Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life

At the end of a 12-step meeting for people with eating disorders, a woman named Marnie invites Christie to dinner. Marnie tells Christie about her therapist and the group-therapy meetings that have been helping her feel more self-actualized. Christie remembers the last time she saw a therapist. She was in high school, and her mother had told her not to share her private business. The therapist didn’t push her to share, so Christie made almost no progress. Christie also remembers a man she dated who’d attended group therapy sessions run by Dr. Rosen. The idea that he might already know too much about her makes Christie nervous, but she decides to try it anyway.

Christie makes an appointment with Dr. Rosen and, upon arriving at his office, is impressed with his Harvard diplomas. She recognizes him from an eating-disorder group, one of the few men who’s ever come, and becomes more uncomfortable about seeing him. He asks her what she wants, and she says, “I want to be real. With other people. I want to be a real person” (20). He invites her to group, and she promises to attend for five years. He promises that she will establish an intimate relationship within that time.

Christie starts to imagine that Dr. Rosen will die and panics that she’ll lose him. Dr. Rosen tells her to pray that he will die so that she can avoid overreliance on him. He calls it killing the Buddha. Christie refuses because a friend’s father had drowned while swimming with her during a Hawaiian vacation.

When Christie mentions that she recognizes Dr. Rosen from the group, he uses it as a way to invite her to group therapy and encourages her to be open. She commits to joining a group of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals and starts to worry about how much it will hurt.

Christie’s first foray into group starts with a frank discussion of her struggle to find intimate partners. She meets the other members of this first group: a man she calls Colonel Sanders, Rory, Carlos, Marty, and Patrice. When she crosses her legs, she is called out for shutting down and closing herself off. When she calls for privacy, she is invited to explore why she thinks she wants or needs it. She is encouraged to share, be vulnerable, and open herself up to the group. At the end of the meeting, they say the serenity prayer, and Christie succumbs to the peer pressure to hug.

Part 1, Chapter 4 ends with a story in which fourth-grade Christie, a girl already facing pressure to be thin enough for ballet and curb her insuppressible appetite, stumbles upon Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s radio program called Sexually Speaking. The program helps Christie masturbate and find power in her body.

Dr. Rosen invites Christie to share what she ate in a day with group. It’s a series of meals meant to keep her from bingeing and purging and is thus less than appetizing: mozzarella cheese, some milk, carrots, cabbage, ground turkey, tuna, and several apples. She admits to binge eating the apples because “keeping the secret suddenly felt unbearable” (38) and feels the shame of admitting this crime against recovery. Then Dr. Rosen invites her to call Rory every night to report what she ate in order to destroy the secrecy around Christie’s eating and help her connect with another person.

Christie details a binge-and-purge session from her college days. She was seeing a Colombian man who had a girlfriend. One night, seeing him with his girlfriend caused Christie to eat any food she could find in her dorm, including pizza and cookies others had thrown out. Then she purged, took a shower, and lost consciousness.

Reporting her eating to Rory is harder and harder each day, but Christie does it, admitting to each item and every single apple.

Christie starts learning about the members of her group. Rory’s father escaped the Holocaust. Colonel Sanders has PTSD from his experiences in Vietnam and received questionable therapy for it. Carlos endured an abusive stepbrother. Marty collects death paraphernalia, including cyanide pills. Patrice lost a brother to suicide.

Hearing about these intense traumas, Christie is surprised to be discussing her experience getting pinworm at age five. Dr. Rosen helps her see how she viewed her body as a disgusting problem to be faced alone. She begins to process her shame and horror as Dr. Rosen encourages other members of the group to share similar stories.

At another session, no one speaks. It is uncomfortable but empowering to know that she can be silent in company.

Christie asks for help sleeping. Dr. Rosen prescribes her to call Marty for an affirmation. The next day Marty gives her one, and she sleeps for seven whole hours. This result helps her believe the therapy might be working.

