But not all cases are like Kathy’s by any means. There are many other patterns, some also quite common. Marcia was one of the very first of my long-term-therapy cases. She was a quite wealthy young woman in her mid-twenties who sought my attention because of generalized anhedonia(快感缺乏). While she could not put her finger on anything wrong with her existence, she found it inexplicably(说不清的) joyless. Certainly she looked like an impoverished(赤贫的), bedraggled(全身泥污的) and aged immigrant woman. Throughout the first year of therapy she invariably dressed in badly fitting clothes of blue, gray, black or brown, and carried with her an enormous, filthy(污秽的) and ragged(破旧的) carpetbag of similar hue(色调). She was the only child of intellectual parents, both highly successful university professors, both socialists of a sort who believed that religion was “pie in the sky by and by.” They had made fun of her when, as a young adolescent, she had attended church with a girl friend. By the time she entered therapy, Marcia agreed with her parents wholeheartedly. At the very beginning she announced, somewhat proudly and stridently(刺耳地), that she was an atheist(无神论者)-not a namby-palmy(感伤的) atheist but a real one. who believed that the human race would be much better off if it could escape from the delusion that God existed or even might exist. Interestingly, Marcia’s dreams were chock-full of religious symbols, such as birds flying into rooms, their beaks holding scrolls upon which obscure(难以说清楚的) messages were written in an ancient language. But I did not confront Marcia with this aspect of her unconscious. Indeed, we did not deal at all with issues of religion at any time throughout the two-year course of her therapy. What we primarily focused on at great length was her relationship with her parents, two most intelligent and rational individuals who had provided well for her economically but were extraordinarily distant from her emotionally in their intellectually austere(严肃的) way. In addition to their emotional distance, both of them were also so highly invested in their own careers that they had little time or energy for her. The result was that while she had comfortable and intact(完好无损的) home, Marcia was the proverbial(谚语的) “poor little rich girl,” a psychological orphan. But she was reluctant to look at this. She resented it when I suggested that her parents had significantly deprived her and she resented it when I pointed out that she dressed like an orphan. It was just the new style, she said, and I had no right to criticize it.
Progress with Marcia in therapy was painfully gradual, but dramatic. The key element was the warmth and closeness of the relationship that we were slowly able to construct with each other which contrasted with the relationship she had had with her parents. One morning at the beginning of the second year of therapy Marcia came into her session carrying a new bag. It was but a third the size of her old carpetbag and was a riot(丰富多彩) of bright colors. Thereafter about once each month she would add a new piece of color-bright oranges, yellows, light blues and greens-to her wardrobe(衣柜), almost like a flower slowly unfolding its petals. In her next-to-last session with me she was musing about how well she felt and said, “You know, it’s strange, but not only has the inside of me changed; everything outside of me seems to have changed too. Even though I’m still here, living in the same old house and doing some of the same old things, the whole world looks very different, feels very different. It feels warm and safe and loving and exciting and good. I remember telling you I was an atheist. I’m not sure I am any more. In fact, I don’t think I am. Sometimes now when the world feels right, I say to myself, ‘You know, I bet there really is a God. I don’t think the world could be so right without a God.’ It’s funny. I don’t know how to talk about this sort of thing. I just feel connected, real, like I’m a real part of a very big picture, and even though I can’t see much of the picture, I know it’s there and I know it’s good and I know I’m a part of it.”
Through therapy Kathy moved from a place where the notion of God was all-important to a place where it was of no importance. Marcia, on the other hand, moved from a position where she rejected the notion of God to one where it was becoming quite meaningful for her. The same process, the same therapist, yet with seemingly opposite results, both successful. How are we to explain this? Before we attempt to do so, let us consider yet another type of case. In Kathy’s case it was necessary for the therapist to actively challenge her religious ideas in order to bring about change in the direction of a dramatically(明显地) diminished influence of the God-concept in her life. In the case of Marcia the concept of God began to assume an increased influence, but without the therapist ever challenging her religious concepts in any way. Is it ever necessary, we may ask, for a therapist to actively challenge a patient’s atheism or agnosticism(不可知论) and deliberately(故意地) lead the patient in the direction of religiosity(虔诚)?