Laurel and Hardy
He entered into the conversation saying he experienced himself as “tense and dense,” and didn’t know why. He couldn’t shake the feeling since the previous day. He felt that he couldn’t bear it any more and wanted to rid himself of it.
I said, “You have a multitude of assumptions.” I shared some speculations. “First, you assume this experience should be removed; second, that you can know why you have it; that it can be removed; that you will know how to remove it if you know why, and implicit in what you say is an assumption that precludes the possibility that something might need to be added.”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that way,” he said. “They all seem true.”
“You don’t have to abandon your assumptions, but see if you can hold them in abeyance. I happen to know you have artistic ability. Create two cartoon characters named Tense and Dense, and make up a plot that engages them.”
He smiled. “What comes to mind immediately is Laurel and Hardy. Dense is Hardy, Tense is Laurel.”
“What are they doing?”
“Dense is trying to roll around on the floor in a jolly way and Tense is holding him back.”
His face took on a serious look and became pensive. “I remember a dream I had in 1984. I remember the year because I wrote it down, and made drawings of all of my dreams that year.”
“Two beggars approach the door of the garden of the house where we lived when I was a child and where my sister was born. I realize instantly that they are malingerers–two figures from a French book of fairy-tales. One of them pretends to be blind and the other one feigns a heavy body disease. Both are now in front of the garden door. I have a beer bottle in my hand and go to meet them. I take a mouthful and act as if I’m going to spray beer on them. They do not react as if they are really blind or diseased. I repeat the maneuver. I now realize that the ‘blind’ man–from my point of view the right one–is imitating the movements of my mouth. Indeed, he is not blind. I now begin to spray the liquid, but without really hitting them. While making these efforts, my eyes meet the eyes of the ‘blind’ man. It is as if I manage to see by these efforts. I become very clear-sighted. The field around the ‘blind’ one’s eyes opens up and I see that it is the face of an eight-or-ten-year-old boy. He has a pipe in his mouth–my father smoked a pipe–and he looks around with alert grey eyes.”
Agape, he paused. “My mother recently revealed that my sister does not have the same father as I.” He continued angrily. “For all those years she led me to believe she was a saint and that my father and men were not to be trusted.”
I added, “Dense wants to roll around and Tense is restraining him. Sounds like your saintly mother had a roll in the hay.” (This expression took some explaining in translation.)
He felt a sense of relaxation and commented on his sudden change of mood. “I had another dream at that time. I am standing in the middle of a church. A mass is being celebrated. My mother calls out to me that I am the devil and ‘j’en ai marre’ (I am fed up with it). It is cold and I am freezing. I think, how could I be cold if I were really the devil? Gliding in the air, I rise in the middle of the nave. On my back there is a guardian angel–or an archangel? I feel his hand on my back. It gives me the moral support and strength to confront her declaration that I am the devil. My flesh begins to creep and I wake up.”
He shook his head. “All those years, all those years I colluded with my mother against my father. I had to speak French with her and only French. I had to speak German with him and only him. With our children my wife and I have spoken only French, thinking they would be confused if we spoke both. I did not realize I was divided between two worlds. I tried to make it so my children would not be divided like me.”
Another dream came to mind: “A young woman asks me how to bring depth to a drawing. I tell her that you have to show the foreground to get depth, and I draw a priority sign. It is the priority sign of the stream (Rhine river).
As if incredulous that it was happening to him, he said he felt complete relaxation and no longer had his tense and dense feelings.
“Show the foreground,” I said. “Show the foreground. To see what it’s like, speak to your mother in German and tell her, ‘I am no longer my mother’s son.’”
He reacted. “But I can’t speak German to my mother. Besides, that is impossible; I will always be my mother’s son”
“What’s stopping you?”
“I never spoke German to my mother.”
“Do you have a taboo? If you do what I ask, will you feel as if you are instantly wrong?”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that way. I thought only primitive people have taboos.”
“You don’t have to abandon your expectation, but are you willing to risk seeing what it is like to say, in German, to her, ‘I am no longer my mother’s son.’”
“Ich bin nicht mehr der Sohn meiner Mutter”. His voice quavered. He said it again, this time with conviction.
As our eyes met he said, “My relationship with my mother was a secret between us while we lived in a climate of secrets, and she kept her secret from me. I will no longer keep secrets.”
“I will always be my mother’s son and I am no longer my mother’s son. Both are true. I will no longer speak only French with my children.”
I was feeling affectionate and mischievous and said, “I imagine you talking to your psychoanalyst of many years ago and he asks you how you came to such an insight as ‘I am no longer my mother’s son. I will always be my mother’s son.’
“’It was simple,’ you say. ‘ Laurel and Hardy pointed the way.’”