WEBVTT - #28 Dr. Muller 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:05.840 Hello. 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.400 How come your French is so much better than mine? 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:10.120 I think everybody's friends? 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:11.680 Why is that? 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.200 Because we listen? We don't listen? 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.960 I mean I was in French immersion with all you guys. 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.120 What you're either daydreams or you're talking. 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:22.160 Do you know what it sounds like? You're on all 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.439 those French immersion teachers sides that I had throughout the years, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.440 That's what they used to say, lune, which means your 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:37.440 head in the class the avoir. 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.159 Jackie, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna you know, you know, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:42.479 I'm getting close to the hangoup eh. 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:43.919 You could feel like coming. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:47.520 When you start getting on my nerves right about now, 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:48.720 right right now. 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:03.360 From Gimlet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:20.759 today's episode Doctor Mueller. Growing up, a single question dominated 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.839 my thoughts. What was the use? What was the use 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.160 of getting out of bed, of combing your hair, of 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:32.840 breathing all that breathing? What was the use of anything 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.800 when all of life inevitably came grinding to an end. 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.280 By seventeen, I was waking up in the middle of 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.880 the night, seized by the meaninglessness of it all. By 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.920 eighteen I started to lose my hair. At nineteen I 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.160 dropped out of college, and at twenty I knew I 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:55.200 had to do something, so I began seeing a therapist. Initially, 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.120 the idea felt romantic, like something out of JD. Salinger 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.760 or Hitchcock. At our first appointment, I might have even 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:07.240 worn a blazer. My new therapist extended a hand and 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.560 introduced herself as doctor Mueller, and for the next six years, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.200 that was the only name by which she was known 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.960 to me. Doctor Mueller never referred to me by my 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.640 first name either. Instead, she called me mister Goldstein, which, 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:27.400 because she spoke with a heavy German accent, she pronounced Goldstein. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.240 The first and only time I tried correcting her, she 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:42.400 simply said, it is Goldstein. Doctor Mueller was raal Thinn. 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.440 Appeared to be in her late sixties and wore her 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.959 hair in a grayish bowl cut. She favored turtlenecks and 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.440 macrom vests and sat behind an imposing desk, empty except 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.440 for a telephone and a neat stack of small note papers. 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.760 At the end of our first appointment, she asked me 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.560 to write up a one page family history. Instead, I 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.920 took a deep dive into my childhood. I wanted her 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.440 to have all the source material she'd need to get 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.360 to the bottom of my morbid disposition, and so the 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.519 following week I proudly presented her with a book length memoir. 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:23.040 Doctor Mueller skimmed through it and then silently stuck my 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.840 tone in a drawer and never brought it back up. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:31.040 So several sessions later, I did, I am not very 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.400 interested in the past, she said, I'm more interested in 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.760 the present. What are you going to do now? 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:39.760 She asked? 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.480 What I was going to do now? I hoped was 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:48.320 talk about my past, but doctor Mueller could care less. 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.800 A therapist uninterested in the past ran contrary to everything 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.640 I thought I knew about therapy. It was like a 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.400 carpenter who refused to work with wood. More than that, 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.280 it was like a carpenter who hated wood, and if 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.840 you brought them wood, they'd throw it in a concrete 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.480 drawer and never mention it again. Wasn't excavating the past 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.240 pretty much a therapist's whole job. Where else does one 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:18.520 find answers? Doctor Mueller's unwillingness to even acknowledge my past 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.679 was confounding, but so were a lot of things about 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.960 her Sometimes she'd inexplicably show up wearing a neck brace. 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.479 Other times she'd spend frantic minutes buffing out an invisible 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.200 scuff mark from a waiting room chair. Then there were 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.400 the long anecdotes about car trouble, a trip. She was planning, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.240 stories that went nowhere and were illustrative of nothing I 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:47.400 could fathom, And all the while, whole precious expensive minutes 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.719 elapsed in which I could neither whine nor complain my 0:04:50.839 --> 0:05:03.800 way to mental health. It felt positively wasteful. Doctor Muller's 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.440 office was in a large old echoe building downtown. Our 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.080 appointments happened around dusk, and in my memory it's always 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.599 the dusk of winter, cold and wet Montreal winter. From 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.559 behind her desk, lit by a desk lamp, she spoke 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.880 of giving birth to one's authentic self, a self that 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.080 wasn't all tangled up and regrets about the past or 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:30.479 consumed by anxiety over the future, AKA a self that 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:36.280 didn't sound very Jonathan Goldsteiny. In every session, doctor Muller 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.160 repeated the same refrain, you must give birth to yourself. