As the play opens, a complicated but compelling perspective from which to view the power and influence of interpersonal relationships is presented. We are challenged to consider that reality is not so much fixed in the temporal world of existence, but the phenomenological world of perception. Presented as a "play within a play," in the opening scene we see Cervantes, the original author of the Quixotic tale, proffering his intent to "impersonate a man" and beckoning the audience to "enter into my imagination and see him, bonny, hollow faced, eyes that burn with the fire of inner vision." We are invited by the storyteller to consider a protagonist who has "conceived the strangest project ever imagined...to be a knight arrant and sally forth into the world righting all wrongs...” The most memorable number in the musical is Quixote's declaration of intent in, "The Impossible Dream." At one point in the piece, he intones, "...this is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far. To fight for the right, without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause. And I know if I only be true to this glorious quest, that my heart will lay peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest. And the world will be better for this, that one man, scorned and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable star." Wow...that sounds something like the passion I felt when called to the counseling profession almost 30 years ago and often hear echoed in the comments of those 'best and brightest' students I now train as counselors.
I realize this is a play and therefore, by definition, not real. I also concede that any counselor who 'sallys forth into the world in order to right all wrongs' is as appropriate for therapy as any client - and likely would do more harm than good if attempting to deliver therapy. But Cervantes' opening monologue, for me anyway, amounts to a declaration of the importance of professional identity. If a counselor ever hopes to make the transition from perceiving counseling as 'job' to embracing it as 'vocation,' it is a sense of professional identity that serves as the catalyst for this metamorphosis. While accepting, a long time ago, that I cannot "save" anyone as a counselor, try as I may, I have also learned that with equal parts of patience, persistence, perseverance, and passion (pardon the alliteration) I just might be able to make the difference in the lives of some with whom I work that facilitates a similar metamorphosis - a defensible working definition of counseling I might add.
And if Don Quixote de La Mancha is a plausible 'poster boy' for professional counseling, then Aldonza, the "strumpet" whom Don Quixote encounters on his journey and perceives as the "Lady Dulcinea," is the quintessential client. In her exasperation with continually being referred to as "my lady" by Quixote, Aldonza explodes in rage and confronts Quixote's greeting with, "I'm not 'my lady,' I'm not any kind of a lady" and launches into what may well be one of the most self-deprecating disclosures in all of modern literature. "I was spawned in a ditch, by a mother who left me there, naked and cold and too hungry to cry...so of course I became what befitted my delicate birth, the most casual bride of the murdering scum of the earth." And Quixote persists through the self-depreciation to refer to Aldonza as "my lady" to which she thinks aloud, "...and still he torments me..." and queries, "...how should I be a lady?" and then returns to song with her perception of what constitutes a lady. This perception only serves to further justify her perception that she is not only no lady, but could never, under any circumstances, become a lady. "Won't you look at me, look at me, God, won't you look at me. Look at the kitchen slut reeking of sweat. Born on a dung heap to die on a dung heap; a strumpet men use and forget." Quixote then exhorts, "Never to die, thou art Dulcinea" and she admonishes him, once again, ending with what many effective counselors have experienced as, perhaps, the most stinging of client retorts to a clinical rejection of expressed self-pity and loathing, "of all the grown devils who badgered and battered me, you are the cruelest of all." The client defensiveness that necessitates lashing out and attacking, to borrowing from Rogers, the unconditional positive regard proffered by the counselor, is an all too frequent response of the client who has become all too comfortable with, although loathing to a point of suicidality, the hatred of self and resulting anger that is a shroud to protect against the despair that follows if allowing oneself to accept the possibility that life can hold meaning, even for an "Aldonza." Frankl spoke of something very much like this when attempting to explain why some victims of the Holocaust managed to survive the death camps, while others succumbed, ceasing even to exist as humans, even while still drawing breath. Just as he cited Nietzsche's dictum, "That which does not kill me, strengthens me," so are we admonished by Quixote's call to consider self, spawned of the misperceived realities of life, from a different perspective.
Aldonza confronts Quixote with her ability to handle the constant stream of abuse and degradation she has come to expect because of its consistency with her self-perception and expectations of life in general. She suggests, however, that what she cannot bear is Quxiote's tenderness and invitation to view herself as a fully functioning person rather than the continue in the role for which she has been miscast, yet has accepted. It seems to me that client's rebel in much the same way against the efforts of their therapists to embrace them as individuals while helping them change the maladaptive behaviors that prompted the flight to counseling in the first place. While it may be Quixote's insanity in the script that clouds his vision and presents a view of Aldonza as the Lady Dulcinea, it is likely, at least in part, that in counseling it is the practitioner's faith in the inherent goodness of humankind that prompts the decision to reach out to the "Aldonzas" of this world as they forcefully insist that, "I'm only Aldonza. I'm no one. I'm nothing at all."
Just as Quixote refuses to accept Aldonza's rejoinder - "Now, and forever, thou art my Lady Dulcinea" - it is the relationship established by the effective counselor, regardless of theoretical orientation, and the gentle yet persistent refutation of the irrational belief that one cannot change, that results in the eventual flash of insight that prompts progress in a client's therapy. As Beck effectively argues, all therapy is cognitive in that any change in behavior can only occur when there has been a change in one's thinking or as I opine, a change in one's perception of reality.
In the closing scene of the play, Don Quixote lies dying and is comforted by "Dulcinea." As she comforts him she intones, "...please, try to remember. You looked at me and called me by another name...Dulcinea" and re-sings Quixote's earlier greeting to her when first they met. But there is one subtle but powerful difference in Dulcinea's rendition...it is sung in the first person as she implores "...won't you bring me back the bright and shining glory of Dulcinea...Dulcinea." In effect, Aldonza has become the Lady Dulcinea who has always resided inside. Some might argue the "lady" resides in the heart, others, in her beliefs, still others, her perceptions. Regardless of "where" the Lady Dulcinea resided, the fact remains that it was Quixote's patient, persistent, passionate perseverance that afforded the opportunity for the "Lady" to emerge. Like the frustrate shopping-mall patron who gazes into a two dimensional piece of art displayed in a kiosk advertising "three dimensional works of art," clients become angry when they cannot see what has been promised even though it is just beyond their perception. But as the third dimension explodes into view with coaching from the kiosk's proprietor, so do clients "see" the added dimensions of their lives with much the same dazzling flash of insight. To paraphrase Clarence, the guardian angle in the closing scenes of the 1946 Capra classic "you see George, you really have had a wonderful life."
My grandfather used to say, "Whether you knock at the front door, or sneak in the back, it is just as warm by the fire." Choose your method of approach - Logo Therapy, Person-Center, CBT, Behavioral, whatever - but never forget for a moment the power of the relationship between client and practitioner, or, again quoting my grandfather, "you've got to cut a hole in the ice before you can catch any fish."
My warmest of holidays wishes of peace to you in the coming year.
Robert