There is anticipation, however, on the part of the waiting therapist to answer a frantic or frustrated call at the new patient’s hour when they “can’t get in” nine times out of ten because they forget to hit #. Patients are instructed on the phone and via email to press # (pound sign, hashtag) and then the four-digit code. To get into an office, you need a code at the door. This comes out in other early-treatment destructive behaviors. Does the patient have availability and flexibility or is their schedule so tight (a symptom of something) that an intake cannot even be scheduled? Does that also say something about their willingness (or ambivalence) to engage in treatment? In other words, is the therapist met with a steel door? Much like that of Will Byers, the patient’s first choice is whether to jump headfirst into the conflict of exploring their own troubles in treatment or to retreat and protect themselves. Likewise, we learn what is to come from the patient from the first contact, even before we meet in the first session. His attempt fails and he confesses to Dungeon Master Mike that “the Demogorgon got me.” Shortly thereafter in their world, the Demogorgon really does. Will’s character in the game has a choice: Is he going to use a protection spell to save himself, or cast a fireball at the threat? Will chooses the fireball even though he needs to roll a 13 or higher on a 20-sided die. Dustin comments, “We are so screwed if it’s the Demogorgon.” At first, the party is relieved it is not the Demogorgon, only to find – surprise – that it is. Mike, as the Dungeon Master, indicates something is coming. The next scene flips to Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas playing the iconic game Dungeons & Dragons. The tone has been set: Danger in this series will be extreme. He attempts to escape on the elevator but gets attacked from above. A man in a lab coat is running from something. We do not at first know if it is to keep something in or to keep something out. The opening of Stranger Things frames a steel door. Season 1, Episode 1, “The Vanishing of Will Byers” From a deep read of this, we see how psychoanalysis has something to say about Stranger Things, and how Stranger Things has something to say about psychoanalysis. The first episodes of Stranger Things in each season provide good examples in both the content and process of things therapists see in treatment progression. Things really must get “stranger” (vis-à-vis enactments, projections, and transferences – all things patients do in treatment) before we can hope to grasp what was presented at the outset. It is a situation where hindsight is 20/20. They have not yet learned the unique language of the patient’s unconscious. Clinically, the first session has been hypothesized to contain everything the therapist needs to know about the patient’s issues, but the therapist does not yet have the ability to understand. What follows is an attempt to highlight the importance of first encounters. If we lose that, the treatment falters and we stop watching. Between start and finish, curiosity helps us stay with both treatment and viewership. Sometimes a stronger understanding of this emerges only achieved in hindsight. Looking at both first episodes and first sessions at the beginning of therapy or a TV series, we see that there were many clues to the major themes that bring patients and therapists – and audiences and creative teams – together in a relationship. In television, viewer and creative team are trying to make a match. In therapy, patient and clinician are trying to see if there is a fit. This is paralleled in good fiction as well and may help us understand why some shows like Stranger Things almost instantaneously draw us into the narrative.įirst sessions and first episodes help us to decide if this is something to which we want to devote our energy and time. The data that therapists gather about clients will provide an outline of whom we are meeting in the way a police chalk outline initially sets the stage of a crime scene. Evelyn Liegner, a modern psychoanalyst in New York City, detailed many ways that our patients’ subpersonalities “show up,” so to speak, in their behaviors, chains of thought, and movements toward and away from certain feelings. Psychoanalysts gather data about patients from first contact. “Don’t judge a book only by its cover or you may miss out” may prove more effective. The fact that there is such a prohibition alerts us to the fact that this is a common deed, but it includes no reason why we should not do it. Growing up, you might have been told not to judge a book by its cover. “I am on a curiosity voyage and I need my paddles to travel.” – Dustin Henderson They seem to know intuitively how to build a relationship.” – psychoanalyst Phyllis Meadow
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