Tales from the Couch : Writers on Therapy
There are enough crazy artists out there to support the theory that one must be at least a little bit mad to be creative. Good news for the unhinged: one needn't trade one's sanity for one's creativity. In fact, word from the 17 authors anthologized inTales from the Couchis that the therapeutic process actually enhances the creative one, often allowing the writer to produce, as Mark Doty puts it, "the work that has mattered most to me." Some of these authors, such as Pam Houston and Susan Cheever, consider themselves saved by psychotherapy. Others, like Phillip Lopate, regard therapy as "a treat I am entitled to give myself from time to time." Several see their therapeutic experiences as a kind of literary collaboration involving the telling and retelling of a story. Meg Wolitzer used therapy sessions to discuss problems in her work; Emily Fox Gordon considered the time spent with her therapist as "writing aloud"; and Rebecca Walker claims that the time spent scrutinizing herself "bore fruit: insights, yes, but also articles, essays, and book proposals."And what a collection of therapists! "Finding the right shrink/analyst," says Ntozake Shange, "is as important a decision as finding a soul mate." The wrong therapists depicted here are both horrifying and hugely entertaining. Lucy Grealy encountered a therapist with tattoos on her face who claimed to have both a husband and a wife. Emily Fox Gordon tells of a married Dr. S. who took to showing up at her door with "bottles of wine and sheepish smiles." But leave it to George Plimpton to bring his psychiatrist--who kept his own sea lions in a freshwater quarry--to parties with him. "At one of them he had too much to drink and fell asleep under the hostess's bed upstairs," Plimpton says. The hostess was awakened in the middle of the night "by the sound of deep snoring under her bed."--Jane Steinberg