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.520 What could she possibly mean? I asked my girlfriend at 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.640 the time, Barbara was working on her bachelor's in psychology, 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.040 and in my darker moments, I felt certain her relationship 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.960 with me was a part of her field work. It 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.440 might be a gestalt thing, she said, uncertainly, but I 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.400 don't know that gestalt therapy is even a thing anymore. 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.440 Week after week, doctor Muller and I sat in a 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.920 dark room as I tried in vain to birth myself. 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.520 On a bad day, she would reprimand me for not 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.480 doing as she instructed. On a good day, she would 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.279 say that I was very very close. My authentic self 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:26.240 was crowning. Was this just her line, I wondered, something 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:31.560 doctor Mueller told all her patients. I grew increasingly frustrated. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.039 I was still lost, still waking up at noon, still 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.599 spending my days watching video rentals and smoking cigarettes in 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.239 my parents' basement, Still showing up for appointments with doctor 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:54.279 Muller for conversations that felt as pointless as life itself. Finally, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.760 after being told for the umpteenth time that the miracle 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.039 of birth was nigh, I grew at It's hard to 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.560 hear this year after year, I said. I told her 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.239 that we must be doing something wrong. It is not working, 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:14.560 she said, because of you. She spoke the words quietly 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.960 but firmly. I was taken aback. It had to be 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.480 something more than just me, if only slightly, maybe a 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.960 tiny bit, because of her. I mean, she was sitting 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.800 in the room as much as I was, Even in 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.559 my insecure state. Her conclusion felt off, and I said, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:39.320 so it is because of you, she repeated. Was a 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.920 therapist even allowed to say that? How could she refuse 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.800 to share in this failure? I think maybe this should 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.320 be our last session, I said. Ending things was something 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.200 I'd been thinking of doing for a while. But you 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.120 have yet to find a philosophy, she said, words to 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:00.680 live by that will ease self birth. Not everyone needs 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:05.320 a philosophy. I responded, that is true, she said, but 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:10.400 you do. At the end of the hour, doctor Mueller 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.120 rose from behind her desk and opened the door for me. 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:18.480 She smiled warmly, sincerely, no edge at all. The blame 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.840 she'd cast, in combination with the simplicity of her goodbye, 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.840 was chilling. She shook my hand, ending one of the 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.600 most intense personal relationships I'd had up until that point 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:33.520 in my life, And then just like that, I was 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.240 back in that echoee hallway. Wondering what the hell had 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.240 just happened. It's a question I still don't have an 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:46.280 answer for. When you're young, because the world is small 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.560 and new, so many experiences confuse you. But as you 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.880 grow older, the odd things fall into place and you 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.120 look back with something approaching clarity. But after thirty years, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.440 my experience with doctor Mueller somehow feels more mysterious, more 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.760 difficult to parse than it did when I was twenty. 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.920 You go to therapy to form a more coherent narrative 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.760 out of your life, Yet paradoxically, the chapter of my 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.000 life with doctor Muller remains one that I've never really 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.400 been able to make sense of, and so I still 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.280 find myself asking who was this person? And was she 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:28.520 a bad therapist or was I a bad patient? Although 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.720 doctor Muller died in two thousand and three, I recently 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.800 realized there might still be a way to find out. 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.520 In recent months, I find myself moving away from traditional 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:51.360 psychotherapy and towards a more improvisational mental health regimen. That is, 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.600 I stay up late while drinking beer and watching old movies. 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.960 It's while watching at close range a Shan Penn Christopher 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.559 Walkin film from the nineteen eighties that I realized I'd 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.520 already seen it in a college class, and with this recollection, 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.640 I remember the professor who taught the class, and the 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.880 one time i'd seen him outside of his classroom. It 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.280 was in doctor Muller's waiting room. I'd seen him exiting 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.680 her office, or at least I think I had. The 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.679 moment was long ago and so fleeting, But if true, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.400 this memory had the power to tear open a potential wormhole, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.600 connecting me to my past as a kid in therapy. 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.760 For the first time, I had no perspective on doctor Mueller. 