(Disclaimer: Names and details have been modified for confidentiality.)
Nina came rushing into my psychology office and barely seated, exclaimed: “I’ve never seen a psychologist before. How do you work? Can you help me figure this out?”
Most evenings and weekends her French husband was in front of the TV with a beer in his hand. It went without saying that Nina had to handle all household tasks, take care of her 8-year-old son, do her housekeeping job for another family and be a tender loving wife at night. She had long been able to meet her husband’s expectations but recently her mood had been slipping. Her employer was alarmed and recommended she see a therapist. Nina’s husband’s drinking had worsened and he’d tried to hit her and insulted her regularly with little cause. She was getting depressed from the relentless tasks with no relief in sight, the lack of dialogue, the fear her husband would strike her. As the violence increased, she was shrinking.
In therapy she expressed the many facets of her unsatisfactory marital life. Despite her fears about how she would support herself and raise her son, she decided she would leave her husband who was unreceptive to getting counseling for his alcohol problem. The simple acts of talking things through and being heard at her weekly therapy appointment was improving her morale and so she nicknamed me “her bottle of anti-depressants.”
Having learned assertiveness, she arrived each week in my office standing taller and more alive. Less focused on how to please or dodge her husband, she had some energy to spare. She was smiling again. In her native country she had gotten an education. A job lead brought an interview abroad. They flew her over for the interview. We role-played it; she got the position and less than 10 sessions after the beginning of psychotherapy left Paris to begin her new life.
Are you thinking about making radical changes in your own life?
Debra BERG, The Bilingual Psychologist in Paris