A therapist's dream about her patient; Continuing Case continues

A therapist has a dream about her patient:

I was waiting for her to come to the session but the therapy room was in my home. Before she came I was trying to make my bed because my stuff was all around and I can see it is my childhood bedroom, the one I used to share with my brother. There are two beds and I am trying to make my own. I have a conversation with my mother, telling her not to interrupt us. My mother says she is not sure whether she will or not. I am setting boundaries with my mother, saying, “No, you won’t!” My patient is coming with her mother and her grandmother. There is a table between us, my patient sitting next to me; on the other side of the table is her mother and grandmother. All the time I am thinking there is no father [here], only the mother and the grandmother. It is as if I am counseling parents, as if my patient is not an adult and I am talking to two parents about a child. At the end of the session the patient asks me for a prescription to protect her from having to do [house]work [for her mother]. I say, “Okay, [names patient], I could write this for you but then it would mean you have depression or withdrawal [can’t handle work because you are withdrawn]. You can’t handle the job, otherwise I can’t prescribe what you are asking at this point.” The patient’s mother says, “She would not have to ask for this prescription if she would have sexual relations with a man.” We [patient and therapist] looked at each other and laughed.

The Continuing Case class noted that the burden of the load of [house]work in the treatment had been mostly on the therapist’s shoulders, where there had been a noticeable asymmetry. The therapist reminds the class how in a recent, previous session the patient had mentioned she now felt more “equality” between herself and the therapist [see post on 11-8-18]. The patient had been able to say ‘no’ to her mother but was, as yet, unable to tell her parents that she is a lesbian. In fact, the patient’s last goal in therapy is to come out to her parents, after which she can terminate the treatment. In the dream, it is the therapist who stands up to her own mother. In the dream, the patient is requesting the therapist’s “prescription” perhaps like an alibi or excuse to not have to do -- in the parents’ eyes --  the work of a woman, that is, not have to marry a man. Perhaps the therapist in the dream is saying that, should the patient succeed at circumventing the parental demands for heterosexuality by coming out to them, then, were the patient to be also depressed and withdrawn, the therapist would have an excuse to keep the patient in treatment.

It seems that the therapist’s dream about her patient condenses the patient’s difficulties while also resonating with the therapist-as-daughter issues. The patient’s mother, upon falling in love with the father, had had to leave her own mother and move far away. In parallel, the patient expects to be abandoned by her own parents should she choose to openly love [a woman]. To be forced to love a man in order to maintain ties with her parents would cause depression and withdrawal in the patient. The therapist dreams a way for the patient to stay in relationship with the therapist and the treatment, though not a perfect solution. These themes, fresh in the therapist’s mind, may now be revisited and reconfigured together in future sessions.