Publish and Perish, part 12: Theater of the Disturbed

[Context: read the previous part or start from the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

“Come on in!” said Morris Schwartz as he opened the interior door.

Gerald gasped audibly as he entered from the foyer. What he saw in front of him was a tiny but convincingly outfitted theater. There was a tiny stage that, at the moment, hosted several folding chairs, two of which were occupied. There was a miniature orchestra pit — perhaps enough room for three musicians if their instruments weren’t too bulky. And there were two and a half rows of seats for the audience.

As Gerald approached the stage, he could see that the folding-chair occupants had name tags that read “Hector” and “Cissy,” respectively. He squinted, then pointed at Hector, a very tan and/or non-Caucasian man who was probably in his 60s. “English Department, right?” Hector nodded. Gerald turned to Cissy, who appeared to be white and about Gerald’s age. “And … uh … Poli Sci?”

“Close,” she said pleasantly. “Economics.” She returned his trying-to-remember expression. “You are … Graham, maybe?”

“Close,” said Gerald as he finished his own name tag and slapped it onto his chest.

Morris positioned himself between the stage and the audience chairs. “Let’s begin!” he said in a clear, resonant voice that Gerald could imagine working well on Broadway. “Welcome to my clinic! As you can see, this setting is an alternative to the traditional therapist’s couch. My setup works really well for most clients, but not so well for some, so if you turn out to be in the latter camp, no worries. I would only caution you that any form of therapy — ANY form of therapy — includes some discomfort as we face difficult truths and adjust deeply rooted behaviors. So try to distinguish between discomfort that is temporary, necessary, and useful … and discomfort that, as we therapists say, just plain sucks.”

Gerald smiled. This was a rhetorical setup that he sometimes used, too. He could usually get a laugh from students by describing genetic mutations and cell-cycle irregularities in colloquial language.

“Let’s start with some basic introductions,” Morris continued. “Will each of you please remind us of your name, and also provide one lie about yourself. Try to make it a real whopper, if you can. I’ll begin. My name is Dr. Schwartz, though you may call me Morris… And I’m excited to have you all here . . . because . . . you are my first therapy clients EVER!” He ended with a melodramatic flourish that drew giggles from the others.

Hector looked around to see if he was next. “I’m Hector,” he said. “And . . . I am the most-cited Miguel de Cervantes scholar west of Spain.” He delivered the line with pitch-perfect professorial pomposity, and the others grinned.

“I’m Cissy,” Cissy jumped in. “And Cissy is actually short for my birth name . . . Sisyphus.”

Morris roared, then quickly recovered to say, “OK, great, but don’t forget to give us a lie!”

“And I’m Gerald,” offered Gerald. “I’m happily married with seven children — just like Captain Von Trapp in the Sound of Music.” He saw smiles laced with confusion from Hector and Cissy. He shrugged. “I’m in a theater, so I’m trying to be theatrical.”

Morris clapped his hands together. “Well done!” he said. “Marvelous fabrications! Why do you think we did that, by the way? Why didn’t we lead off with some TRUE facts?”

Gerald raised his hand. Morris nodded at him. “From reading your book,” Gerald said, “I’m guessing that you want us to get comfortable trying out various roles and narratives beyond our usual ones, even if they’re not literally true.”

“Wonderful answer,” said Morris. “Any other ideas?”

“I’ve read your book too,” said Hector, “and one of my take-aways was how trusting relationships are central to therapy, and perhaps even more central to your approach. So… I was thinking that this lying business might be your way of raising the issue of trust … sort of obliquely…”

“OK, OK, sure!” said Morris with enthusiasm. “Anything to add, Sisyphus?”

Cissy frowned. “I was more or less thinking what Gerald said,” she said. “But I was also thinking that therapy is maybe about peeling back some of the lies that we tell ourselves to reveal underlying meaning? And so I wondered whether we might be modeling that here, by starting with lies and then interrogating those lies to see what meaning they, um, hint at?”

“God, I just love working with teachers!” Morris exulted. “Half the time you do the homework before I even assign it!”

[Update: the story continues with part 13.]