Christie goes on a ski trip and is surprised when she calls into group and they miss her. She remembers being at her grandmother’s house and learning that her family had gone to Oklahoma without her. Her childhood mind interpreted that as meaning that she was an unimportant member of her family: “[I]t was proof that [she] could be left behind” (50).

Back in Chicago, Carlos sets Christie up with his friend Sam. They have chemistry on the phone, but he is stiff and uninteresting in person. Because of this, Christie assumes Sam’s apparent lack of interest means she is the problem. She sees group as a failure, but both Marty and Rory try to reassure her that “some dates just suck” (51).

Christie then does the unthinkable—skips class—and reflects on how she is “stuck” (51). Dr. Rosen calls and is proud of her for taking time to feel. She wants more.

Another man, Andrew, calls her and takes her on a date. She doesn’t like him but agrees to let him cook for her at his house. After dinner, despite not liking or wanting him, she kisses him and asks if he has a condom. He quickly ejaculates inside her without pleasuring her at all and then rushes off to work.

Afterward at group, Christie is angry and in pain. She yells at Dr. Rosen, who validates her and points her toward continuing with group. She realizes that her coping mechanisms and secret shames are no longer private and feels that she’s gotten nothing in return: She’ll never be with anyone or be able to do what it takes to truly heal.

Christie has a crush on a fellow student she’s nicknamed “the Smoker.” But he has a girlfriend. When Carlos finds out, Christie tells the group about him, and Dr. Rosen invites her to tell the Smoker that she is a “cocktease.”

She says it in a taxi one night with the Smoker and another law student. The Smoker smiles but doesn’t do anything else, except offer her a cigarette later on. Christie is proud of herself for being brave and doing her homework.

While having coffee before the next group session, she sees a short, silly man with a bright yellow backpack. It’s Dr. Rosen, and she can’t believe she idolizes him in group. She’s ready to pray to kill the Buddha.

Jealous of other group members’ sex prescriptions, Christie asks for one herself. Dr. Rosen invites her to call Patrice before and after masturbating. Christie panics and says no. She is a “sexual anorexic” who chases unavailable or unattractive partners and avoids intimacy while having sex. While Christie talks through her hesitance to report her masturbation to Patrice, Rory and Dr. Rosen help her ask for an easier prescription. She is to call Patrice before and after taking a bath.

Dr. Rosen asks when she last said no to something, and Christie remembers times when she has been too acquiescent. A high-school boyfriend shoved her head under the covers toward his groin. A college friend talked her into helping her move from Texas to Colorado. A boss took advantage of her willingness to work. She said yes in order to people-please.

Christie hates bathing, but she does it. She calls Patrice and gets in a tub. She confronts her own body and realizes that other people don’t hate their bodies. She begins to consider the idea that hating hers isn’t the only way to have a relationship with it.

Marty brings an urn to group and reveals that he’s been holding on to it for a patient who lost a child and then died. It holds the remains of the child. At Dr. Rosen’s invitation to pass the urn on to another member of the group, he picks Christie.

She accepts, reluctantly, realizing that Dr. Rosen wants her to face the death of her friend’s father in Hawaii.

Marty brings in his cyanide pills, and Dr. Rosen calls for a field trip to the bathroom. He says a kaddish (Jewish prayer of mourning), and members of the group say L’chaim.

Christie is invited to share her Hawaii story.

This chapter is devoted to the story of Christie’s friend’s father, David, dying in Hawaii. David had taken the kids—Christie, her friend, and her friend’s brother—to a secluded beach behind a “Do Not Enter” sign. Christie tries to swim, but the undertow keeps her head underwater. She fights her way to the surface and makes it to the beach, where she and her friend decide to sunbathe. They notice the father’s surfboard and a white shape in the waves beside it. Once it’s close enough, they haul him to shore and start to administer CPR, according to their best guess with no training. A lot of water comes out of his mouth and nose, but he never breathes. Christie runs up the path to get help. She finds some golfers, who run down to the beach, and a family. The father goes to the beach while the mother gives Christie a root beer and waves down a highway-patrol car. Before long, everyone returns from the beach with haunted expressions, and a helicopter flies out with a body bag dangling from a rope.

