In this blog, my goal is to convert a self-hating female group member’s enormous psychic pain into useful energy. My method may appear to be cruel and sadistic but it’s aim is not to inflict pain for the pleasure of it but to free the group member from the shackles of a destructive and massively self-destructive hatred that poisons both her body and her interpersonal relationships. Goldie is a self-hating Jewess. Born into an outwardly pious, orthodox family, Goldie’s childhood was marred by her brutal father’s drunken reign of terror. Her emotionally vacuous and child-like mother was helpless to protect her children from her alcoholic husband’s rages. At age 5, he smacked her across the face for saying;” Oh! God!” Her retort;” Fuck you!”( can you imagine the emotional atmosphere that must have existed in that home for a small child to say such a thing to her father?) was met with more physical abuse. And then she went stony silent. She told me in her individual session that even at that tender age she decided not to show any feelings as he beat her. She would never allow anyone to see her in pain, her vulnerability, for the rest of her life. What a devastating decision for a child to make. My heart broke for this poor, damaged child. But as a grown woman she was an impossible person. She won’t allow any man anywhere near her. She hated herself for feeling dependent on anyone and for showing any emotional pain or weakness and she despised what she saw as weakness in others. If she witnessed emotional displays in others in group she often said vicious, hateful things to them, wanting to kill them off for making her feel what she didn’t want to feel. During one group meeting, a gay man proudly told us that he finally came out to his family. While everyone else was happy for him, Goldie verbally attacked him and called him a pathetic faggot. She could not tolerate any one’s success but she felt so emotionally empty herself. But I had no choice but to remove her from that group; her behavior was too disruptive. Goldie could not live in peace in a family, in her real life nor in the ‘as if’ family of group therapy. For several years after that in her individual treatment, she learned that she could feel vicious and hateful without acting on it. We worked through her self- contempt before she could join another group. Though blessed with God given physical beauty, high cheek bones, bright blue eyes and flawless translucent skin, Goldie looked much older than she was. Teeth were missing, face blemished, Goldie walked hunched over with a shuffling gait and she reeked of tobacco as she passed into the group treatment room.. Goldie lacked a ‘healthy narcissism’. She didn’t care about her appearance. She appeared have been beaten up from the inside. She rarely changed her clothes, usually coming to group in what she referred to as her depression uniform– ‘sweats’. Goldie though bright, appeared to be lost and confused. Her psychiatrist told her that same across ‘as a ditz brain’. She routinely lost or misplaced things and often seemed in a drugless daze. Clearly Goldie was seriously depressed but when she initially called for a consultation, she didn’t know why she wanted group treatment, except that her psychiatrist told her that she needed it. With some reluctance, I decided to give her another chance in group. She seemed to have made some progress learning, in her individual treatment, to control her impulsive need to be cruel and had developed a nascent capacity to give and to receive emotional nurturance. But once back in group, which so much replicated the emotional constellation of a family, she could help herself and fell back into her ignorant and hateful ways. She has spewed the group with her venom by making racist generalizations about Jewish men. I understood that these racist rants to be an expression of her contempt toward authority. They were indirect attacks on me as the group leader, ‘the father’. She knows that I am Jewish too because I have cancelled group meetings to observe the holidays. When she makes cruel and ignorant generalizations about Jewish men, I ask her sarcastically:” Where did your get your degree in Sociology?” When I ask a probing question, I don’t address her directly. I don’t want to give her an opportunity to spew more venom but equally as important, I wait for her to function cooperatively (which in the group context is to say how she feels toward me and why she feels that way). This frustrates her and gives her the opportunity to tell me directly what her feelings are. Then I turn to another member and ask:” What is Goldie’s unspoken message to me?” “She hates you”: the member replies. Then I ask: “Why do you think she hates me?” The reply is:” Because she needs you”. She feels murderous rage toward men, particularly Jewish men but her hatred to Jewish men is only surpassed by her hatred toward herself. She says that life is not worth living and tells the group that she often thinks of death. When asked whether she has a plan she says: ”No, I’m too chicken to kill myself. Maybe I’ll just step in front of a truck’. The group is alarmed and tries to tries to talk her out of it. She waves them away with a flip of her hand. My approach is different. Different from the group’s and also different from the one I used with Mortimer. Unlike Mortimer who turns his rage inward, she is too ready to use it defensively. Goldie is pre-oedipal, with poor ego boundaries, rages and self-destructive and destructive patterns of interpersonal relations. My approach to her death wish is different than that with Mortimer, who is depressive and longs to feel special. I believe that her threat of suicide is a provocation, a cry for attention. Instead of attacking myself, as I did with him, I provoke her back and say:” Be sure to put me in your will. I’d like to have your car.” She glares at me and says;” No way”. Then after a moment gives me a half smiles and says:” Besides it gets lousy gas mileage’. One man tells her that she has a wall around her 10 feet thick. She thinks that he said that she has an aura around her. Despite her brittle front, there is something likeable about her. She’s like a sad sack. She naively trusts the wrong people, a soft touch with money, loaning relatives who never play her back. There is a child-like sweetness that she hides but every once in a while, it emerges with a small, wry, smile. But Goldie doesn’t discriminate, she hates everyone, most of all herself. One night Goldie announced to the group that she hated Muslims. Unbeknownst to her, Aden who she is attracted, is Muslim. He says:” I’m Muslim and I’m deeply offended by that remark”. In horror, she covers her mouth and says incredulously:” You’re Muslim?”. I was furious with her and a hair’s breadth, again, from expelling her on the spot. I stepped in hard and said:” That’s abusive. There is no place for bigotry in this group. If you have a problem with anyone here, for any reason, you take it up with me. I am responsible for the composition of the group”. I turned to Gary, and said any display of racial hatred here is a direct attack on my leadership. The group knows that the contract is to say how you feel toward someone and why you feel that way. Attacking a member’s ethnicity is a clear violation of that contract and won’t be tolerated. At another group meeting she blurts out that she hated ghetto people, the ones who live in East New York (this is a black neighborhood). I said: “That is ignorant and cruel”. I turn to a black group member and asked:” Are you offended by these remarks”. She said yes and that she felt uncomfortable in the group. I said that uncomfortable is not a feeling. Are you saying that you feel unsafe? She said yes and that she’s thinking of quitting the group. I turn to Goldie and say: “You’re ruining my practice and if you don’t stop your racist ranks, you’ve got to go —AGAIN.” Stay tuned.