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.400 But here was a full fledged adult patient of hers, 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.520 a professor, no less, who'd have the experience and insight 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.720 to cast the decisive vote in the was it me 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:55.120 or was it Muller referendum? Was she just weirdly hung 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.920 up on this notion of self birth? Or was I 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.559 just too young to get it? With the movie paused 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.360 in the background, I paced the floor of my living room. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.400 A plan begins to take shape. All I have to 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.360 do is break all the rules of therapy, of polite 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.680 society and track down a now elderly professor who taught 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.480 at a school I dropped out of to inquire if 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.720 it had been him i'd seen exiting my therapist's office 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.200 thirty years ago. Yes, I agreed, nodding my head to 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.640 no one in particular, three beers into a six pack 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.680 of Tall Boys at two in the morning. This was 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.400 an excellent idea, find the man who can supply context. 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:49.400 What was wrong with a little context? The only problem was, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.800 after thinking as hard as I could, I could not 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.959 remember the professor's name. How long has it been. It's 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.120 been a while, oh man, Yeah, it has been a while. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.320 A visit to the school's website tells me nothing about 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.600 my old professor, but I do discover that the present 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.240 chair of his department is an old college friend. Dana 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.120 and I haven't spoken in close to twenty years. How 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:14.800 are things with you? 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:16.360 They're good. They're good. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:17.080 Yeah, things are? 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:17.560 You know what? 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:18.160 He? 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.160 Dana tells me how much he enjoys teaching English, and 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.720 I tell her that i'd recently been guiltily reading Madame Bovary, 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.480 a book on the required reading list back when we 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.840 were in school that I never actually read, and I 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.080 must have started it because I found some of my 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.400 marginalia that makes me like hate myself when I was 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.320 at a I underline this whole paragraph, and in the 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.920 margin I wrote espanolism. 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:47.520 Question mark, and what could that even have possibly meant? 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.880 Eventually I explained the reason for my call, how I'm 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.760 in search of a professor from her department, whose name 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.440 I could not remember, but who may or may not 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.280 have had a ringside seat to the development of my 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.480 young psyche. I proceed to describe the professor the best 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:09.000 I can. The guy had kind of like black, curlyish hair, 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:15.520 maybe kind of balding. His first name might have been Rob, 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.360 could have been Bob. I offer Dana all the detail 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.040 I can. He seemed to enjoy chewing gum once during 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.520 the warmer weather. He might have taught while wearing a 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:27.400 panama hat. 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.400 None of that is ringing a bell with me. 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:37.000 After a while, I just give up. Well, thank you. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.000 It was nice. It was nice talking to you, no problem. 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:41.160 It was nice talking to you too. 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.120 It's as we're about. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.480 To get off the phone, one more small, unhelpful detail 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.920 pops into my head and immediately out of my mouth. 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:51.440 It's a surprise. 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.480 You know, he had a mustache at some point. 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:58.920 Is it possible his name was Maury. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.120 Maury, that is the guy. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.080 Oh, well, there you go. 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.560 After the break, Professor Moury. 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.120 Hello, Jonathan, Hey, Maury, I got through. 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.320 Yeah hear me. Okay, yeah, I can hear you. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:25.680 Where where I am. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.480 Where Moury is is Jamaica, sitting with his neighbors in 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:35.200 the communal yard. And after all these years he's still professorial. 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.520 You know Bob's song and no Woman, no crime. You 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.920 know Georgie lit a firelight in a tenement yard in 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.800 French time. You can't really understand what that is, gonna 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.960 that you've actually been in one of them. 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.200 Mary spends half the year in Jamaica, and as soon 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.640 as he got my message asking if we could speak, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.560 he phoned right back. Every so often he's interrupted by 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.400 the neighbor's daughter elect and her toddler's sister TESSI. 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.800 Alexi, your phone, n take her into the yark. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.600 Please, no, no, no, Maury. A Jew has been working 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.600 on a documentary with Bob Marley's granddaughter a Rosta about 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:19.160 the relationship between Jews and Rostas and their cultural overlaps. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:20.440 Like what overlaps? 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.760 You know, the groups that are quite orthodox, they don't 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.200 eat pork, while I. 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.960 Do find the subject of Mary's documentary semi interesting. The 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.600 questions I'm asking are not in service to that semi interest, 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.640 but rather to staving off the moment I have to 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.080 announce the invasive nature of my phone call. 