I noticed that it all concerns your mother. How did your father enter into your life? Can you see your father? Look at him with his hat on and take it off and put it on your head. You wear his hat. And see how you experience this.
Cl: An effective agent in the outside world.
Dick: Do you like this feeling?......
Cl: I feel different.
Dick: You feel different.
Cl: It is almost like I become more like my father. My face changes too.
Dick: And it is all right to notice these things but I want you to pay attention to your body sensations. ...... Are you saying that your chest and heart are feeling more like you would like them to feel?
Cl: No.
Dick: What is missing? Tell me. You are telling me that the knot in your throat is less, the tension is less, what is it that you want to have there?
Cl: A feeling of being more alive, more vibration that I can feel.
Dick: So be six years old again and be in the living room of your house. Your brother is sitting on the couch and so is your mother and they are both watching, and they are both watching approvingly. They are laughing because they are approving of you, and your father is down on his hands and knees and engaged in wrestling with you. He has challenged you to wrestle. And you throw yourself at him, fiercely. You grab one arm and you try to pull him down, and you grab him by the neck and twist his head. You do all kinds of things. You use all of your six year old strength. To try to somehow turn him over and pin him. And he makes all kinds of groaning loud noises and so on. And allows himself to be almost knocked over, but not quite, and he simply is exercising just enough strength so that you don't quite get him down. In other words, what he is doing is wrestling with you in such a way that he is creating an opportunity, an invitation for you to use your maximum strength. Without any threat that you are going too far or being bad. This is the game. You are supposed to try to get him down and pin him down. And you use all kinds of tactics. You don't bite him or kick him or scratch him, because you are not fighting with him, you are wrestling with him. So feel yourself wrestling with your father in this way, and meanwhile on the couch, your mother and brother are watching and cheering you on. "Go on, you can really get him, N." They are cheering you on and enjoying this really violent exertion. You are not being violent in the sense of being angry, but you are using your strength violently without being angry. In other words, you are struggling violently but you are not committing any act of hurting anyone. Just let this go on and on and see how you feel. He is offering you the challenge to really test yourself. You cannot quite get him down. For you to go all out with the effort of wrestling, not with rage. How does this feel to you?
Cl: I like it.
Dick: Yeah, see his breathing increase. This is the role of the father. Not to hold him down and restrain him. But to give the son the opportunity to test his strength. So the father is not making him feel weak, the father allows him to fully feel his strength.
Cl: I am hitting as hard as I can with my body. I am running up against him. I really like that contact.
Dick: And that is OK with him:?
Cl: Oh, I think the moment I realized he was enjoying it, that really felt good.
Dick: Yeah, because you are not really big enough to really hurt him and he knows how to cushion himself above, he has an adult's reflexes. So, it isn't to hurt your father, it is to test your strength. ....
Dick: What is happening, sitting in this chair with us?
Cl: It felt so good.
Dick: You can stay there awhile. What would you say to him right now? Say something to him.
Cl: I need to feel you.
Dick: Do you feel him now?
Cl: I still feel frustrated....
Dick: That all happened long ago. This image is happening right now. Get in touch with reality. The reality right now is that you are having that experience of feeling your father. The other is just a semantic reality. It is not a direct experience.
Cl: My history?
Dick: Yeah, your history is something that is nothing. Your history does not exist. Napoleon said history is a lie. That is pretty true. But we think of it the way we think of money in the bank. For example, you know, every week you put ten percent of your paycheck in the bank and when you are old, you will be a millionaire. And you put it in the bank and it just stays there. You don't have to go in and count it. You deposited it and you've got the deposit slip and it is just in the bank, and that is the way we tend to think about our memories. As if they are real experiences that we have had and now they are in our memory bank and we have them the way we have money in our savings account. But that is not true, when this moment passes, this moment has passed. It no longer is. I have the memory but the memory is not the reality. So, being pissed off at him is a kind of memory that you think asserts your manhood or something.
Cl: It doesn't taste good.
Dick: So how do you feel right now?
Cl: You know , that is still a hard question for me to answer.
Dick: So , say, "Don't try to put me on the spot like that."
Cl: Don't try to put me on the spot like that, damn it.
Dick: I have to. That is my job. (laughter)
Cl: When you are working, you are working for me, so you got to listen to what I want.(More laughter).
Dick: So how are you doing?
Cl: I am doing well.
Dick: And don't tell me what you are feeling. (laughter)
Cl: Well, I don't really know what I am feeling. What I feel here is pretty distinct (points to chest), and here is distinct (points to stomach), I feel well and that is also there.
Dick: OK well, don't be critical of it. Just let it be. I feel finished at this point. How about you, N.
Cl: Yeah, I appreciate the work. I need contact with men. And I have my father's hat on.
Dick: That is amazing isn't it? This works with any article of clothing that was typical of him. Like a jacket, or a certain piece of clothing that he wore.
Cl: I appreciate where you took me because the front of my body has been lonesome for my father for a lifetime, and I've now got three kids and three of the four are men. I have often felt hunger for that kind of contact with them. ......