by Nicholas Hack, Psy.D.

LOOKING AWAY

I’ve had my eye on a print for my office for some time. In it, the artist, Celeste Mountjoy, has drawn a small bird with a big, blue eye staring at a tall, carboard box. The colors are primary and the drawing is rudimentary. Across the majority of the piece, Mountjoy’s thoughts are written in bold, capitalized letters: THE BOX WAS EMPTY WITH NOT ONE THING TO OFFER ME. I COULDN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF IT FOR YEARS.

I’ve seen the print at least a dozen times and it still gives me an “Oof” feeling in my stomach when I read those words. The piece brushes up against something deeply personal and deeply lived.

It also speaks to an experience I see many patients living with. Week after week, year after year, all they can talk about is their empty box. Whether their box is in the present or lies deep in the past, it offers them nothing and yet… they simply can’t look away. 

Of course, we talk about it: What’s being repeated and what do they get out of this setup? What do they fantasize will happen if they stare at the box long enough? What are they having trouble saying goodbye to? Or/and/maybe/also, what experience are we having together that they can’t tolerate having alone? I think about Ogden’s much-referenced idea, that it takes two minds to think one’s disturbed thoughts. 

But talking seems to fall short. Something about this experience – I couldn’t take my eyes off it for years – speaks to a register deeper than words. Whether I’m on the couch or I’m in the chair my normal refuge of insight doesn’t seem to help. It doesn’t change the gaze. I do experience it as necessary in the short term: it’s the cotton balls we eat to fill our stomach. But momentary relief quickly gives way to a deeper hunger and our eyes return to the box still sitting there, still empty.

This is a place I seem to find myself more and more often. Increasingly aware when we encounter each other on a level deeper and more primitive than the verbal, I am left wondering how to help. When you experience ravenous, pained hunger, is it helpful to gain insight? As I sit milk-less across the room/Zoom, is it more useful to simply be together, cooing and babbling back and forth? 

Framing it as an analytic act of freedom, I’ve ordered the print for my office. It will likely turn some people off while captivating others. Now the big question is where to hang it. I want to place it somewhere that we can both see, but I have a little worry: once I put it up, will I be able to take my eyes off it?