Patients Lie — Again

His mother had been seeing me and they had signed mutual releases. Mother wanted me to see him as soon as possible, because he was “nervous and unable to sit still at all.”

When he came, he denied a “nervousness” which his mother thought looked like “attention deficit disorder.”

I can’t treat what people don’t think they have.

He described problems with his girlfriend and his mother, since his mother had told him he could not go to a party in the home of his girlfriend’s family on the bad side of town, “where they would just as soon shoot you in the street as say ‘hello.'”

He sounded like he had pretty routine mother-and-girlfriend problems.

She contacted me on the weekend, worrying about him frequenting strip clubs, something I had not asked about and he had not told me about. Sometimes, she said he became so angry she physically feared him.

Their two narratives were simply inconsistent. I drew the line at her feeling scared of him physically.

I told her about “tough love,” and I told her if that happened again, to call the cops.

My husband reminded me of the ultimate authority in my profession — Hugh Laurie as “Dr. House” — who repeatedly said on television in public for all the world to hear, “Patients lie.”

Which one of them? Maybe both of them. I told her what I had told them; and would indeed, tell anybody who gave me the opportunity. I can try a session with the two of them together and help to resolve things, but I could not promise that it would resolve things. I would try. I always try as hard as I can to do the best that I can.

She said she knew this to be true.

I had told him and also told his mother on the phone, that the hardest thing a young man (or a young woman) ever had to do in his (her) life was establishing themselves as an individual distinct from parents. This usually meant a period of confusion before resolution. There may be (and there was) some confusion about vocational direction, too.

One can only press forward. The ability to communicate openly is precious, and irreplaceable. 

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