After a bit of one-sided discourse, my therapist cleared his
throat. I don't usually like to do this, he said. But I feel I would be remiss
if I didn't say something. I think it could be a mistake for you to move to
Inwood.
This definitely got my attention. The therapist was
psychoanalytically trained, and for a young guy, rather orthodox. I was not
used to receiving direct, immediately implementable advice from him. Our work
together was more amorphous and long range.
Because of the rarity of the situation, I decided to strike
while the iron was hot. I was aware that this was a potentially exciting
development because the therapist was going off script. Naturally, I asked him
to elaborate.
He went into several reasons why he was more comfortable
with Park Slope than Inwood. He was also more comfortable with many
neighborhoods that were not Park Slope and also not Inwood. He listed some of
these neighborhoods.
I just think Inwood could be dangerous, I remember him
saying.
As I left my session for the day, I put his thinking into
the hopper. I wasn't going to rule out a move to Inwood based on what he said.
I also wasn't going to dig in my heels and not listen to him. I was going to
think about it some more.
Not far from where I was on the Upper West Side, Jeremy was
also meeting with his therapist. This guy was also psychoanalytically trained.
He was in fact recommended to Jeremy by my therapist.
If you compared the two of them, Jeremy's therapist was
somewhat looser than mine. He could be a bit more direct. However, he was still
not fond of outright telling Jeremy what to do. The general idea was for him
and Jeremy to talk and then for Jeremy to generate good ideas on his own.
At dinner that night, I told Jeremy what happened at therapy
that day. Jeremy found this very interesting because of what happened at
therapy with him.
I don't like to tell you what to do, Jeremy's therapist
said. But I think that if you don't take this opportunity to move to Inwood, it
could be a big mistake. He went into all kinds of reasons why he thought that
moving to Inwood was the best option.
During the conversation, Jeremy shared that he would miss
riding his bike in Prospect Park if we moved to Inwood. At that point, his therapist
became even more opinionated. I don't want to see you pass up what is clearly a
great opportunity over bike riding, he said.
Jeremy and I discussed it further over the next several
days. We talked it over a bit more with our therapists. We each told our own
therapist what the other one said. Both of them found this very interesting. Even my rather serious therapist had to admit
that the whole thing was funny.
We also consulted with family members and got more
information. Jeremy's mom was especially helpful. Once we ultimately decided to
move to Inwood, she coached us through the bidding process on the apartment.
It's been 16 years since moving to Inwood. If this decision
were like most things in life, I would say that moving to Inwood has been good,
but not perfect, and that each therapist was correct in their own way.
But it appears that this decision did not turn out like
most. Moving to Inwood was not a mixed bag. Moving to Inwood was clearly a great idea. It has only gotten better
the longer we've lived here.
So in this one case, Jeremy's therapist turned out to be
right and my therapist was wrong. It turns out that my therapist was more
helpful when it came to how to live,
but not necessarily about where to
live.
The title of this blog
piece pays homage to the song One Of Us
Cannot Be Wrong by Leonard Cohen. It
is one of my all time favorite songs.
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