The setup:
My analyst convinced me to sweet talk my way into the 2016 annual convention for APA Division 39 – the psychoanalytical. It worked. When the program book arrived in the mail, I took it to my next session to try to coerce him into giving me hints as to what workshops I should attend. Or not.
Out of the blue he stopped short & said, “I want you to meet Nancy McWilliams.” Who?
For once in my life, I said nothing. Just scribbled her name somewhere on the program. The rest is history.
***
I consider the fact that I never did ask Daniel, “Who exactly is Nancy McWilliams and why do you want me to meet her?” as a sign of serious personal growth. I didn’t even ask his motive when we got back home.
“Before I forget, I did meet your friend, Dr. Nancy.”
“And—?”
***
Sunday morning, the last day. I was lounging around that same high-top table in the coffee area where, if I was patient and a little lucky, Dan would find a way to say hello or at least flap a sugar packet in my direction. I was half hoping to run into him because a brief hug goodbye to “this crazy old analyst I just met” would be perfectly fine, and he just might initiate.
Instead, I turned my head, and there she was, Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D., ABPP in the flesh and barely three feet away. I spoke up from where I was standing.
“Hi, Dr. McWilliams, I’m Kate—”
“I know who you are,” she interrupted. “I heard you speak.”
And then she walked away.
***
“And how did that make you feel, Katy?”
“Sit on it, Dan.”
***
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, probably red-faced, definitely terror-stricken, wracking my brain to find my crime.
“Oh, f**k, oh sh*t, what did I say? Where did she hear me speak?!”
And just how in the hell did I manage to piss off the one person I was supposed to meet and, I suppose, befriend on a professional level based on, “Daniel Nachman told me I should meet you” – ?
At the time, I didn’t take her comment as a personal insult, and I still don’t feel that way now—well, not on a conscious, rational adult level. So what if she dropped a bomb and walked away? For crying out loud, it was a madhouse, and not everybody had a personal cabby/chauffeur who made it possible to stay until the bitter end. Who knew when her plane left? How far she had to go? Was she obligated to do yet something else for the Division before she could breathe?
Whatever her deal, the last thing she needed was Chatty Katy slowing her down.
It would have been nice if she’d been less … brisk. But I “spoke” something that prompted her “tone,” so the question remains:
Unless she was sitting in on one (or more) of the workshops where I spoke up with a compliment instead of a technical professional question, the only place that made sense was that she heard me “speak” at that coffee hour with the advertising guru.
***
“I suppose you were sitting in there somewhere, Dan, grinning like a cat with a canary to dunk in your coffee.”
“I suppose maybe I was.”
“Then at least, even though she could complain that, as per usual, I overexplained, I did not tell your entire psychoanalytical tribe in an open forum all about Bill Gates.”
“You didn’t tell me Bill Gates broke your TV, Katy.”
“I didn’t tell that roomful of people with gen-you-ine credentials, either, Dan, so what’s up with your friend, McWilliams? You didn’t tell her to expect me, did you?”
“Maybe I did.”
That’s what he said about a flaky blond patient who floated out of his office a few years ago.
“What’s up with her? She looks like you just did her on your couch.”
“Maybe I did.”
Considering that old man was the same Kokopelli character in and out of the office—and considering he’d started telling me every other session, “You’ve introjected more of me than you think, Katy”—if he did tell poor Nancy he was sending me her way, I should count my lucky stars she walked away and didn’t call security on my well-introjected ass.
***
I forgot all about the esteemed Dr. McWilliams until two years ago when the almost-as-esteemed Dr. Gregory Rizzolo hired me to write blogs based on her personality styles book, and I told his assistant I knew who she was.
Greg Rizzolo, founder of Depth Counseling in Chicago, said he was “impressed” that I knew her.
I wanted to say, “Dr. Greg, honey? I met that woman for less than ten seconds in the lobby of the Westin, but I’m not so sure it went so well.”
I’d say taking a full year to do one blog on her hysterical personality profile didn’t go so well, either, until those two Richter-scale tsunami abreactions a couple of months ago. It turns out that could-be-insulting throwaway remark, “I heard you speak,” changed my life maybe more than the entire convention.
I just hope she doesn’t get wind of our imaginary “sessions.” Darling Daniel Nachman once told me what he charged “back in New York,” and I still pay less in rent. Heaven help me what Dr. Nancy charges these days, plus which …
Even if she accepts it—and not too many do—I seriously doubt Medicare covers imaginary Freudian analysis with a woman in absentia with my living room as her office and Daniel’s leopard chaise as her couch.
Click HERE or on the image below to buy Nancy’s book:
