Case: Woman 42 years old, dancerIn this session we talk about stealing. Like other people, the patient makes a list and steals from it. She already has a certain moral, like I don't shoplift in small shops where people with a heart have set up the shop. In large shops, she is absolutely clear. She knows all the cameras, knows the movements of security, knows the emergency exits. She's practically a shoplifting pro.
The woman also has a very intense life. She has built her own life as a decorator, has two boys and works as a high-class prostitute. She takes a lot of money per evening and enjoys seducing. She has an urge to do the forbidden.
S: Describe yourself when you steal!
P: I slip into many roles. I would say I have many different people inside me. Many parts, many personalities. I was hospitalised in 2014. I think the woman in the room was scared of me. I was totally unapproachable and then I just talked about everything again without shame.
S: Unapproachable - describe that.
J: I always have my eye on the emergency exit. In relationships - in the department stores' - actually always. But I'm open, I'm there, I'm honest and warm. And then, especially when it comes to
I ask myself 'What are you actually doing with me - you want to take a shower, but you don't actually want to get wet'.
I haven't built a real relationship in my life. I ask myself 'why don't I have a real girlfriend?' 'You could be a girlfriend for me. They are there and I don't want to lie to them. But I feel ashamed when I have to talk about stealing.'
I'm never completely in it. I want it all so much, the closeness, but it's all so exhausting. The contact and the many different roles.
Today I had a very important appointment for my company. I dress up beforehand, then there are loads of clothes in the room, total chaos, I end up looking smart, I'm very creative in the way I look, but it's never the right thing (clothes). It totally drains me. My fingers are cold. The appointment is also totally exhausting! I'm late... afterwards I'm totally exhausted and empty. It drains me.
S: Describe 'it drains me'!
P: This coming down... empty... then there's nothing in me. It's all so exhausting and that comes from pretending. Where am I then? I'm not inside myself then. That doesn't belong to me. I pretend, disguise myself... where am I really there?
After the appointment, I have to get rid of it all. It's best to go to the sauna. It all has to go! I have to cleanse myself.
S: Are there other situations in which you disguise yourself?
P: With the men earlier... I don't want to go in right now...
S: I'd be happy to try a different situation.
P: Last week I wanted to meet up with women. That scares me. This commitment. You also have to cultivate a friendship, keep at it... Be interested in the other person, get involved, ask when it's time. I don't really trust myself. It's easier with men. It's clear what they want.
P: I've thought a lot about my childhood. But why is it so hard for me to get to it? It's like splitting off because it probably all hurts really badly. My head is actually spiralling so I can't get to it. I forget in order to survive.
S: What is the first memory, the first feeling that comes to mind from your childhood?
P: The fear that mum wouldn't come back. I was actually alone at home in my childhood. She was away a lot. I couldn't rely on her. I remember that there was no food. A lot of darkness. I never trusted my mum. She did a lot of forbidden things (prostitution, stealing, travelling for several days with clients). I needed security... not from her. I realised early on that she was doing forbidden things.
S: Feel into her body. (Patient lies on her back on the couch)
P: I have no support, no roots (gesture: hands speak from top to bottom)... I have no anchoring... Can you put it like that? My feet are cold. Now a wind could come and it would carry me away.
I just want to have my mum to myself. There were some strange men there. I spat at them. I didn't accept any of them. I hated them with all my might.
S: What makes you so angry?
P: The drama, that she was free and happy with the men and I was alone with her, I couldn't give her that feeling.
S: How do you remember your mum today?
P: She was never really there. Not really tangible. Even when she was at home, she wasn't really tangible for me. She told me a few years ago that she couldn't really love me until I was 7 years old. She was somewhere else herself.
I did everything on my own as a child. I constantly rearranged things, I really wanted to. I never asked anyone, there was no one around. Once, probably when I was 7, I carried my chest of drawers into my bunk bed on my own. I was always alone. I did everything on my own. Nobody was there anyway. She was never on time! I couldn't rely on her.
