The Abomination

Someone said, “If you like Dan Brown, you’ll like this.” They were wrong. I like Dan Brown, but I loved this. I did really enjoy this book for several reasons.

First, the plot was fantastically intriguing. Three seemingly unrelated incidents happen to different people in different parts of Venice. The author then skilfully takes us on a journey where we are invited to link the incidents together and then use that knowledge to resolve the ending. What I particularly liked is that, for the most part, it seemed credible. The plot doesn’t depend on anything that stretched the imagination beyond reason, and its complexity keeps you on your toes right to the end.

The second reason for enjoyment was that unlike some novels that race across the world and back, this book, for the most part, was firmly grounded in Venice (despite the fact that Venice is sinking). The stink of the city was both literal and metaphorical. It provides a reinforcing backdrop to the corruption and crime in the place involving the police, the mafia, the church, the criminals, and the spies. But the reality of the city also gave space for the reader to pause and enjoy, and to learn about Venetian life. It gave time for the characters to eat at the restaurants, and to occasionally make love. And of course, the duplicity of the Venetian mask also provided another overarching metaphor for the plot.

Thirdly, and partly related to my previous point, I enjoyed the detail which gave the text a convincing authority. For example, we learn about the influence of the Mafia on the city, the techniques used by people traffickers, the protocols for paperwork on a US military base, the operation of drones, the Italian justice system, some of the conventions used by computer hackers. I knew I was reading a novel, but for the most part, the detail encouraged me to believe wholeheartedly in the world I was being invited to inhabit. The book was interesting.

My fourth reason for enjoyment was the flesh that the author gave to the main characters. I cared about them. I enjoyed watching their relationships develop. They weren’t cardboard cut-outs, but were “real” people capable of subtle feelings and interaction. The female detective was interestingly different. I really wanted them to be ok.

Notwithstanding the above, I have a couple of minor quibbles.  First, I have read all of Dan Brown and most of Scott Mariani and one of the things I really dislike about their novels is that they sometimes have to employ completely unrealistic solutions to getting their characters out of plot conundrums that they have written them into (survival despite being ridiculously outnumbered, for example). Personally, I was unconvinced by how the author got two of his characters back to Venice after they had briefly left it. It didn’t seem credible to me, and was a weakness. Secondly, I was invited to care for a major character for most of the book, and the relationship that he was forming, and then this person was summarily dismissed towards the end. I felt very let down. Perhaps this thread will be picked up in a future novel.

Couples in Collusion

Couples in Collusion: Short-Term, Assessment-Based Strategies for Helping Couples Disarm Their Defenses

by

Dennis A. Bagarozzi
The basic premise of this book is both simple and yet diagnostically powerful. The author argues that when a couple enters therapy, both partners have either explicit or implicit understandings of what can—and, more importantly, cannot—be discussed in therapy. Collusion between partners, whether consciously or unconsciously negotiated, serves two basic functions: to protect the partners’ respective selves and to preserve the dyadic status quo.

Bagarozzi argues that couples enter therapy when these collusive agreements have failed in some way, and many of them would be content with therapy that allows them simply to return to the status quo. However, although ignoring unconscious processes in their clients’ relationships can lead to short-term ‘success’, the author demonstrates that working through the inevitable defensive resistance and doing genuinely ‘deep’ work can ultimately produce richer outcomes for the couple.

Although not formally divided in such a way, there are four ‘parts’ to this book: the theory, the description of patterns of collusion, the discussion of assessment, and the case-studies. Although considering myself moderately well-read, I did struggle with some of the theoretical discussion and was aware of my own lack of reading in object-relations. However, other parts of the book do draw from a variety of theoretical backgrounds.

The author uses a series of informal questions as well as more formal questionnaires to assess his clients and their relationship before ‘treatment’. I found the former useful and have already incorporated them into my own early sessions with couples. I could see that the latter did reveal useful areas for discussion, but as most of the instruments used are not made available in the book, and as I would be unwilling to use a battery of tests at the beginning of therapy, I didn’t linger much over these paragraphs.

Despite the above negative quibbles, at its core, the book has much to offer the Private Practitioner who works with couples. The book opens windows onto possible psychological underground (for example, collusive defensive patterns, acting out and monitoring and restraining, couple mythologies, complementary defensive systems, primitive defences in borderline and narcissistic disorders). Then, the author patiently uses his wealth of knowledge, experience, and expertise to lead the reader across the minefields to the other side (demonstrating how to defuse a few mines along the way).