Christie comes to group expecting the accolades of finally sharing this story but ends up feeling abandoned by a two-week vacation Dr. Rosen is taking. The session continues with other people sharing until Christie lets out a primal wail. Dr. Rosen pushes her to unpack it, and she admits that she’s anxious about him going on a beach trip to Mexico.

She flashes back to the beginning of her freshman year, when she exhibited signs of grief—sleep, disinterest, lack of engagement, apathy, and other symptoms. Her parents asked her to try to be normal and act happy. Christie took on these coping methods, supplemented by her bingeing and purging, to emotionally suppress her experience in Hawaii.

Dr. Rosen invites Christie to share about the aftermath of David’s death. She remembers being at the cold police station in her swimsuit and the car ride home. They got lost and were silent; a tape by the Cure played while a beautiful Hawaiian sunset streamed by. David’s wife saw the three of them on the doorstep and immediately started crying out, “No! No! No!” (80). Christie hid in the bathtub while the three family members held each other and screamed.

Remembering the sound now, Christie freezes and starts to consider the possibility of healing from Hawaii for the very first time. Dr. Rosen pushes her by making her repeat “I did not kill David” and “It is not my fault he died” (81).

Christie realizes that suppressing this memory has kept her from connecting with people and that she’ll always have to face the possibility of loss and the triggering effect of beach vacations. At the end of group, everyone hugs her a little longer and tighter than usual.

This chapter begins with Christie realizing that getting a job after law school would be complicated due to an economic downturn. Her internship was supposed to guarantee a position, but they didn’t have spots for everyone like they usually did. She learns of a position at Skadden, “the Harvard of law firms” (84). Dr. Rosen encourages her to apply there. She is invited to interview and picks out an outfit.

During the interview, she meets with multiple partners and goes to lunch with junior associates. They get rich, meaty, greasy tapas, and she eats and enjoys the meal—no cabbage, apple, or canned meats in sight. Walking home, she feels like she could be a top-tier lawyer.

She gets offers from Skadden and the firm where she interned. She asks herself if she wants to be top tier or second tier. She accepts the offer from Skadden and a surprise offer to move in with a friend from law school. She reflects that if she dies in the next year, she won’t be alone.

At group, Christie exults in her close friendship with Carlos. Dr. Rosen says, “Pray for a fight,” as a test of intimacy. Christie realizes that she’s never fought or been angry with anyone and wonders if that means she hasn’t been intimate either.

When Carlos is invited to attend a men’s group, Christie is jealous. She asks Dr. Rosen to call her to talk about it. He doesn’t, and days go by. She calls the friend who recommended Dr. Rosen, and Dr. Rosen calls the friend while Christie is on the phone with her. The friend calls Christie back and says Dr. Rosen was talking her through a conflict with some contractors. Christie calls Dr. Rosen and yells at him, but he still doesn’t call her.

At group, he plays the voicemail, and they all congratulate Christie on getting mad. She is embarrassed, but Dr. Rosen encourages her to keep going.

Christie has a sex dream about Luther Vandross. She exults in this manifestation of her sex drive and her lack of shame or oppression about it. When she gets to group, Dr. Rosen claims that the dream is about him. Christie resists, but he says being resistant “[is] the gravest therapeutic transgression” (97). She gives in and sarcastically describes how much she wants Dr. Rosen. He tells her it’s time to add another group since she’s willing to explore these new avenues of intimacy. She thinks about the odd things Dr. Rosen asks her and others to do and isn’t sure she’s ready for more. Then he invites her to join Marnie’s women’s group. She’s nervous about the potential rejection of any group of women but decides to join anyway.