/lit/ - Literature

>Once a lady of the aristocracy came to me who was in the habit of slapping her employees—including her doctors. She suffered from a compulsion neurosis and had been under treatment in a sanatorium. Naturally, she had soon dispensed the obligatory slap to the head physician. In her eyes, after all, he was only a superior valet de chambre. She was paying the bills, wasn’t she? This doctor sent her on to another institution and there the same scene was repeated. Since the lady was not really insane, but evidently had to be handled with kid gloves, the hapless doctor sent her on to me.
>She was a very stately and imposing person, six feet tall—and there was power behind her slaps, I can tell you! She came, then, and we had a very good talk. Then came the moment when I had to say something unpleasant to her. Furious, she sprang to her feet and threatened to slap me. I, too, jumped up, and said to her, “Very well, you are the lady. You hit first—ladies first! But then I hit back!” And I meant it. She fell back into her chair and deflated before my eyes. “No one has ever said that to me before!” she protested. From that moment on, the therapy began to succeed.
What this patient needed was a masculine reaction. In this case it would have been entirely wrong to “go along.” That would have been worse than useless. She had a compulsion neurosis because she could not impose moral restraint upon herself. Such people must then have some other form of restraint—and along come the compulsive symptoms to serve the purpose.

Did you tame an amazon today?

>>21846239
All life is sacred.