Chapter 17. The External Situation: Learning to Cook and Attending a Psychotherapy Group as Well as Analysis

Gradually Susan recovered from the extreme dependence on Mrs Brown and became restless. In the end, it was anxiety about what she called Mrs Brown's possessiveness of her, which she felt was ‘homosexual’, that led her first to advertise and then get a daily house-cleaning job, though still sleeping at Mrs Brown's; and later an ‘au pair’ living-in job with a large family. She stayed in this job for eight years, not being paid for her work, but continuing to receive a weekly allowance from the National Assistance Board.

The period from 1950 to 1957 was marked by increasing enrichment of the well part of her personality. She made close friends where she worked, and she also became able to read widely; for instance, she discovered Proust, coming to analysis one day with shining eyes, exclaiming, ‘It's so true! But how does he know ?’ Another day she arrived with Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth, chuckling over it and saying it was the most wonderful book she had ever read. Also she became very interested in giving Christmas presents and took a lot of trouble to eke out her scanty money in order to get the right things for the people around her. Another interest developing over this period was in esoteric teaching, for a friend introduced her to the teachings of Gurdjieff. She began reading his writings and even once went to a Weekend School, coming back from it to give me a wittily caustic account of the activities and of the other people ther; she had mixed feelings about it all, recognizing some of her own experiences in the teaching, but feeling it was not really for her, with her difficulties. She also began to learn how to cook. Up to this time her learning block had seemed to include everything, but now in fact she became an inspired cook. She took three months off from her work to do a cookery course, living in H. Hospital, as there was nowhere else to be; she actually passed the examination, although with acute anxieties over ‘not being able to remember’ and ‘getti