Homecoming: The Dream of the Family Gathering

I am at the house where I grew up. There is a large family gathering at which my
parents are present. Dr. P— is there. I am happy to see him, but I don’t want to look too
excited. My family treats him like a beloved son. My family ignores me; they appear to
shun me. All their attention is focused on Dr. P—. Dr. P— ignores me also; he won’t
make eye contact. He seems happy and profoundly content. I have strong feelings of
sadness and distress about Dr. P— ignoring me and my family ignoring me. I feel that
Dr. P— has usurped me. I feel like an outsider in my own family. The family leads him
into the kitchen, while I gaze on.

Thoughts:

My view of Dr. P— as my usurper in this dream seems connected to my role as an

intruder in the earlier Dream of the Intruding Doctor, someone who did not belong in
Missouri: the outsider, alien, or interloper. In The Dream of the Family Gathering, Dr. P
— is a “welcome outsider” to my parents while to me he is an intruder, which parallels
the biographical incident from age three, discussed earlier, when I came down with
scarlet fever. My pediatrician (Dr. Bloom) was a “welcome outsider” to my parents and
to me, perhaps, an intruder. The dream suggests that I see Dr. P— as the successful son
my parents never had. He is my father's “best-loved, ideal son.” See, Blos, P. “The
Genealogy of the Ego Ideal.”

I suppose I am deeply envious of him; I feel he has the accomplishments and traits that
rightly belong to me, but that in fact belong to him. The figure of Dr. P— in this dream
reminds me of the so-called “happy mortal” described by Goethe in his novel, The
Sorrows of Young Werther: “We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that
very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a
kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete
perfection—which we have ourselves created.”

I see superego issues. Dr. P— is my ego ideal. The distress I feel in the dream is the
disparity between my ego and my own ego ideal. We might say that my feelings in this
dream relate to a state of “self-estrangement” in which I sense a discrepancy between
my ideal self and my actual selfimage. See, TenHouten, W., Alienation and Affect.

I think about a biographical incident from Sunday May 18, 1969. The recollection
concerns a homecoming: a family gathering that took place when I was 15 years old. My
sister and brother-in-law got married the previous Sunday, on May 11. On the night of
their wedding, they flew to Miami Beach, Florida for their honeymoon. A week later, on
the 18th, when they returned home to Philadelphia, my parents and I picked them up at
the airport. They returned to my parents’ house. My uncle Louie and his wife Reggie
were there. My mother happened to have a bottle of champagne. We drank a glass of
champagne. My sister and brother-in-law had purchased a gift for me, a men's jewelry
box.

In retrospect, the jewelry box reminds me of the theme of the three caskets from
Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. In that play the fair and wise Portia is
bound at her father's bidding to take as her husband only that one of her suitors who
chooses the right casket from among the three before him. The three caskets are of gold,
silver and lead: the right casket is the one that contains her portrait. Two suitors have
already departed unsuccessful: they have chosen gold and silver. Bassanio, the third
decides in favor of lead; thereby he wins the bride, whose affection was already his
before the trial of fortune. The suitor's choice in The Merchant of Venice parallels my
dream in that my parents appear to have chosen Dr. P— over me. It’s as if my parents
were thinking, “Now that we have Dr. P—, we don’t need Gary anymore.”

In some sense I was the loser in a competition, which suggests an oedipal theme.
(Incidentally, note the curious parallel to my earlier anecdote: “My mother used to tell a
story about my first day of kindergarten. She walked me to school, and when we arrived
at the threshold of the schoolyard, I turned to her and said (at age 4½): ‘Go home,
mommy, I don’t need you anymore!”

For me, perhaps attainment of the idealized object, whether Dr. P— in the dream or
school in childhood, obviated the need for the devalued object, namely, me in the dream
or my mother in childhood.) As I see it, The Dream of the Family Gathering relates to
introjective concerns, not anaclitic concerns. People say about me, “He’s very lonely and
he wants a friend. That’s why he is obsessed with his former primary care doctor.” No.
Those are interpersonal, anaclitic concerns. In this dream I am failing to live up to my
parents’ (and my own) expectations: Patients with introjective disorders are plagued by
feelings of guilt, selfcriticism, inferiority, and worthlessness. They tend to be more
perfectionistic, duty-bound, and competitive individuals, who often feel like they have to
compensate for failing to live up to their own and the perceived expectations of others.
The basic wish is to be acknowledged, respected, and admired.

That’s exactly what my parents are doing in the dream; they are giving Dr. P—
acknowledgment, respect and admiration — all the things being denied me in the dream.
Individuals with a self-critical personality style may be more vulnerable to depressive
states in response to disruptions in self-definition and personal achievement. These
individuals may experience “introjective” depressive states around feelings of failure
and guilt centered on self-worth.

A biographical incident comes to mind. When I was 32 years old I worked as a paralegal
at a large law firm. A new employee named Craig Dye began employment. I had formed
a strong dislike of him before I met him, though we later became friends. Another
employee had said to me weeks before, “They’re hiring a new guy. He’s really good.
They might just decide they don’t need you anymore.” When I met Craig I thought, “So
you’re the guy who’s going to take my job.” During the following months my working
relationship with Craig was one of rivalry. Craig and I had many similar characteristics.
When there was competition for a particular assignment, or if I had to submit work in
competition with that of peers, I confidently assumed I would win. Craig and I were
both intelligent and gifted, and that helped us to live up even to overweening
pretensions. Although generally good-natured and even “humble” in manner, we both
had many arrogant traits.

