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SISTER MARY, A 42-YEAR-OLD large, heavyset school teacher and nun began her first hour of analysis by exclaiming as soon as she settled on the couch that it was the ugliest, flimsiest, most uncomfortable piece of furniture she had ever seen. I must be some fucking idiot to select such a piece of trash. That went for the rest of my office. It was cold and unwelcoming. I was supposed to be so good with my books and papers, but what fucking good is a lot of shitty knowledge if you can't be a human being?
This invective, stated in an angry, spite-filled tone, poured out of her in a continuous flow throughout the first hour. I was dumbfounded! Nothing in the several consultative hours prepared me for it. I did remember that, on the phone when she called for an appointment, she had said she had been told by the referring psychiatrist that I was someone who could handle her. As she went on, I felt a mixture of annoyance and amusement: annoyed at her attack on my couch, a custom-designed Danish import I was proud of; amused at the inventiveness of her foul-mouthed assault. I knew of nothing to say and wondered what to expect at the end of the hour, but she left without incident.
The next day, she entered, her nose in the air, and began where she had left off. I was more prepared but equally puzzled. In the middle of the hour she paused for the first time, giving me an opening to