The Initial Greeting

• The Case of Harold Payne by Don Nathanson, 8/11/96
  • Diagnostic Guessing from the Initial Greeting by FACULTY: Henry Stein, 9/7/96
    
    

Harold appeared forthright, somewhere between collegial and frightened. It was clear that he would have preferred a medical diagnosis, and that my personal history as a former Internist/Endocrinologist was a significant factor in his decision to gamble on me for a psychological approach to his discomfort. Although his affect was, for the most part, appropriate to the subject being discussed, he seemed more hearty than one might expect, as though he wanted me to know that he was more than capable of dealing with this situation. It was clear that Dr. Payne was torn by a number of forces: He wanted me to see him as a competent colleague; wanted at all costs to get away from an interchange that might force him to think about his emotional world; wanted resolution of the apparently impossible dilemma presented by wife and lover; and hoped that he could work with me much in the same manner he worked with his own clients---homey, easygoing, generally positive, and willing to tell him that everything would be all right.

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