Terminating therapy

Dear Gabriel

I am writing a thriller in which a psychologist is stalked by a former client. The client had been in therapy with her some years back and it had ended “badly”. The client accused her of manipulating him into a very bad relationship decision and stormed out of what turned out to be the last session shouting “you’ll pay for this”. Some years passed and then strange things began to happen to the psychologist. My question is this: is it likely that someone can hold a grudge for this long and what would make someone decide to take revenge in a gradual way, rather than just directly hurt or harm the psychologist?

Thank you

Kagiso

Dear Kagiso

I really like this plot idea! I think there is an ongoing fascination with psychotherapy and what really goes on there. The truth, alas, is quite banal, and most sessions are fairly tame, with conversation, some silences, occasional confusion and uncertainty, perhaps tinged with strong emotions in some cases. I’ve always been fascinated with how psychologists are portrayed in movies – they fall in love with their clients, they give outrageous advice, they appear really goofy and odd, they take sides in couple sessions, in other words everything a half decent therapist wouldn’t do (of course there are exceptions). I firmly believe that because therapists are assumed to wield enormous power, they are “brought down to size” by film directors who end up ridiculing them.

But I digress. I absolutely do think it’s possible for someone to hold a grudge for a long time – you only have to think about feuds that cross generations, passed on from parents to children (what happened in the former Yugoslavia can be partly understood, I believe, in this way). But this is a more learnt form of thought and behaviour, in a sense a form of indoctrination.

But in the case of your client, one way to understand his behaviour is to think about his presenting issue when he came to therapy in the first place. If he was devaluing his partner, acting in a controlling way, unable to express himself and be vulnerable, tending to see people in terms of black and white (good and bad) then he would be likely to act this out with his therapist too.

Of course there’s acting out and acting out. To feel anger and rage towards a therapist is one thing, to keep this rage fuelled for a long time and then want to harm the therapist is tending towards antisocial behaviour. This would be the behaviour of a psychopath, and would of course add an interesting and menacing flavour to your thriller. Because a therapist and a client have experienced a kind of intimacy, this menace could frighten the heck out of a reader, not to mention the therapist! I guess this lends new meaning to the phrase “terminating therapy”.

All the best

Gabriel

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