Disclaimer: this is a fictionalized account based on dynamics that have come up across a number of clients. This does not reflect confidential information about any particular psychotherapy client.

Mark came to see me because it was time for him to buy a new car.

It took me a little bit of time to understand how the car issue had become a therapy-worthy situation.

Mark had actually been to therapy before, the first time when he was in his 20’s, for four or five sessions to help him cope with panic attacks that had been coming on with more and more frequency. The therapist had taught him some self-talk techniques to get through the panic, but it wasn’t until Mark had been out of therapy for several years that he was able to make the connection between his panic attacks and the breakup with his first serious girlfriend. Somehow the therapy hadn’t managed to address that issue.

The next time Mark went for therapy, he stayed a little longer. 10-12 sessions this time, over the course of several months. Mark had been disappointed when he hadn’t gotten a promotion at work that he had been banking on, and had found himself ruminating over and over about a wish to take revenge against his boss. He had been so consumed with thoughts of revenge at the time, that he had started to worry that maybe he was actually a violent person. It wasn’t that Mark had plans to act on any of the thoughts, or that he had ever actually taken revenge against anyone in his whole life. And certainly Mark had never been violent towards anyone either. It was just that the thoughts were so intense and so constant that Mark had seriously started to worry that maybe at heart he was capable of doing things he had never imagined himself capable of doing. And that was so scary that he couldn’t sleep much at night at all.

Therapist #2 had helped Mark learn some relaxation techniques to help him with his sleep, as well as a technique called “thought stopping” in which he would snap a rubber band against his wrist each time the thoughts came and would then try to make himself think of something else instead. The rubber band snapping made his wrist kind of sore but the technique did work, at least some of the time. Mark and his therapist also talked about the difference between thinking things and acting on them, and Mark would try to remind himself that he wasn’t actually acting on the thoughts of revenge, and that it was okay to think them in his head; sometimes this helped and sometimes it didn’t.

Somehow Mark and his second therapist didn’t manage to get to make the connection, though, about the similarity between Mark’s boss and his critical father, who had never given Mark the approval that he had always wanted, no matter how hard Mark tried or what he accomplished. Perhaps it would have helped to have made that connection in therapy, perhaps not. Certainly Mark did not know the difference between one type of therapy and another in any case.

And so when Mark first came to see me and brought up the car issue at hand, it only made sense that he expected me to teach him ways to calm his anxiety down and to manage the obsessive thoughts he kept having about whether he should buy the Corvette or not.

It was hard for me to imagine why the decision about the car was keeping Mark up at night and taking over his mind to the point of his not being able to concentrate at work. Mark explained that his wife had gone over the pros and cons with him several times, and that the logical conclusion was readily apparent: Mark should buy the car. After all, there was more than enough money in the bank; Mark worked very hard for his money, and was certainly entitled to get himself a luxury car; it was undebatably time for a new car; Mark’s wife wanted him to be happy and to drive his dream car once and for all; and Mark had wanted this car for a really long time.

And so it really made no sense that Mark somehow just couldn’t let himself get the car he really wanted.

And that Mark couldn’t sleep at night because of his indecisiveness about the matter.

And that Mark and his wife had almost had a fight because he was so testy about the car decision.

And that Mark couldn’t focus at work because he was too busy trying to decide if he should get the car or not.

And so by the time Mark got to me, he was pretty desperate. He actually told me that he felt “sort of crazy” about the whole thing.

“Like I know it doesn’t make any sense,” Mark said to me, “and I’m embarrassed because my wife is going to finally see that I have a screw loose in me. Because I really can’t just turn the worry and obsessiveness off, and I know it makes no sense, and I need to buy the car already, but I just can’t decide which car to get, the cheaper one or the Corvette that I’ve always wanted. And I just can’t stop going back and forth about it no matter how hard I try.”

I asked Mark what it would be like to give himself what he wanted.

“It’s not that I can’t let myself have the things I want,” Mark explained to me, sort of dismissing the question, “It’s just that I’m not the kind of person who drives a…Corvette.” And he said the word Corvette as if it was practically a dirty word.

“Oh.” I said. “What kind of person is the kind to drive a Corvette?”

Mark blushed.

“Well, I guess like someone really wealthy, someone who has money to spare, some fancy business man who makes it big and can afford to drive a fancy luxury car.”

“Go on,” I said.

“You know,” Mark continued, as if the psychological qualities of a Corvette driver should be perfectly obvious to a therapist like myself, “people who are snobby and make everyone around feel small and insignificant. People who are successful and like to show it off to the world.”

