FRI APR 11

I returned Nat’s picture. He went straight for the one miniscule crease I had accidentally made in it, and I had to apologise profusely. He still seemed quite excited about Blitzein although I didn’t raise that subject. I tried to question him once more about sexuality, and yet again this proved futile. Not everyone can discuss sex, even in this day and age. I don’t think that there’s anything seriously amiss with the youth. He may just have a low sex drive, or more likely be a “late developer”, to use the words of his mother. Nat does not actively denounce the erotic principle, but rather has channelled his energies into weirdness: into staving off or indulging in “doom-laden” feelings, and into his macabre dabblings.

TUE APR 15

The fifth primal session with Nat. Early evening. It took him a long time to become relaxed. Eventually he curled up tight, into a ball. And then came the screaming which, for once, caught me unawares, because it was quite normal. He continually threw himself about the floor, whilst I softened his painful path by discreetly placing cushions at the salient points. Just as it seemed that this mode of behaviour would last the whole session, he stretched out. His previously tightly shut eyes began to twitch and he snatched glimpses of my head and torso silhouetted by the setting sun, towering over his prostrate body. Suddenly he began to wince and shun my form. I asked him what he perceived this to mean. No reply. He continued wincing. This was interspersed occasionally with short, more relaxed periods until the end of the session. Usually it is me that determines the session’s termination point, but this time Nat just sat bolt upright, fully awake.

Nat was able to verbalise his experience. He simply felt he could not tolerate the presence of a lurking figure. He knew perfectly well it was not my small frame that had made him so fearful and that dual consciousness had supplied him with a traumatic memory. Nat traced this horrific recollection to the one day he had spent in a nursery run by nuns. I think that this memory dates from further back, but not as far back as birth. When he had returned from the nursery, he had begged his parents never to send him again to those “witches”. He had mentioned this to me before, but I had forgotten.

WED APR 16

I dropped in at Nat’s between house calls, to ensure that he had not suffered any adverse effects from yesterday’s trip into his formative era. He seemed okay, but it’s hard to tell. Certainly his dental hygiene has improved, and consequently his smile was pleasing; less of a baring of teeth in animal aggression—the green grin, as I called it—than of late. He looks well, still persisting with the walks, even if they do centre around the churchyard. At least he doesn’t appear to spend so much time in his awful aumbries, although he remains reticent on this topic.