible interpretation: Shengold interprets references by some patients to “bridges” as a symbolic reference to incest.

Valentines Day Gift. (add material)

[On Valentines day, the male gave a Valentine greeting to all the females in the group: the other group member as well as Drs. Rafanello and Kosch.  I was excluded because I was male (the only male in the group).  I wondered aloud in group whether the choice of Valentines day as a reason for a greeting was really a rationalization of the male's hostility to me: his use of a reality-appropriate way of excluding me from his gift--thereby disguising his underlying hostility to me.]

FINAL INTERPRETATION:

Subject may have been a victim of some type of violation in childhood: possibly incestual, the use of enemas, or psychological abuse. One cannot rule out the possibility of some type of hazing at school (which might have involved anal penetration).  [The male had a military background and had graduated from West Point.  I vaguely recall that his father had been a career officer in the U.S. Army.]

Subject’s anal disturbance may have implications regarding his functioning in interpersonal groups. Kernberg interprets an individual’s regression to conventionalized group norms as a regression to an anal libidinal phase.