Chapter 230:  A Cyber Stalker In Group Therapy

Despite my group therapy rule about confidentiality: “Members are  known to each other on a first name basis only and nothing leaves the room”—some group members don’t abide by it, some don’t abide by it gleefully. Nick was such an intrusive group member.  He enjoyed obsessively tracking the lives of other members; and he was good at it.  Somehow, he was able to use tidbits of information gleaned from what members shared and used the internet to find out personal stuff about them.  When he told Kathy, he found out where she worked, Kathy said: ”I’m furious with you.  That’s skeevy. I don’t feel safe here anymore.”  Norman said: “I feel protective of Kathy.” He turned to me and said: “Dr. Pepper— You should remove him from the group!”  I asked the group: “What’s Nick feeling when he defies my rules?”  Benjy was right on, although crudely so, when he said: ”He’s excited. Nick’s got his hand down his pants.”                                                            Clearly, Nick’s interest in the personal lives of members bordered on pathological; it was also a swipe at me. In violation of the group rules, Nick was unconsciously or maybe even consciously, attempting to take on the symbolic father figure and over-throw the government; this combined with the voyeuristic excitement of ‘peeping’ was too much for him to contain.   This is not to condone his behavior, but only to explain it.                                                                                                                                          Of course, his cyber-stalking threatened the safety and integrity of the group and on more than one occasion I had to remind him in front of the group that:“ Some people don’t understand feelings, they only understand behavior.  This is a very serious matter. Your behavior is de-stabilizing to the group. If you are unwilling or unable to control your voyeuristic impulse to go into action rather than to talk about those feelings, and you continue to violate the privacy of group members, you’ll be removed from the group, or worse.”  But my personal life was another story; as much as I didn’t like it, my life was fair game for him.                                                                                                                                        At that time in my career as a group therapist, I was quite guarded about my personal details and didn’t share much information with my groups. (Obviously things have changed quite a bit since then.)  To my chagrin, Nick thoroughly enjoyed finding out stuff about me and was quite pleased to ‘out’ me in front of the group; like the time he told the group my home address and my supposedly unlisted home phone number.                                                                                                          I was seething and imagined the voyeuristic excitement he felt, surfing the internet looking for dirt on me. I maintained my therapeutic stance and asked: “What feeling do you have telling the group this?”   Half- mocking me, he gushed: “I’m delighted”.   Sarcastically, I said: “Gleeful is more like it.” But I did get a chance to have the last laugh, albeit I was the only one who knew it.  I’ve been dying to tell this story of years!  Here’s what happened.

I make no bones that I love boats, sailboats in particular.  Around the walls of the group room, among and between other reflections of who I am, are pictures of the sea and sailboats. In fact, there is a painting of my own little sailboat, ‘The PepperPot’, as she sits on her mooring.

Nick was also a boat owner; he told us that he had a huge 35 foot cabin cruiser with two 250 horsepower outboard engines.  But he was obsessed with my interest in sailboats and guessed that I too owned a boat.  I asked him to speculate: “What kind of boat do you think I own?”   He mocked me and said: “It’s probably a leaky old tub of a sailboat”. I mocked him back and said: “Is that your best shot?” This was a macho, king of the hill competition for him and his speculations were about whose boat was bigger and faster; Needless to say, he imagined that his was the biggest.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            One night Nick came to group and announced to me: “I found out that you don’t own a sailboat!”   I said: “Oh yeah. How do you know?”   He said: “Because I looked you up in the boat owner’s registry and your name wasn’t there.”   Becky protected me and said: “Maybe his boat is registered under someone else’s name!”   He said: “Maybe so. I didn’t think of that.” But I had to laugh quietly to myself. Nick was sitting in a chair that was directly below the painting of my little sailboat. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that the picture of a little sailboat above his head– was mine.