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.680 Dreadlocks are from the same Biblical injunction that leads to 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:43.360 a Pacific Jews wearing beers. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.200 The whole point of therapy is to have a sacred 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.800 space separated from the rest of the world, free from 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.400 the judgment of others. And here I was phoning up 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.440 a stranger to ask, mind if I poke around in 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.240 your sacred space a bit any hot takes on the therapist? 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.600 Did she un crazy you? Or are you like still not? 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.880 Maury would have every right to bang down the phone 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:14.160 on my face, and so I keep deferring. Is the Rastafarian? 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:15.960 Is it connected to the Lost Tribes? 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.640 Uh? There could be like, it's not really. 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.080 We go back and forth for almost half an hour, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.000 all the while Maury never asks why I'm phoning Testy 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:38.480 come on to say hello, Hello, Jonathan, Hi, Tessy. Having 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.520 exhausted every possible way to put off asking my question, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.040 every digression, every subject change, every attempt to keep Maury's 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.480 two year old neighbor on the phone. I'm left with 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.880 no recourse but to finally get to the point of 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.640 my weird, out of nowhere social call. So I just 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:59.360 dive in anyway, so so so, yeah, should I'll tell 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:06.360 you why I'm phone so I I have a pretty 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:11.560 strange question and and I'm I'm just gonna say that 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:16.080 right out the gate. Basically, the reason I'm calling you 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.960 is because there was a moment where our lives crossed 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.919 and just totally in a very coincidental way, and I 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:30.560 was reminded of it. Yeah, just as I'm finally getting 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.760 to it. 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:38.120 Tessie, she grabbed a tiny little plastic wrap bit of weeds, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.360 was running out with it. I didn't know what she would. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:42.560 Do with it. 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:44.880 You know, She's not gonna smoke it. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.240 She'd have to unwrap the plastic and build a split, 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.320 which I can't do. I have a lot of problems 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:52.960 doing it. 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:59.320 Yeah. Once the cheech and chong gask shenanigans are behind us, 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.760 I resu merely mouthing my way through a procession of preambles. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.800 You know, don't I don't want to make you uncomfortable 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:08.679 or anything. I want you to be you know, comfortable 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.480 answering this, and if you don't want to, totally fine. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:16.520 I used to see this therapist and I have this memory, 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.320 and it might be I might be misremembering, even is 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.440 of being in the waiting room and seeing you leave 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:35.479 her office, doctor Mueller. Maury is so unfazed by my question, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.080 I'm inclined to wonder whether he's boguarded Little Tessie's joint. 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.240 Without any ado, he just jumps right in, telling me 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.320 he began seeing doctor Muller during a creative block and 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.680 continued to see her for four years. 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.720 I found her very interesting, and I also found her 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.800 very rude in some way. I don't I don't remember 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:56.879 exactly what age she was, but she was kind of 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.479 on the older side for deex diving. And then there 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:01.760 was a thing of at the horses, which I can't remember. 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.320 Maury and I swap old memories. It's validating doctor Muller 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:06.919 was odd. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.280 Why does anybody wear two pired glosses unless they're an 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:14.560 alien with six eyes? Is she just off a USO? 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:16.560 You know something? I got that feeling that she was 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:17.359 some sort of alien. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.000 Murray remembers how angry she get if he was even 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.680 a few minutes late, how harsh she could be in her. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.080 Method and the method. To me, the method always seemed 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.880 like a bit you know, it's not interesting to talk 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.240 about killing what happened to you when you're six years old? 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.399 You know, It's like, what are you going to do now? 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:34.560 What is your next step? 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:35.000 Yeah? 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.320 Yeah, And even she wasn't even really that interested in feelings. 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.639 It was really more of a that's the term that 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.320 she constantly use. What is your concept? What is your 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.080 concept of how you are going to deal with this? 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.240 You have to formulate a concept you haven't yet formula. 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.840 I think she thought that I wasn't formulating enough concepts. 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.639 I tell Maury about the note that doctor Mueller and 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.280 I had parted on how she'd been crossed because of 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.480 my failure to birth myself. When I ask of self 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.760 birth was something they'd also talked about, he says no. 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.040 But I had the same feeling with her. This isn't, 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.920 you know, quite working the way it should. And eventually 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:17.920 she just said, I don't think you need me anymore. 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:19.440 She didn't say, you. 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:23.919 Know, uh, this is useless either. We're not getting anywhere. