Dr Barry Langstrom, distinguished psychiatrist, and host of tonight's affair, takes the podium in the luxurious Schaumburg conference room; he straightens his bow tie and buttons the top button on his best pin stripe suit, takes off his glasses pausing momentarily to use his handkerchief to wipe the light sweat out of his grey-green eyes, he checks his glasses and blows some quick breaths against them wiping off the grime and replacing them on his aquiline nose, stopping to make a quick head count, smiling - for the first time all week he has a full house. The turn out had been disappointing this year. The psychology department at the University of Chicago had broken the cardinal rule of "Never schedule a conference in February in the Chicago area"- everyone is heading for points Caribbean.

He looks out at his distinguished colleagues who are picking at cheese cakes and tortes, raising white china cups to dry lips sipping what must be their fifth or sixth cup of coffee for the day. They appear to be enjoying lively "shop talk". The table in front he notes is not well paired. He told his assistant "to never put the existentialists with the pseudo-Freudians -always results in some heated exchange". He raises his eyebrows at the sixty something-grey bearded- Freudian professor sitting to the left of the podium. Dr Brighton's bald head is bright red, he is handily mashing his cheese cake with his fork and gesticulating in a provocative and rather loud manner at Dr Johnson who is sitting as far back from the table as possible apparently not noticing that he has inadvertently stuffed the table-cloth into his pants with his napkin creating a small white ski slope complete with a rather large mogul from his chest to the table. His arms are crossed; his face is pale, and his temples are clearly pulsating. "Academics" he scoffs, under his breath, glaring over at his assistant who is clearly enjoying the show.

It's been a long week to say the least, but it has all been worth it if he gets to spend the evening in Mary Kay's company. He knew he had manipulated the board insisting she be invited- but he didn't care. It was six years since she moved to Los Vegas and not a day had gone by where he did not think of her smile, her wicked laugh, or the way she filled out those damn black leather chaps, Oh my God! Like some mechanics wet-dream- She'd stride across the room in a pair of black riding boots, tossing back her long blonde pony-tail - escaped from its neat bun, smiling happily on the way out to the parking lot to ride off on her pan-head. The woman drove a '56 pan-head…how cool is that? The other psychiatrists thought it was undignified- hell the patients never saw her come in or leave or if they did-they never complained, they may be crazy but they ain't stupid ­jealousy-pure and simple. Besides, he reasoned, she is a damn fine therapist. Most of his colleagues, to his dismay, had all but given up on doing any kind of therapy; abandoning it for the quick and lucrative medication management route-leave the therapy to the social workers and the occasional psychologist. Mary Kay was indeed the exception- expensive and intensive- but worth every penny. To his estimation, she embodied the heart and soul of the practice. She saw her job as guiding people back to themselves, to discovering what they already knew but have buried, to help them in their journey to become more self-aware. She was not big on medications, which pissed off the rest of the psychiatrists in their group who where heavily into clinical research and had half the pharmacy reps on speed dial.

Now he stood at the podium waiting for her arrival. She had 15 minutes to curtain and he hadn't seen her yet. He wondered if she cut her hair, if she was still as lovely, as athletic, as petite… he wondered if she thought of him at all…remembering they were colleagues and almost lovers, he felt his heart ache for what may have been had he not been such a workaholic and so fearful afraid of losing himself in her-to give himself to anyone fully- he wanted to tell her he'd changed- he was afraid it was too late. He watches the back of the room where the AV guy sits perched over two lap tops, he raises a finger for a sound check… then he sees her… she is wearing a very nicely tailored aqua suit and matching heels, her hair is rolled to the side in back in a pearl clip, looking even more lovely than he remembered, she is walking from the corner of the room toward him and she is smiling. "Good sign" he says out loud and his assistant giggles at him.

"Hey Barry" she says smiling brightly.

"Hey yourself," he stammers a little, trying not to stare at her, "You ready for this?"

"Always…sorry my flight was late… I hope you haven't had to tell any of your "famous antidotes" to keep the natives from getting restless."

"No, they got off easy tonight" he says grinning.

Mary Kay looks over at table left of the podium and leans into Barry taking his arm. Barry almost faints from the electricity.

"I thought that blowhard Brighton died years ago- is he going to be able to keep his mouth shut during my lecture?"

"Oh, I think he will, he's a sucker for a pretty face."

May Kay smacks Barry's arm and says "Let's get this over with I'm dying for a scotch."

Barry stands at the podium and clears his voice. He raises a partially filled water glass and clinks a butter-knife against it, he begins his introduction.

"Good evening everyone and welcome back to the closing night of our conference on the Psychology of Alienation tonight it is my pleasure to introduce Dr Mary Kay Hammond, friend, colleague and world renown expert in the field of psychotherapy… "

Mary Kay gathers her notes grinning just a little at his words…

He continues "for those who have read her recent book "On Becoming in a Time of Lost Community" you have no need to hear me speak her praises. For those of you who haven't you will note it is listed in the recommended references."

This last comment brings some laughter and Barry smiles.

