eye contact with her boss in meetings or when she met her in the hallway during the workday.
I not only empathized with Sasha’s plight in a general way, but I secretly considered my work with her to be a kind of penance for terrorizing my baby sister Juliet with many of the very same techniques Sasha’s own older sisters had used on her. These included telling her direly in a hushed voice, as if it were a terrible family secret, that she was retarded or adopted, or both; reading her diary and correcting her spelling and grammar and writing comments in the margins; enchanting all her friends at her slumber parties and stealing them away from her; and putting manufactured notes into her textbooks, ostensibly from whatever boy she currently had a crush on, telling her she smelled of BO. Even my parents’ general outlines, domineering father and repressed mother, had been similar to Sasha’s. Needless to say, Juliet lived in London now and was distant and wary at our rare family gatherings. I wasn’t proud of my earlier incarnation as her tormentor. Nor was I proud of the fact that to this day, my sister Jane and I shrieked with horrified, guilty laughter when we remembered what we’d done to her. Such was, of course, the Darwinian way of sibling birth order. As the responsible firstborn, I was glad to have the chance to help a client who was grappling with such a strikingly similar family history.
“He doesn’t seem to take me that seriously,” Sasha was saying about her new boyfriend, whose name was Kent. “He’s like, ‘You can sleep in tomorrow, but I have to get up and work.’ Like my work doesn’t matter or something. You know? Like I’m lazy.”
“What tone of voice does he use when he’s saying this?”
“He’s laughing, but I can tell he’s pretending he’s just joking as a cover for telling me I’m not serious or ambitious enough.”
“Have you asked him what he means by making this joke?”
“Yeah, and he acted like I was overreacting and being hypersensitive, you know? Which just compounded it, right? I mean, it was like, Wait, you’re making fun of me; that’s bad enough, but then you make fun of me for noticing and being bothered by it? How can I win here? That’s just not fair!” Sasha was near tears.
“Do you sleep later than Kent as a rule?”
“Well, yes, but I stay up later, working! I like to work at night. He has this whole thing about getting up early, like it’s somehow morally better to get work done in the morning than at night.”
“Are you feeling defensive with me right now?” I asked her.
She looked surprised, started to answer, then thought for an instant and said, “Well, yes, a little.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Are you asking if I sleep later than he does as a general rule because you think I really am lazy, and you’re judging me, just like he is?”
“Good for you for asking me that,” I said. This was something we were working on: Whenever I said something that made her feel judged, she had agreed that she would ask me directly what I meant and check my answer, which she felt could be trusted to reflect reality, against her own perceptions. “I promise I wasn’t judging you. As a matter of fact, I don’t think you’re lazy at all, I think you’re extremely hardworking and ambitious, impressively so.”
“Oh, thank you!” she said. “That is so nice to hear!”
It was always amazingly easy to reassure Sasha, who soaked up any word of approval or respect. I found it quite touching, really. Was Juliet at this moment in a British shrink’s office, almost weeping with gratitude to be told that she didn’t really smell of BO?
“I’m still curious to get to the root of what he means by teasing you for sleeping later than he does,” I said. “I wonder whether he’s feeling competitive with you in some way.”
“You think?” she said, as if I had suggested she might have been nominated for a Nobel. Her whole body seemed to
I not only empathized with Sasha’s plight in a general way, but I secretly considered my work with her to be a kind of penance for terrorizing my baby sister Juliet with many of the very same techniques Sasha’s own older sisters had used on her. These included telling her direly in a hushed voice, as if it were a terrible family secret, that she was retarded or adopted, or both; reading her diary and correcting her spelling and grammar and writing comments in the margins; enchanting all her friends at her slumber parties and stealing them away from her; and putting manufactured notes into her textbooks, ostensibly from whatever boy she currently had a crush on, telling her she smelled of BO. Even my parents’ general outlines, domineering father and repressed mother, had been similar to Sasha’s. Needless to say, Juliet lived in London now and was distant and wary at our rare family gatherings. I wasn’t proud of my earlier incarnation as her tormentor. Nor was I proud of the fact that to this day, my sister Jane and I shrieked with horrified, guilty laughter when we remembered what we’d done to her. Such was, of course, the Darwinian way of sibling birth order. As the responsible firstborn, I was glad to have the chance to help a client who was grappling with such a strikingly similar family history.
“He doesn’t seem to take me that seriously,” Sasha was saying about her new boyfriend, whose name was Kent. “He’s like, ‘You can sleep in tomorrow, but I have to get up and work.’ Like my work doesn’t matter or something. You know? Like I’m lazy.”
“What tone of voice does he use when he’s saying this?”
“He’s laughing, but I can tell he’s pretending he’s just joking as a cover for telling me I’m not serious or ambitious enough.”
“Have you asked him what he means by making this joke?”
“Yeah, and he acted like I was overreacting and being hypersensitive, you know? Which just compounded it, right? I mean, it was like, Wait, you’re making fun of me; that’s bad enough, but then you make fun of me for noticing and being bothered by it? How can I win here? That’s just not fair!” Sasha was near tears.
“Do you sleep later than Kent as a rule?”
“Well, yes, but I stay up later, working! I like to work at night. He has this whole thing about getting up early, like it’s somehow morally better to get work done in the morning than at night.”
“Are you feeling defensive with me right now?” I asked her.
She looked surprised, started to answer, then thought for an instant and said, “Well, yes, a little.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Are you asking if I sleep later than he does as a general rule because you think I really am lazy, and you’re judging me, just like he is?”
“Good for you for asking me that,” I said. This was something we were working on: Whenever I said something that made her feel judged, she had agreed that she would ask me directly what I meant and check my answer, which she felt could be trusted to reflect reality, against her own perceptions. “I promise I wasn’t judging you. As a matter of fact, I don’t think you’re lazy at all, I think you’re extremely hardworking and ambitious, impressively so.”
“Oh, thank you!” she said. “That is so nice to hear!”
It was always amazingly easy to reassure Sasha, who soaked up any word of approval or respect. I found it quite touching, really. Was Juliet at this moment in a British shrink’s office, almost weeping with gratitude to be told that she didn’t really smell of BO?
“I’m still curious to get to the root of what he means by teasing you for sleeping later than he does,” I said. “I wonder whether he’s feeling competitive with you in some way.”
“You think?” she said, as if I had suggested she might have been nominated for a Nobel. Her whole body seemed to
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