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.320 She actually said, I think we've gone to where we 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.320 want to get and maybe she was right. I don't know. 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.160 You know, well, that sounds kind of like a nice 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:38.480 way to end therapy as far as those things go. Yeah, 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.800 sure he wasn't handed a certificate with the word cured 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.119 stamped on it. But getting to where you want to 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.240 go is a more dignified end to therapy than I managed. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.360 Maybe it wasn't with honors, but at least Morey had 0:20:50.400 --> 0:21:00.040 graduated rather than dropped out. Just as one of the 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.960 strangest telephone calls of my life comes to an end, 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.359 Maury casually mentions that he just so happens to be 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.119 in touch with another of doctor Muller's former patients, and 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.680 one who, unlike the both of us, wasn't confused by 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.360 doctor Mueller at all. Mary encourages me to give him 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:17.680 a call. 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.119 I've seen a couple of therapists over the years, Yeah, 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.720 and she wasn't my favorite. 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.120 After a breakup left him devastated, Michael went to doctor 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:30.040 Muller for help. 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:34.760 She wasn't crazy about listening so much. I mean, in fact, 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.640 she did a lot of the talking, and it got 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:44.320 into a kind of who's talking now competition. She sort 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:49.480 of reprimanded me huh, which I thought was kind of strange. 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:53.440 Michael's memory spark one of my own. One day, during 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.240 a fit of coughing, I asked doctor Muller for water. 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:58.680 There was a sink in the corner of her room, 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.000 but no cop I needed a glass of water, and she. 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.040 She told you to go to the sink and use 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.360 your hands right, cupped your hands. 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:07.359 Yeah, how do you know? 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.120 Because she told me to do the same thing. 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.600 Hunching over the sink and cupping my hands together to 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:17.800 catch the flow of water from doctor Muller's spout. I 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.840 felt like someone from the Bible, like a bear. Until 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.720 now I'd been alone with my b steal memories no more. 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.240 But when I bring up the business of giving birth 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:33.320 to myself, as in how nutty was all that, I'm 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:34.919 surprised by his response. 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:37.800 I can't remember ever saying anything like that to me. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.639 Hey you hi, Jonathan, Hey Judith, it's Judy. 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:50.160 Actually, oh Judy, Okay, Judy, I'm sorry. Michael has put 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.000 me in touch with yet another patient of doctor Muller's, 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.000 the person who recommended he see her in the first place. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.840 Because unlike Michael, Morey and me, which, by the way, 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.520 sounds like a Jewish folk trio. Judy loved doctor Mueller 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.680 so much so that she always refers to her as 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:11.960 the fantastic Doctor Mueller. Judy's a painter who began seeing 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:14.760 doctor Mueller in the mid seventies because Judy's lack of 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:18.320 confidence in her own work was threatening to derail her career. 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.359 Hear me, yes, I could hear you, Nor how's that? 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:24.520 Is that better? Is that better? 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:25.080 Jonathan? 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:26.880 I think it is. I think it's a little better. 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:30.800 I think so. Judy says, doctor Muller's approach went beyond talk, 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:33.679 beyond even the confines of the office. 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.160 She went to my gallery to see my work, and 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:40.880 the gallery dealer greeted her and showed her my work. 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:44.200 Sure, Judy had talked in therapy about her self doubts 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:47.160 as an artist, but she never would have anticipated doctor 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:49.080 Muller actually going to see her work. 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:52.600 Meanwhile, I had gotten a phone call from the gallery 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:57.800 dealer saying, who is that to cut people off? I 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:02.280 mean it was like really, but law, I mean it was. 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:06.760 She had a very severe profile there. 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.800 But the point is, Judy says that doctor Muller loved 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.679 what she saw that day, and hearing that at that 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:17.000 particular moment in her life from someone has no nonsense, 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.720 as doctor Muller gave Judy the confidence she was looking for. 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:29.000 I just accepted her, I guess idiosyncrasies because she was 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:33.359 one hundred percent in my court. She stepped in in 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:34.840 moments that were difficult. 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:43.399 Judy experienced a different side of doctor Muller, one that 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.320 I never could have even imagined. And the more we talk, 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:50.360 the more I realize how different our experiences had been. Well, 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:54.359 my doctor Muller had been largely inscrutable. Judy's doctor Muller 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:57.640 loved the Beatles. Judy got to know a doctor Muller 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:00.720 who'd always wanted to be an actor, who took vacations 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:04.520 alone to go scuba diving, and described swimming alongside a 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:07.600 manta ray as one of the most meaningful encounters of 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:11.359