"Dr Hammond flew in from sunny Los Vegas to honor us up here in chilly Chicago… to share her knowledge and therapeutic techniques…"Barry blathers on for a few moments extolling on her various virtues, the power of her techniques and so on. He glances over at Mary Kay whose slight frown indicates he has maybe gone a little too far… He quickly changes course. "So without further ado let me give this podium over to Dr. Hammond. Please give a warm welcome to Dr. Mary Kay Hammond."

Polite if not enthusiastic applause ensues as Mary Kay takes over the podium. She quickly takes the portable microphone and clips it to her lapel walking out in front of the podium, much to the pleasure of Dr. Brighton whose face now a different shade of red.

Mary Kay begins with a very succinct recap of the entire week's conference, which surprises Barry since she did not attend. She appears to know everyone's shtick front and back. She summarizes, compiles, and synthesizes arriving back to herself and her own eclectic views- combining enough of everyone's cherished principles that none could take umbrage and all found her equally satisfying. Dr's Brighton and Johnson both beamed happily. Barry found himself a bit awed by her ability to have them feeding out of her hand.

Mary Kay directs her lecture to every table and reads their expressions noting that they all feel appropriately validated. She smiles. She asks Barry to bring a chair to the front of the stage so she can be seated for her next segment. The AV technician quickly light the chair and shows a slide titled Therapeutic Approaches to Freeing the Subconscious: Alienation and the Disowned Self.

Mary Kay steps over to the chair placing her hands against its back. "I hope you don't mind if I have a seat I see you are all seated and I believe in making myself comfortable when describing the more intimate aspects of my practice." The audience nods their approval and Mary Kay sits and leans in to her audience creating a sense of drama. This of course causes her audience to lean in and match her body language years of psychiatric practice and counseling having created a universal body memory of matching or creating openness in most, and years of watching live drama registering in the rest.

Mary Kay begins We've talked at length about how one depersonalizes their emotions, how emotions are value statements, how actions become registers and how these registers can prevent us from becoming an actualized human being. Now let me change gears here… there is that time when we all face ourselves and judge some can look within and acknowledge the need for growth and take those steps on their own, some look without for answers because they have mislead themselves for so long that they have literally disowned large portions of their emotional life. It is at this point that I may happen upon them, sitting across from me as you are right now. It then becomes my work to assist them in breaking down their defenses. One does not do this lightly, when an adult patient lets down their defenses, and permits themselves to fully experience their emotions, they open the floodgates to whatever pain or trauma they have experienced in the past- this can be terrifying for the patient. It is very common, when I am applying techniques meant to assist a patient in dealing with present emotions, the patient will experience a sudden rearing childhood memories- often excruciating or traumatic- and these emotions are explosive and as real and raw as if they just happened 5 minutes ago. We must be constantly aware of where a patient is emotionally, and while encouraging we must not leave a patient defenseless. We must know when to support, when to stop, and when to debrief. This is a practiced technique." Mary Kay looks wearily over at the table of academics silently praying they will not try this on their grad students.

"The following case which I will describe in some, detail will illustrate many of the principles which I have previously detailed: The patient was a man of fifty, a very dedicated and successful criminologist, who had had a few relationships with women but had never until a few months before coming to see me had never been or allowed himself to be in love."

Barry takes note and swallows hard wondering what she's playing at…

"In former affairs", Mary Kay says ignoring Barry's look of dismay which is searing into her cheek, "he had always enjoyed a sense of power and control which he derived mostly from the knowledge that the women were much younger and far more deeply involved than he was. He found it exhilarating in fact, that younger women adored or even hero worshiped him. At times he wondered if his inability to give himself wholly to anyone had to do with some sort of deficiency on his part but he was able to quickly push these thoughts aside. He told himself that what he wanted primarily from women was "physical only" and that passion was something to be reserved for his work. He described himself in his relationships as being honest, romantic, and considerate, never cruel, and if he found himself being distant or callous, he quickly regretted it and reproached himself." Mary Kay glances at Barry in that "How do you like me now" kind of way of hers, Barry reddens.

"A few months prior to our first session, he began to recognize that he had in fact developed a strong attraction for a woman he had worked with for almost 20 years. He expressed that she was someone he always admired, thought of as his equal if not better, but had never thought of seeing. She seemed unattainable to him, too beautiful, too sure of herself, too challenging, and his chances of rejection were high ­ "he didn't like the odds" he said. But he found himself quite by happy accident of friendship- seeing more and more of her as a relationship he had with a younger woman from the same office was faltering - soon he found himself feeling as though he was in love with her. Yet, during the first month of their love-relationship he twice slept with the younger woman. He was ashamed of this- not just for what it did to his new relationship but that "it led the other woman on". He couldn't explain his behavior to himself he described it as "an insane impulse." He told the woman he loved of his actions and though while hurt, and concerned about her career and their work environment, she forgave him and told him she was convinced of his love for her… It was her reaction, to his estimation that precipitated his current emotional crisis…..

TBC