A Murder Mystery

Imagine that a murder has been committed and, although it obviously was an inside job, no one knows the butler did it. Conventional crime investigation proves futile. The members of the household, thinking that the case might require analysis on a deeper level, consulted twelve therapists.

The first, an analyst, took a careful history from everyone and, after many hours, discovered homicidal impulses in all of them. “Either you all did it, or any one of you could have done it,” he declared with an air of finality. They felt they got a lot out of this solution, but thought it lacked specificity. To narrow the field, they called a behavior therapist.

Rather than spend hours gathering historical material as the analyst had done, the behavior therapist saw no need to delve into the motives of each of the members of the household; yet, she came to much the same conclusion that the analyst did, but for a different reason. She said she saw no purpose in attributing special significance to who in particular did the deed. “Why be so specific?” she asked, and, although that was their reason for being there, they found themselves momentarily at a loss for words. She informed them that what needs to be analyzed is the act itself, not the people who might or might not have done it, asserting that calling it “murder” implied a murderer, which made unnecessary assumptions about motivational states. Although the behavior therapist said that she did not think this was a case for insight, it apparently was a case for rules. They were to avoid making unnecessary assumptions and, in particular, were to avoid assuming that there had been a murderer.

The analyst had said that they all did it or might have done it, and now the behavior therapist told them that it was not necessary to find out who did it. So, they considered the possibility that they had the wrong presenting complaint. But they couldn't escape the feeling that it seemed like murder and