A conversation:
“I don’t hear the meat of this. I mean, you’re talking about someone who won’t or can’t read your manuscript, or about a publisher who is unresponsive, but I don’t hear what this book is about, even”
Pause. I’m drawing breath…with a sigh.
“Well, it’s…(another pause) a book that presents a psychoanalytic or psychodynamic perspective on the treatment of sex addiction. Firstly, it takes a look at the definitions of that term, profiling the various attempts to…organize or codify the term as a diagnostic category. Then it casts the concept as useful but also limited, or that it’s been discussed in a limited fashion by hegemonic elements in the field”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that our book critiques the trend in which sex addiction is exclusively, or near exclusively, treated as a behavioral disorder, with interventions aimed at understanding the consequences of ‘out of control or problems behaviors’ rather than an understanding of what those behaviors are about, or if one prefers, the underlying reasons why the behaviors are happening, or even what’s happening within the dissociative spells which trigger the action that is called addictive behavior. Insight as a modality is rejected by most addiction specialists, as well as, it seems, those who speak on behalf of traumatized partners. People don’t want to think so much about what happened—they want to do something, as if the understanding is a known thing, circumscribed by the labels. You hear of treatment “plans”, or “protocols of intervention” as if these represent standards of intervention, predicated upon a known assessment. We offer the view that short-term interventions lead to short-term positive outcomes, but with narrow understandings such that regression is likely, leading to repeated if episodic entries into mental health care systems. We even illustrate cases, at least two examples, in which patients fled—and I mean fled—our style of treatment because they were afraid of their own minds, didn’t want to think in the manner that our approach called for. So, our book offers an outline of how to intervene initially, as in upon crisis, but also with an in-depth focus such that progress is sustained”
“An outline of what? It’s still not clear what this treatment would entail. Also, you use words like ‘traumatized’ alot without explaining what you mean, as if the meaning were a given”
Hmm, my listener now seems impatient, maybe annoyed. I am too, or am and she’s not, maybe. I entertain a brief reverie: one day I’ll be famous for my oblique way of putting things, not put on the spot and caviled at; reverent readers will strain to understand my prose instead of me straining to make myself understood. One day. One day I will write Bob Dylanesque crypt that credulous readers will make an effort with; work hard to understand.
“Working through transference, for example. The book’s aimed at professionals so not everyone will get what that means, but practitioners should—the idea is not so esoteric. Our book reiterates something that’s been said by many others but again, not in the context of sex addiction treatment: the only real way to learn about patterns of thought, behavior, or feeling is to create the conditions such that these patterns are evoked in the treatment, with the therapist or analyst—then the deep-rooted conflicts can be addressed honestly and be dealt with. That takes time for that to happen organically, which is why in-depth therapy isn’t like a class, or a six-week rehab”
Silence, which I take to mean something like agreement. I breathe normally again, but I don’t learn whether my supposition is wrong. That’s part of the deal. The response of the reader, the listener, the other, isn’t really a known thing. Something subsides. A softening in my chest suggests a retreat, or a relenting. I’m off the spot. Thoughts relax, drift now that my polemical moment is past. Associations take over, back to an earlier theme.
“Maybe I worry about the response to our book, or the lack of it. I feel dependent on the figures that are involved currently. I don’t think there are many who would platform my views, or Joe’s. It’s funny, that’s a word I haven’t used until recently—platform, I mean. Is that a millennial term? Who knows? I don’t care for it. It seems pejorative: intended to de-legitimize dissenting speech, and to indicate by implication the privileged positions of those who hold the microphone…or control the space on the shelves.”
I’m being oblique again, but my listener doesn’t respond. Is she following me? Bored? I change subjects, sort of.
“I don’t know, maybe I’m projecting all this stuff about unimportance—making judgements about the indifference of others when this project has slipped into the background of my own life. I have other priorities also, I guess. (Pause) It reminds me of something I took care of, or tried to anyway, on the weekend. I’d gone back to that train store where I bought the locomotive model that doesn’t work—ya know, that revitalization of my old toy that I’ve been speaking of. I spoke to the guy at the shop who had worked on it and phoned me, saying its motor was dead. He asked, “Tell us what you want to do”, implying the ball was in my court to request a repair. I’ve been reluctant because this model’s been repaired once before already, and I’ve only had it for a month and a half. The first instance was my fault—I’d admitted that—because I’d connected the wires to the wrong terminals on the transformer. But I fail to see how its burnt out motor was a result of anything I did. Anyway, I sort of said that, to which the guy made no response. He’s a pretty stolid guy, like the stereotype I’d previously assigned. He’s a tinkerer, not a thinker, I think (soft laugh). There’s an air between he and I, like he thinks I’m a dilettante: someone who’s into trains for the short-term, just in time for Christmas or something. I won’t stick around, he thinks. I’m not a serious customer; not a real hobbyist. Anyway, so I asked, “ Can I get an estimate on a repair?”, thinking he might agree to meet me halfway, cover the cost of the replacement motor while I pay for the labor—something like that. He didn’t bite on that, however. He just said, “Okay, we’ll get back to you with an estimate,” in a clipped voice”. I was more or less satisfied, I suppose. Not satisfied by the outcome, which hasn’t occurred yet. Don’t know when that will happen. I just mean that I like how this is going so far…how I’m dealing with it, stretching it out because it’s worth it to do so. See, I could make a fuss and a demand, but where would that leave me, with them? Or, I could just slink away, hiding my dissatisfaction, and take my business elsewhere.”
I sensed in my listener’s silence a patient consideration: what is the relevance of this aside? I sighed amidst a lengthy pause.
“To your point, it’s not enough that I want to be read. I want shelf-life. I want to stick around because of an idea: an idea that it’s not so important what sex addiction is or even what we do about it. It’s about how we think and then talk about it.”
Graeme Daniels Psychewriter 