Today I try to take care of that, but it's never enough!
S: What specifically is missing?
P: Being right there... Love... we have nothing to say to each other... we are not intimate...
It was all free... no rules, no education... that's why I signed up for ballet myself when I was 5, but that wasn't so good either. My anorexia was still involved and this feeling of 'you have to be better than the others'. I stopped for good when I was 18... But dancing is part of me.
I left straight away when I was 16... Moved out. After Dresden...
S: Do you still dance?
P: Yes, tango! It makes me really happy, but I can't do it alone. I need a person for it. The other person. The contact, especially with the chest, sternum... this is where I lead!
I still dance Contact Impro and the 5 Rhythms. (...) It's about being free and not being free. S: Not being free?
P: Being trapped. I can't enjoy it.
S: When are you free?
P: When nothing sticks to me. Nothing is attached to me. When I don't have any silly thoughts, then I don't like to look at myself or feel anything.
other session topic stealing:
S: Please tell me something about stealing again.
P: I always have to go one better, I'm always on top. When I steal, I put something on top that I don't actually need. I take men away. That's really nice
happened. I know what men need, I can feel it... Seduce, if you like to call it that.
(...) I see all the details. I have a strategy, speed and then I take things. I swim in material abundance, but I want it. I get the €10,000 dress, I live way above my level.
I always want to be number one. To stand out from the crowd (for example, I'm the only one at the Tango Festival wearing trainers with a very expensive dress...). I'm incredibly fast.
Physical: hyperactive, restless, ADHD as a child, Marfan syndrome, antidepressants for a long time to regulate her strong feelings of rejection and abandonment, was in psychological care and also in clinics for many years.
First prescription:
Helium 1MK.
Follow upThis has already helped her a lot to come into presence and into the present, for example she decided to stop accepting envelopes from a client (suitor) and to really start a relationship. The drug had no influence on the issue of stealing.
2nd prescription: Ceratodon purpureus.Course summarised over 3 months:
There was a project together with her new boyfriend to buy a very expensive villa together and build something together. This project fell through shortly before the contract to buy the house was signed. Her reaction:
"We might have broken if we had done it." In the past, I would have been the one who always needed something new. Now I have something new and as soon as I have it, it's no longer interesting. It's not bad that it didn't work out.
I'm putting down roots with * (boyfriend). We're building something together. I always say to him, "You're so low-maintenance. He resents me for that... (laughs!) But he cooks so well... I'm still getting fat, I've already put on 4kg (laughs). I'm doing so well!"
I get invitations to go contact dancing every Thursday, but I'm not drawn to it at all. I like being at home so much. We cook, we go to bed. We cuddle up.
I have this image: it's a duvet... I lie in it, I don't have to do anything anymore, I don't have to grow anymore, I don't have to dance the tango anymore, I don't have to go out anymore... It's total relaxation. I don't know this feeling. I'm getting used to being sheltered... It's like putting down roots. He brings the milk and the bread. It's all there, like an old married couple.
S: What's it like looking for new stimuli?
P: It's not like that any more. It's so pleasantly charmless. It was like a greed? And now it's relaxing... I don't have to do that anymore.
S: And the stealing?
P: I don't steal any more. I hurt myself with it. It was so exhausting. Today, we both look after our money very carefully and we value everything very differently now. The expensive cheese gets its value... through the flavour, the pleasure of eating it.
S: Do you still dance?
P: Yes, and I still enjoy tango. But something has changed there too. I don't need to dance as much anymore. It was my language... When I danced, it was the feeling, I got straight to the point. Dancing was feeling.
Tango today is a problem. At these festivals, the other person has to be chosen, they have to be good. With the really good dancers, it's sometimes like panting after them. But it's only enjoyable if the other person is good. But if you want to have a good dancer, you have to do a lot for it. You have to try very hard. This façade, this whole presentation is not real... I still go dancing, but I have more distance and am more relaxed. I reject the bad dancers and if the good ones don't want me, I don't go full throttle any more.