The Tuesday Group.

I entered the room prey to a vigilance. Moments before, passing Helen in the hallway, she greeted me with a lightness, an almost disturbing levity suggestive of other people, other places. I entered the room with my ear to the ground, and made silent plans for Helen.

Within seconds I heard false, discordant notes all around and decided they originated less in this session, or even the previous week, but in the session where client B. had explored the matter of her sexual abuse. She is in her middle years, an unsatisfied grandmother, and the rhythm of her disclosure had an assurance, an acceptance of her past at variance with the tone. She wished to present the matter as her core, unresolved experience and I felt then, as I do now, that she is adept at using the matter of sexual abuse as a cover, perhaps, for more recent events she is unwilling, or unable to disclose. And yet this inauthenticity has sent false notes ricocheting off the walls from everyone else. Unable to counter it, I glanced at my bookshelves, and made further plans for Helen. It was in the moment of formulating the plan to run my hard nails down her back, intending to expel the levity from her upturned mouth and, thereby, return her to me, that I decided precisely what to do with the complex, almost primal inauthenticity of client B. I told her, very gently, that she had a bit of fluff in her eye. She was shattered. And from there, we all took the long road back to ourselves.