Kevin, Lucy and Therapy


Kevin is in his office; the phone rings.

Kevin: "Dr. Collins."

Lucy: "Well, Dr. Collins, hello. This is Lucy Coe. What are you doing? Are you busy uncovering some repressed childhood memories or something?"

Kevin: "No, actually, I've finished with that for the day. I'm moving on to the hidden meaning behind recurring nightmares."

Lucy: "Mmm, and what do you do for fun?"

Kevin: "I depend on you. So what can I do for you, Lucy? Do you need my services as a dinner companion again?"

Lucy: "Um, actually, this time I'm interested in your professional services."

Kevin: "Mmm, how disappointing."

Lucy: "Why, Doctor, if I didn't know any better, I would think you're becoming an incorrigible flirt."

Kevin: "Mmm, yes, and it's working so well, too. I have a cancel lation this afternoon. You're welcome to the time."

Lucy: "Aha. Sold. If you can help me make sense of this turmoil I'm in I'd be eternally grateful."

Kevin: "Well, actually, I hate gratitude. It's intangible and ultimately unsatisfying."

Lucy: "Mmm. Well, what could I do for you that would please you more?"

Kevin: "Well, since it looks like we're about to embark on a doctor- patient journey, maybe it's best I keep that to myself."

Lucy: "I could always find another shrink."

Kevin: "Now would be the time."

Lucy: "Um, no, as a matter of fact, no, that wouldn't work at all. Only you can do. I think that you're the only person I know that's an intellectual match for this person who is giving me a fit."

A little later, Lucy arrives at Kevin's office. He greets her and takes her coat.

Lucy: "It was awfully nice of you to see me on such short notice."

Kevin: "Time spent with you is never wasted, Lucy."

Lucy: "Well, what a lovely thing to say. You know, that's what I find so refreshing about you - you know how to make a woman feel very special, unlike a lot of the rubes around town."

Kevin: "So, what seems to be the problem?"

Lucy: "You know, I think it's upbringing. Upbringing's gotta be it. Because, you know, Europeans just seem to be so much more civilized than their American counterparts."

Kevin: "No, I was referencing your problem. The one that brought you here?"

Lucy: "That's it? This is what we do? We just sort of leap in like that? You know, I'm not really familiar with the rules of psycho- analysis or anything. Maybe I should have bought a book, you know."

Kevin: "Well, there really are no ru - "

Lucy: "I've never really considered therapy before; I don't think I've ever really needed it. You know what I do is I just grab the bull by the horns, and I wrestle him to the ground, and throw him down and I just walk on my prob - well, not that I really have that many problems, you know, not really."

Kevin: "Lucy, there's really no reason to be nervous."

Lucy: "I do that, don't I? I sort of chatter on when I get a little bit nervous. You know, Doc, you're very good at this."

Kevin: "Well, thank you. Who knows? Some day I might have to make a career of it."

(Lucy gets up and starts to nervously walk around. Kevin waits for a while, and then says:)

Kevin: "You can start anywhere - beginning, middle, or end. I'll piece it together somehow."

Lucy: "You know, on second thought, maybe this is all a big mistake. I mean, after all, we do sort of know each other. We went out to dinner and we had a date, and, I mean, here I am gonna spill my innermost thoughts and feelings. I don't know - what if you used it against me or something?"

Kevin: "Well, first of all, let's not labor under any illusions about dinner. It was a means to an end, and we both know it."

Lucy: "How very rude of you to bring it up again."

Kevin: "I like to call them as I see them...secondly...."

Lucy: "Gee, I hate to hear 'secondly.'"

Kevin: "Secondly, I take my responsibilities as a professional very seriously. What transpires within these walls is privileged. It not only would be unethical, it would be morally reprehensible for me to use it in any way that hasn't been specifically designed for your therapy, and only then with your approval and full cooperation."

Lucy: "I guess this is the part where you stop flirting with me, huh?"

Kevin: "That's right."

Lucy: "I really am tempted to leave."

Kevin: "I'm flattered."

Lucy: "I'm kind of serious here. I mean, what if, you know, I fell madly and passionately in love with you or something?"

Kevin: "Transference. I'll tell you what. If we reach a point where we decide it's best to terminate our professional relationship in deference to our personal one, we'll deal with that when we get there. But, in the meantime, you're here. Obviously some- thing's troubling you. Let's see if I can help you."

Lucy: "Should I lie down or something?"

Kevin: "Only if you want to."

Lucy: "I don't think I'd better touch that, huh?"

Kevin: "Uh uh."

Lucy: "Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Here goes, here we go. See, what I'm having here, I think is, it's a moral dilemma. No, no, it's bigger than that. It's like good vs. evil, you know, and I know you've been there because you have that twin, you know, a homicidal sociopathic twin."

(Kevin's face developed a closed expression the moment Lucy mentioned Ryan. He listens with growing discomfort and annoyance as she continues.)

Lucy: "So it's this dilemma that, well, it's created this question in my mind, and I keep going over and over it in my mind, and I keep trying to get it out, but it just keeps ringing in my ears. Can someone who is handsome and attractive and charming and seemingly normal and desirable on the outside be evil and twisted and all gnarled up inside his soul? And, you know, I've been wracking my brain about this and wracking my brain, and then today - boom! - it hit me. Who would know better than you? I mean, Ryan was evil personified. I mean, everybody in town knows he's the closest thing to the devil that Port Charles has certainly ever seen, and you, you walked right up to the gates of Hell and looked him right in the eye, and well, you came out on the other side. And I want to know what you saw. What was it? I mean, what did it look like? Did he have this dark heart that you could see sometimes, or only when he knew you weren't looking? And was it just pure and simple evil, or what is it, you know, what do people do, put something on something - project. Did you see something that you thought was there, and that made you really see it and think it was there?"