“I see,” I said this time. “And so you’re not the Corvette driving type? You’re not rich, super successful, show-offy, and able to afford a luxury car?” I asked.

But Mark never did answer my question. Instead he informed me that his anxiety had suddenly spiked so much that he felt like he was leaving his body.

“Something I said just now put you into a panic?” I asked Mark innocently, despite my hunch about what was going on.

Mark simply said that he could feel himself back in his body now but he had a terrible headache. It was the kind of headache he got sometimes, one that seemed to come out of nowhere but was so sharp and painful that he had to just go home and go to sleep when it came on. “We can talk about this all next time,” Mark said to me, as he proceeded to pick himself up and walk right out of the session.

But by the time “next time” came, Mark had completely forgotten about what we had talked about in our last conversation.

“How’s it going with the car decision?” I asked.

“Well, I stopped thinking about it as much, but when I was on my way here today, the panic started all over again. I was even thinking over the week that I was going to just buy the Corvette and try not to think too much into it, but as soon as I was on my here for our session, I started feeling like there was no way I could actually go ahead with my decision.”

“We were talking about Corvette drivers last session.” I reminded Mark gently. “About how they are rich, successful business men who like to show off their success.”

I paused for a moment for impact.

“Is this you?” I asked Mark.

Mark blushed again. He seemed embarrassed and looked down at the floor.

“It’s just that I always knew I wanted to make it big in business,” Mark explained to me, still looking down. “I saw how hard my dad worked at his job in a factory, and how hard it was for my parents to make ends meet. I was always sort of embarrassed because my friends had dads who were really successful, and we were just always the poor ones on the block. And I had always vowed to myself that things would be different for me when I grew up, that I was going to make it big and that my own family would never have to feel the sting of that shame I always felt about my family. And I guess I am pretty successful.” Mark looked away again as the word successful rolled off his tongue.

“You mean, successful as in a really wealthy businessman who can afford to drive a fancy luxury car like a Corvette and who can finally show the world that he’s not some poor, embarrassing working-class guy like his dad?” I asked.

Mark was still looking down, but I decided to go for the jugular anyway. “How much money do you actually make anyway?” I asked, catching Mark off guard by the directness of my approach.

Mark answered my question not with words, but by immediately getting one of those splitting headaches that always made him feel the need to immediately end his session so he could make his way straight home.

“Do you think there might be some connection between your headaches and the idea of us talking out loud about the fact that perhaps you make quite a bit of money?” I asked Mark when he came in for our next session.

This time Mark smiled a bit sheepishly, still looking slightly embarrassed but nonetheless able to make a little eye contact with me at least for the moment.

We were definitely making some progress.

“Well, I decided to buy the Corvette.” Mark informed me. “I feel kind of good about it actually, although I was still anxious about coming here and talking about it.”

“So, in today’s session, are you going to show off to me and actually tell me how much money you make?” I asked Mark again, a bit of banter in my tone.

Mark smiled in that sheepish way again.

But this time he did manage to stay in the session at least, without getting one of those notorious headaches that I had come to expect after asking such questions.

Mark paused for a few moments, not quite looking down at the floor but still looking just enough to the side to avoid meeting my gaze directly.

“It’s just hard to admit that I’m a…billionaire.” Mark looked down again as he said the word, but he did manage to say the word out loud.

Mark tried to hide the tears that were welling up in his green eyes, but they were not quite lost on me.

“And I guess it’s okay for a billionaire to drive a Corvette if he really wants to.” Mark finally said, after a minute or two.

“It’s just that I don’t like to admit that I make that much money,” he continued, finally putting his fears into words. “I don’t want my family to envy me, and I feel guilty that I have it so much easier than my father ever had it. And sometimes I guess I feel bad that I was so embarrassed of my dad, because he really did work so hard and he gave me a good work ethic.”

“And it sounds like you also stereotype people who are financially successful quite a bit,” I added, “and that there has been something so threatening about the idea of stepping into your billionaire shoes and coming out of the closet about your success, that you felt your whole sense of self and tie to your family to be at risk.”

Mark nodded, and then looked at me with an assertiveness I had not seen in him before.

“You do realize,” he said to me, “that this was the first time I’ve ever admitted to anyone, myself included, that I am a billionaire?”

“Well, so how does it feel?” I asked Mark with a smile.

“Pretty nice.” Mark said, a big smile beginning to spread all the way across his face. “Pretty nice.”



