OUT OF THE DARK

A collaborative record of illness and recovery by an Englishwoman who suffered from severe depression and the psychotherapist who helped her get to the root of her distress.

Caine, to outward appearances a happily married, financially secure wife and mother, first met Jungian psychotherapist Royston in early 1989, when she was referred to him after an alarming suicidal episode. Royston soon placed her in Ticehurst, a mental hospital near her home in Canterbury, to protect her from self-harm and to enable them to have longer sessions together. Both evidently took extensive notes during the years of her treatment, for their account is rather like a joint diary, with alternating passages by each. As a Jungian, Royston looks for clues in Caine’s dreams and interprets them for her as she reveals them over the next couple of years. Caine leaves Ticehurst at various times, sometimes just for a weekend, sometimes for months, but her sessions with Royston do not end until late 1991. Puzzling, fragmentary memories come back to her, and the story of her life gradually unfolds. She was abandoned by her mother at an early age, subsequently raised by her father, suffered an unnecessary mastectomy at age 14, married an abusive man at 17, was widowed at 20, and raped in a particularly horrifying manner shortly afterward. Royston comes to suspect that Caine has been the victim of childhood sexual abuse, and in his mind her father is the prime suspect. When the identity of the dark, menacing stranger in her dreams and flashbacks eventually becomes clear, the doctor hopes that talking about them will release Caine from her misery. In the end, however, it is a group prayer session that rescues and transforms her. Whether her recovered memories are true cannot be known, but Caine clearly believes they are. The same may be said for Royston’s dream interpretations.

Psychology buffs will make of this what they will. Either way, it’s an absorbing story and ought to make a chilling movie.