Sometimes these psychological shifts result in a dead relative possessing us without our realizing it, prompting us to seek reparation. In these cases, instead of struggling against those urges that we feel to be alien, we should submit to them. One man, with a face as inexpressive as if carved in stone, was deserted by his wife, who left him after giving birth to their daughter and returned to her parental home after one year of marriage. Her mother had done the same thing: right after giving birth, she had abandoned her husband and returned to the parental home. The man was suffering because he loved his wife and wanted her back. He thought that his wife had gotten bored of him because of his taciturn nature. I advised him to hire a band of mariachis and go to serenade his wife in the Mexican style. When his wife’s mother had returned to her parents, her proud husband had never gone looking for her. What she was asking for was proof of love. “Your wife is possessed by her mother and is repeating her act, hoping that finally her husband will behave like a man in love. You should also go dressed in traditional mariachi costume. It’s not really about you seducing your wife; it’s about her father seducing her mother.”
When a problem seems to have no solution because the client admits that he or she is the culprit and, out of repentance, feeling unable to repair the fault, brings about an illness, an economic or emotional failure, or a suicidal obsession, I turn to the concept that the “crimes” can be paid for. During the uprising against foreigners in Algeria, a son of French parents who had settled there watched from his bedroom window as his father and mother left the house, started their car, and were blown up by a bomb placed there by the revolutionaries. Instead of suffering, he began to laugh, feeling liberated from these narcissistic, intolerant, cold parents. Years later he came to see me, overwhelmed by guilt. He could not accept that he had felt so inhumane about the beings that had given him life. I did not allow myself to excuse his action by telling him that the person who had laughed was his badly mistreated inner child. Instead, I affirmed his guilt. Then I advised him to make a financial sacrifice by buying two very expensive jewels, traveling to Algeria, and burying the precious gems exactly at the spot where the car had exploded, without letting anyone see. Thus the emotional debt would be paid.
Sometimes an unjust feeling of guilt can lead to a neurosis of failure. One woman had been told too many times by her parents, “When you were born, you created a problem for us: we were poor. Your arrival plunged us even further into financial difficulties.” I recommended that she exchange a five-hundred-franc note for the same amount in five-centime coins. Carrying this heavy weight in a bag at the level of her belly, she should walk along a main street scattering handfuls of coins as if they were seeds while thinking to herself, “I am giving wealth to the world.”
Another technique is to transfer the painful feeling to an object and then “give” it to whoever has done the damage. One woman consulted me because she felt she had a symbiotic relationship with her sister, who unceasingly gave her orders, taking control of her will. Although this sister had died of breast cancer, my client still felt owned by her and wanted to be released. I advised her to put a steel ball, such as those used for playing boules, into a leather bag and wear it around her neck day and night. “Resist that weight as much as possible, because it symbolizes your sister, and when you can no longer support it, go to see your mother and give her the ball, saying, “This object is not mine, it’s yours. I am giving it back to you. It would be good if you would bury it.” I explained that competitive relationships between siblings are caused by the instability of the parents.
A lesbian woman suffered because she did not feel at ease with her lover. She had been sexually repressed and often lacked sexual energy, although sex had worked well with her lover until her desire ceased because her lover constantly asked her to be perfect, as her mother had done before her. I advised her to steal some of her mother’s dirty clothes, dress her lover in them, lie in bed with her, and during sexual relations tear up these garments with rage while shouting, “I’m not perfect, and you’re not my mother!” Then she should give her lover a massage with rose-scented oil. After this, she should wrap the shredded clothes in white paper and tie up the package with a blue ribbon. In another package of black paper tied with a pink ribbon, she should wrap up a new dress. She should send both packages to her mother with a letter saying, “I do not know if you will understand this: I have destroyed your old dress to return it to you changed into a new one. Thank you.”
Another woman, very distressed, said that she was having terrible problems with her period. She felt as if she would never stop bleeding. After analyzing her family tree, I told her, “You are suffering the anguish of your mother. You are bleeding because of the kicks in the belly that your maternal grandfather gave to his wife when he found out she was pregnant again. She gave birth only to girls. You were supposed to have been a boy. You must return these kicks to your grandfather. Go to his grave with a calf fetus and a liter of artificial blood. Throw this cadaver on the slab and pour on the blood. Then kick the grave ferociously. Expel your grandmother’s rage from yourself. Then bury the calf fetus nearby and plant a beautiful plant with red flowers there.”
A person can be freed from a problem by breaking a record. To a woman who suffered from being twenty kilos overweight I recommended going into a butcher shop, buying twenty kilos of meat and bones, loading the package on her shoulders and walking twenty kilometers, ending up at a river where she would throw the package in. To a bank teller who had lost his will to live, I recommended traversing all of Italy, from one end to the other, on roller skates. To an old lady, an inconsolable widow, I advised going hang gliding accompanied by an instructor.
The problem of perfectionism can be cured by showing yourself as more imperfect than you are to whoever demands the perfection. A very young client, a student in film school, suffered because she demanded too much of herself. “As a child, I was never happy with what I did. This desire for perfection paralyzes me.” I advised her to make a short film, as short as possible. It should be badly directed, with poor cinematography, bad interpretation, and a stupid storyline told in absurd form. Then she should gather her family, show them this horror, and demand to be applauded and praised by all.
A man consulted me because he had made up his mind that no woman would love him if he were not perfect. He had a girlfriend whom he decided not to marry because of this. Despite all her demonstrations of affection, he believed that she was faking it because “how can it be possible for her to love such an imperfect man?” I advised him to study with a jeweler and learn to make rings, after which he should try to make the ugliest wedding ring in the world: if she consented to wear it on her finger, he would finally feel loved because his imperfection would be accepted.
If one is lacking a quality that one wants, one can imitate it. This reminds me of the story of a man who was desperate because his stubborn donkey refused to drink. Neither prayers nor blows could convince it. If this went on, the animal would die of thirst. His good neighbor offered to help him. The neighbor brought his own donkey, stood it next to the nondrinker, and gave it a bucketful of water, which the animal drank up with pleasure. Seeing this, the stubborn donkey, in the spirit of imitation, also began to drink. A young woman who had stopped having periods several years earlier due to emotional problems asked me what she should do. I advised her to buy artificial blood (such as is used in films), to inject it into her vagina once a month for three or four days, to use the appropriate hygiene products, and to continue imitating periods in this manner. Soon her real menstruation would return. This same phenomenon often occurs when a woman who cannot have children adopts a child. Thanks to the “imitation” of motherhood, to her surprise, she soon becomes pregnant.