December 10

On following your feelings:

Herr N., the German with the so amazingly abusive father, was still not granting anyone (including himself) access to his world of emotions. His sessions were really not going anywhere. On Monday, simply following a hunch, I ran to the car during my lunch break and retrieved my oil pastels and a sketching pad. I gave them to Herr N. and asked him if he would be willing to produce some sort of a visual representation of a life without suicide ideations. To my joy my hunch had not been a dud: Mr. N. became totally excited, telling me that had apprenticed as a painter in his youth and had always enjoyed art in his spare time. In the course of his unhappy life he had forgotten all about it.

Today he presented us with 3 pictures. They were mostly happy in nature and showed a positive outlook -- two thirds life, one third death. Two-thirds of a beautiful rainbow originating in a black field. Life arising out of death. And finally Herr N. began to speak about emotions ...

Rule A) Follow your intuition.

Our translucent borderline patient, Frau. L., got  a royal yelling-at from the doctor on duty yesterday. She had a dental appointment and failed to return to the hospital after her visit to the dental clinic. Apparently she had been out gallavanting around town. Then the psychologist on duty reprimanded her this morning for the same reason. I got her at 11 a.m. She was even more translucent than usual. By order of der Chef we went over her therapy contract one more time and she started to shake. At the end of our session I followed my feelings and did something highly unusual for an Austrian (and even more unusual in a medical setting): I gave her a big hug. And all of a sudden she became a person of flesh and bones, her translucency giving way to a lively skin color. She whispered "Danke!" in my ear and ran out of the room.

Rule B) Follow your intuition.