Most counselling books have case-study material at some point. However, I particularly enjoyed the ones in this book. Bagarozzi gives us key background information before allowing us the ‘see’ his interactions with the couple. We see the positive outcomes as well as the disappointments. I admired the way he was aware of, and able to deflect, the attempts by the couples to draw him into the collusions.

This book informed me and left me wanting to continue to strive to become a better therapist.

A Coming Out

I used to be an evangelical Christian. In the summer of 1966, I got ’saved’. I literally came out – I got up out of my seat in front of family and friends at a Billy Graham rally at the age of 13, and decided to follow Jesus. That faith and commitment lasted for a long time, at least until 2000. I was a lay preacher, a pastoral counsellor, a church leader, and a Christian author. I was in hook, line, and sinker. However, over the past 7 years I have slowly abandoned that faith.

Of course, I know that if my Christian friends were reading this they would say that I am trying too hard. That the fact that I am having to write about it just proves how insecure I am in my new atheism. I would argue that since so many of them ask me about what has happened to me I have had to think things through, for their benefit, and to make sense of the massive change for myself. It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen in any neat, logical order, but it has happened, and what is written below is a poor attempt at an explanation after the event.

Although a degree of general unease and doubt had been happening over a number of years (Does God really answer prayers? He doesn’t seem to answer mine. What is the point of singing hymns? Why am I struggling to make a book written in a series of foreign cultures over thousands of years relevant to my life today? How long can I go on doing mental gymnastics about apparent inconsistencies?) the change really took off when I was ill for a year. During that time I spent a year virtually at home, unable to go out and face crowds, and certainly unable to go to church. To someone who had believed that my life would fall apart if I didn’t go to church, I discovered that I was actually enjoying the absence. I certainly wasn’t missing the two Sunday services, the leaders’ meeting on a Sunday afternoon, the midweek meeting, various other meetings with groups or individuals. I started to enjoy the freedom and realise that my faith was not helping my enjoyment of life or blood-pressure.

Over a number of years I had been doing more and more training as a counsellor which involved me in reading more about human beings in an attempt to understand them better. As this happened, I became more and more uneasy with the template for humanity that I had inherited from my Christian faith. If I was honest with myself, I knew how difficult (and superficial) change really was, and that neat Christian solutions to change often only tackled the surface leaving deeper issues untouched. It no longer seemed good enough to exhort people (and myself) to stop doing things because they were wrong. I started to question the wrongness of some things, and certainly questioned the ability of people to stop despite the apparently available divine aid.

Because of my background in church I initially used to receive a lot of requests for counselling from people within the Christian community. As a counsellor I started to see more of the Christian underbelly. From within the Christian community I have personally come across ’senior’ Christians involved in multiple affairs, anal rape, child sex abuse, cottaging in the local toilets, visiting male and female prostitutes, physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse, wife beating, and bullying. Need I go on? I write this, not in judgement, but simply to make the point – if Christianity did work, and if it did significantly change people at a deep level, that wasn’t always apparent from some Christians. Their tragic experiences, and my own inner struggles and powerlessness, just confirmed my own doubts about efficacy.

As part of my counsellor training I did a 3 year course that forced me to confront a very difficult issue that I had been wanting to avoid. Up until this point I had taken an evangelical view of homosexuality. Homosexuality was wrong because the Bible said so. I was to be compassionate towards gays, but not condone their practice. That was easy as I didn’t personally know any gays. On my course, two of the three tutors were gay. During the three years I got to know them, deeply respect them, and grew increasingly confused and ashamed as I listened to their stories of their inner struggles. I also started to read up-to-date research on homosexuality (Wilson, G. and Rahman, Q. (2005) Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation. London: Peter Owen) and concluded that I could no longer toe the party line. And if my party line was wrong on this, it could no longer be trusted and was probably wrong on lots of other things as well.

I know that many Christians would argue that I am rejecting the package and that I should not necessarily reject Christ himself. At the moment I cannot see a meaningful way of separating the two.

Writing this marks a kind different coming out. I am declaring myself a tentative non-believer. It feels slightly odd, but at the same time much more comfortable than where I was 13 years ago.