Four-thirty A.M. It starts with a Flow rumble. The bed begins to shake up and down and sideways, not the more familiar rolling action I've experienced so many times.
Somehow I end up on the floor, crouched down by my wife. A crash, harder shaking, a crescendo, then a backing off and again harder, until gradually, mercifully, it begins to subside, tapering off and leaving us finally in black silence, punctuated only by the sound of car alarms. A quick call downstairs, my son answers he's okay. Flashes of light cross the sky as broken power lines spark and crackle. No one is outside on this hillside street, no sounds emerge from the lightless homes. Off in the distance, a gas-filled house bursts into flame. Aftershocks—short, hard shakes—deliver a jolt of adrenaline each time. Mercifully, the house is spared. A couple of pictures have fallen and a glass is broken, but otherwise all is well.
The radio warns people to stay home, stay off the streets. As reports come in, we learn that sections of several freeways have collapsed. A 6.6 magnitude. It felt like it might have been stronger.
As dawn breaks, I begin to consider the day that lies ahead. It's Monday and I have a full schedule. How do I conduct myself as a physician, as a psychoanalyst? Will patients show up at my office? Do I even have an office? The place where I practice is a two-story brick building built in the forties. Will it be a pile of rubble when I arrive? A large portion of the Coast Highway, the thoroughfare that leads to my office, has been closed. Part of a house has slid down the hill onto the roadway. I take an alternate route. Here, too, piles of debris block parts of the road, but I can pass. Pulling into the parking lot, I can see that the building still stands. Inside the lobby, damage is immediately evident. Decorative columns are tilted, broken statuary and plaster litter the floor. Further inside, my office is a mess—plaster chunks everywhere, broken lamps, books all over the floor.
All of us deal with crises in ways that highlight our defensive structure, so even a disaster like this can be turned to good account, as Freud tells us, through the analytic method. One patient shows up, undaunted, for her early morning appointment. Opening the door to the waiting room, I mumble something like, “Are you sure you're up to this today?” It seems that I, probably, am not. As we enter the devastation, it is apparent to both of us that the setting does not provide the kind of secure feeling conducive to analytic work. “How are you?” I inquire. “All right,” she replies; “external things don't bother me, only internal things.” This, though not a new revelation, will be used to further her analysis in days to come.
Another patient calls the next day, looking for reassurance that the building is safe. A temporary breach of neutrality seems in order. The frequent aftershocks, which continue for days, even weeks, are also significant. Just as my denial begins to take hold again, enough for me to refocus on what my patients are saying and how I am responding, another shock will occur, pulling me out of my analytic reverie. Some patients comment on the shocks and some do not, again a telling bit of analytic observation.
The question arises, with several of my supervisees, as to how much we should use overt comments in the hour in dealing with the stark reality of the situation. There are no rules here, no papers on technique that deal with earthquakes. Perhaps what we must do harkens back to Freud's comment on the middle game, a terra incognita in which each analytic dyad gropes its way toward some form of working together, even in the face of disaster.