Kevin: "Let me get this straight. Am I to understand you've come here to question me about Ryan? Because I have my own analyst for that."

Lucy: "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

Kevin: "If you're trying to tell me you think you've encountered darkness, then let's concentrate on what your experience might have been, and leave mine out of it. Can we do that?"

(Lucy is momentarily nonplussed by Kevin's angry response and just stares at him. Then she recovers:)

Lucy: "Is it your common bedside manner to bite your patients' head off, Dr. Collins?"

Kevin: "Not as a rule, but, then, my patients usually don't presume that my personal life is grist for their therapeutic mill."

Lucy: "Well, you don't have to get huffy; I was just making an analogy. Big deal."

Kevin: "Let's set some ground rules, shall we? First of all, whatever went on between me and my brother is not and will not become a topic of speculation or conversation in this setting. It is not open to analogies or comparisons, or even a way to pass the time. Do we understand each other?"

Lucy: "Fine."

Kevin: "Good. Then why don't we start over."

Lucy: "Don't you want to rap my little knuckles first?"

Kevin: "Only if you like that sort of thing."

Lucy: "You know, you are strange. Very interesting, but strange."

Kevin: "Yeah, but obviously not interesting enough. Why don't you tell me about the man who is."

Lucy: "Okay, okay, it all started as this bet. You know, it's a sort of complicated, very, very long story. You see, this man wants some thing, desperately wants something that I have. Is it important that you know what it is?"

Kevin: "Is it germane to the problem?"

Lucy: "I don't think so."

Kevin: "Then go on."

Lucy: "All right. Well, this thing that this man wants, I like. I find it amuses me, and I don't want to part with it, I don't want to sell it, and he just refuses, he's so full of - he just refuses to take 'no' for an answer. So somehow in talking we came up with this wager, you know, to work this whole thing out, and we bet that he couldn't seduce the woman of my choice. Boy, this sounds weird, doesn't it, I mean, here describing it for you, it sounds really silly and far-fetched. But, you see, I was looking for this distraction at the time. I have been in a very rather low place in my life. In fact, I don't think I've ever been more depressed, and so I was just looking for some way, you know, to get out and do new things and meet people, because I knew that if I stopped and thought about what I had lost, I would just go into a corner and curl up and die."

Kevin: "Is that after Scott left town with your baby?"

(Lucy had been fighting tears during the last part of her speech; at this gentle question of Kevin's, she loses the fight.)

Kevin: "What is it?"

Lucy: "You said, 'your baby.' You know, you called Serena my baby. Nobody's ever done that before, you know, said it out loud. See, I'm not - she's really not mine, actually. I'm what you call a 'gestational host'."

Kevin: "Lucy, the heart isn't capable of making that fine a distinction. You gave her life. She feels like your child."

Lucy: "Thank you for understanding." (She dabs her eyes with a tissue and regains control.) "Okay, okay, so anyway here's this man, you know; I'm using him for distraction, and he is just so arrogant and so sure of himself. So I want to knock him down a peg or two, right? So I pick this woman that I think is totally unavailable. I mean, she has a whole life, you know - kids and a husband, and she's a regular Heloise. But I come to find out she has everybody bamboozled. I can't believe how easy she turns out to be; I would really like to just strangle her scrawny little neck."

Kevin: "Well, let's try and narrow the focus, shall we? Concentrate on what's really troubling you. Three possibilities come to mind: (a) you're disappointed because the illusions you've had of this man are in the process of being shattered; (b) you're afraid you'll lose the bet and therefore you'll lose your source of amusement; or (c) you're afraid that this man and woman might actually find something together, therefore effectively shutting you out of his life."

Lucy: "Boy oh boy, you don't really go for those easy answers, do you?"

Kevin: "That's the general idea."

Lucy: "All right, well, if I'm to be honest, there is perhaps, maybe a teeny weeny bit of truth in all those answers. But I think I'm most afraid for the woman."

Kevin: "Why?"

Lucy: "Because she doesn't know what is about to happen, you know, she doesn't know what kind of person she's dealing with. It's like she's a lamb and she's being led off to slaughter. You know, this man is so cold and so calculating and so evil. He doesn't care about anything - about her life, that he's about to destroy it. All he cares about is some theory or some idea about purity being overcome by concentration or something. You know, I don't quite - I can't grasp it because it's so horrible I don't even want to wrap my mind around it. It's like this train wreck is coming, you know, it's rumbling down the tracks, and it's coming, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. People are going to get really hurt, and the worst part of this - I set it into motion."

Kevin: "Well, there is one fairly obvious solution. You simply go to the woman and tell her."

Lucy: "Oh, no, no. No. No, no. I couldn't do that."

Kevin: "Why not?"

Lucy: "Because, then my involvement would come out, you know, and every- body would hate me - again. You know, I don't really fool myself that they like me that much now, but at least when I walk down the street I can hold my head up. And I can go into Kelly's, you know, or the Grill, and they actually take my order, which is something that I have clawed and scraped to get back. No, I can't go back to that way of life at all. Besides, he would probably never forgive me."

Kevin: "And that matters to you, despite your reservations about him."

Lucy: "You know, I think maybe I'd better book another hour."

Main Transcript Page        Home