Word: bean-bayog
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After reading these books, I am, like Stokes, somewhat more sympathetic toward Margaret Bean-Bayog. I believe that she wanted the best for her patient, and that she did not believe her therapy was irresponsible or bizarre. But this does not mean that her therapy was responsible or beneficial, which is an issue that would require at least tow more books to resolve. If nothing else good comes of this case, perhaps, at least, a hard look will be directed at one of the least regulated or established branches of medicine...
According to Chafetz's book, obsession, Bean-Bayog's therapy was innovative and difficult to understand , but not irresponsible or beyond the psychiatric pale. The sexual fantasies that Bean-Bayog wrote (and which Lozano Subsequently stole from her office) were a case of countertransference, in which a therapist attempts to deal with her emotional and psychological reactions to her patient. Lozano was psychotic suicidal, pathological liar whose inevitable suicide was delayed by Bean-Bayog's therapy...
Geoffrey stokes, who reviewed these books for the Globe, admitted this: "Though I am somewhat more sympathetic toward Bean-Bayog as a result of these books, I'm not that much more certain about what 'really' happened during Lozano's therapy and life than I was when his vexed case was playing itself out on the front pages." I find myself in exactly the same situation, as if I am watching one of those optical illusions that consists of a vase, depending on the Organizational whimsy of one's brain. Stokes continues: "But I am sure of this...
...pictures of the story. Why does he resort to accusing one of the authors of bias, even as he is unconvinced by the other author's argument? After all, the Chafetz book is not without its own likely bias; in his preface, Morris Chafetz notes that he was (like Bean-Bayog) a member of the Harvard Medical School department of psychiatry and (like Bean-Bayog) a specialist on alcohol abuse and alcoholism...
Innocence is, of course, the rub. We will probably never know exactly what happened in Margaret Bean-Bayog's office, and it is probably impossible to determine whether her therapy (or malpractice) actually caused his suicide. But we can ask at least two questions. If she is innocent, of what is she innocent, exactly? If she is guilty, of what is she guilty, exactly? Even if this case remains essentially unresolved, we must hope that it will initiate serious conversation about the practices of psychiatry and psychotherapy...