A Miriam Kind of Therapist

By: Nancy Davidoff Kelton

August 2026 Issue

My first and last psychotherapists are deceased.  Several I saw in between them were not all that alive. Two did not even learn to nod in Psychotherapy 101 or from watching Bob Newhart nod as Dr. Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s.

  Miriam, my first therapist, validated who I was immediately.  “You can only be a Nancy kind of writer,” she said when I mentioned I disliked being a hired wordsmith and really liked writing personal essays. I resumed writing personal essays.

Miriam raised her fee substantially. I had several free sessions with young Jessica at the free counseling center at the university where I am an adjunct professor. Once or twice during each session after something I said, Jessica disappeared to the restroom. Only the restroom was to the right. She turned left and returned with a response. Upon seeing my book, “Writing from Personal Experience,” she asked to borrow it.  The following week she did not have it.  She lent it to her mother who had started writing and was reading it.  I told her to please return it to me the following week. “Did you tell Mom I’m your patient?”

She excused herself. Upon returning she said, “Of course not.”

Free’ is a bad idea.   After leaving Younger than Springtime and her supervisor, I saw Dr. Wolf who insisted his patients have an evening session each week of group therapy in addition to one individual session. I hated group therapy.   Dr. Wolf rarely gave me a chance to speak about myself or respond to other patients and focused his attention on an Episcopalian minister who wheezed.  I had to hire a babysitter to attend group. Dr. Wolf’s office was far from my apartment, so I had to take a cab.  At my individual sessions, I told Dr. Wolf that group didn’t work for me, which he claimed was precisely the reason I should make it work. Dr. Wolf took personal phone calls during my individual sessions from a salesclerk in a furniture store to discuss a table he wished to return, a friend in his poker group, and others.  I said his long personal phone calls were wrong. He said I should continue working on that, too because he would continue taking them.

 Beatrice, another psychotherapist I saw, had a hyphenated last name and a hairstyle with pieces she twirled. I told her I probably only wanted a few sessions to discuss my mother’s death. She said she only saw patients once or twice a week on a long-term basis but agreed. Her 45-minute hours were wide open.

During session one, she seemed to listen. At the outset of session two, she shoved a two-page form at me, instructing me to write my contact information and that of two in-case-of-emergency folks. “Now?” “Is THAT a problem?” she asked.

After completing her “Do Not Stiff” form, I resumed discussing my mother’s funeral and sitting shiva at my aunt’s house. Moments later she asked, “Is your mother deceased?”

I wondered aloud if she was in another galaxy. 

The hyphenated therapist wondered louder what I meant.

There are more of them than us. I had several decent Facebook sessions with David. At the beginning of the fourth, he was chomping away on big bites of what looked like steak.  I asked him if he was eating. He said he was. He hadn’t had time for breakfast or lunch and was starving.

“That’s not my business or problem,” I said. “Chowing down during my session is ridiculous. Also, you don’t make eye contact with me.”

He nodded.   “The thing is I am at my country house, and I am waiting for the pool man and the gardener.  They’re both about to show up.”

Not that I was cured, but it seemed silly seeing therapists who were in worse shape than I was.  Then my father was admitted to a hospital in Florida with pneumonia. I wanted to see Miriam.

“Pneumonia’s serious at his age. Make your travel plans, Nancy.” Miriam, still very present, supportive, tender, tough and impeccably groomed, was shorter now and had a dowagers’ hump. 

  We had a few phone sessions from the hospital lobby. Shortly after Dad died, Miriam retired and moved to Arizona. When I had a child, she sent me a huge bouquet.  It was the first to arrive. “You’ll be a Nancy kind of mother,” she wrote on the card.  

I started seeing my last therapist Dr. J. when I got divorced and became a single mother. He took notes on legal pads about much of what I said.   When I told him his note taking bothered me, he made a note of that. “I feel like a case, not a person,” I said. You ARE a case.” He pointed to two piles of legal pads on the floor. “Those are my other cases.”

Dr. J. curtailed much of his notetaking, saying he knew me better. I curtailed most of my regular sessions only seeing him on a need-be basis. When I tried reaching him a few months ago, he did not call or email me back.   I checked the obituaries.  He died.

I don’t see any psychotherapists now. I carry around much of what Dr. J and Miriam shared. Dr. J was competent, smart, and straight forward. Good enough, but he wasn’t a Miriam kind of therapist.

                                                  The End