Compounding the hostility between Craig and me was the fact that our supervisor was
an attractive young woman. That is, the relationship between Craig and me vis-a-vis a
female authority carried an implicit plea, not unlike the plea of the three suitors to Portia
in The Merchant of Venice: “Choose one of us. Is it to be he or I?”

Additional Thoughts about Homecomings:

I woke up on the morning of Saturday April 6, 2019 thinking of events that had
transpired exactly thirty years earlier, on Thursday April 6, 1989. At that time I worked
as a paralegal at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, which was founded
by the eminent attorney, Robert S. Strauss. The firm had arranged a “Breakfast with Bob
Strauss.” About sixty of the firm’s paralegals gathered to hear Strauss speak and answer
questions. Strauss and others sat at the head table at the front of the large fifth floor
conference room. Another paralegal, Jesse Raben was seated at the head table, which
sparked my jealousy. I thought, “How did Raben get to sit at the head table with Strauss
and the important people like law partner, Earl Segal? How did Raben get to be so
important — he’s just a paralegal like me!” I saw Raben as my usurper, perhaps — or
my rival. Strauss said he had just returned home from a business trip to Paris. “People
rave about Paris,” he said. “But I think Washington is the most exciting city in the world.
The whole time I was in Paris, I couldn’t wait to get back home to Washington.”

It may be that at some level I registered an association to my sister’s wedding when I

was 15 years old, when I sat at the head table of the wedding ballroom as best man
together with other members of my family. At my sister’s wedding I remember feeling
ignored by my family; all their attention was focused on my sister. I remember that when
we had completed our meal, I was still sitting alone at the head table, smoking a cigar.
My family had left the head table by that time and had started mingling with the guests.
As I sat alone, the wedding photographer approached me. He said: “There are a lot of
girls here. Why don’t you talk to them instead of sitting alone smoking a cigar?” I took
his advice and proceeded to chat with my sister’s female friends. A week later, when my
sister and brother-in-law returned from their honeymoon in Miami Beach, we had a
small family gathering where my mother opened a bottle of champagne she had on hand.

Later in the morning of April 6, 2019 I listened to the second act of Strauss’s Arabella.
The second act of the opera is one of my favorite Strauss pieces. I never listen to Acts 1
or 3; I find them tedious. I have always loved Act 2. The action takes place in a ballroom
at a hotel in Vienna in the 1860s. Early in the act Mandryka proposes marriage to
Arabella, who accepts. Mandryka orders champagne for the guests at the ball, “Moët et
Chandon, medium dry.” In a pivotal moment in the opera, Arabella accepts Mandryka’s
marriage proposal, and pledges her eternal love — “You will be my lord” . . . “from here
to eternity” (“auf zeit und ewigkeit”). Later in the act Arabella meets up with her three
suitors Elemer, Dominick, and Lamoral, and discards them, telling them she will never
see them again. These events parallel the theme of the three caskets in The Merchant of
Venice, where Portia rejects two of her suitors in favor of Bassanio. Arabella’s father,
Mr. Waldner, sits at a table at the ball playing cards with his friends — like Bob Strauss
playing cards with his poker buddies, who, incidentally, included the late Chief Justice
William Rehnquist, appeals court Judge David Sentelle, and the late Martin Feinstein,
onetime director of the Washington National Opera.

These associations highlight the themes of jealousy, rivalry, usurpation, losing in

competition, and feelings of contemptible anonymity at a gathering. These are oedipal
themes, or introjective concerns. I am reminded of the observations of British sociologist
Yiannis Gabriel who points out the biological imperative of what we might term oedipal
aggrandizement: the male's efforts to distinguish himself from amorous rivals in order to
win the ideal mate. "Like collectivism, individualism can be traced to the dissolution of
the Oedipus complex and the institution of the superego. Both collectivism and
individualism are attempts to placate the superego, the former through submission to the
social order, the latter through distinction, excellence and achievement. Conformity
alone cannot satisfy the superego — after all it is not by being one of the crowd that the
boy will win the ultimate prize, the woman of his dreams; nor does being part of the
crowd win for the girl the ‘happy-ever-after’ life of her dreams. One looks in vain for
fairy tales about lemmings working together to accomplish collective tasks.
Achievement, distinction and excellence are what grip the child's imagination, which
idealizes the heroes and heroines of fairy tales and casts him or herself in the starring
role. It is by slaying dragons, answering riddles, and accomplishing the impossible that
the child achieves the fulfillment of the promise which concluded his or her oedipal
drama." Organizations in Depth: The Psychoanalysis of Organizations. At the workplace
“Breakfast with Bob Strauss” I must have felt I had been cast with the lemmings — I
was part of a collective of equals, just one of the crowd, without distinction, a humiliated
state of contemptible anonymity, seated with fellow paralegals at indistinguishable
tables. Raben had achieved distinction with an envied seated position next to firm
founder, Bob Strauss — the all-powerful father figure of the organization. Raben had
assured his identification with the primal father. Raben had set himself apart from fellow
paralegals, the “band of brothers,” sons of the primal father. I associate Raben with
another homecoming.

In the Dream of the Family Gathering, Dr. P— was cast in the starring role, as he had
been at his own wedding where he had won the girl of his dreams. On the evening of the
day I met Dr. P— (September 29, 2015) (hours before I dreamed about finding myself in
Missouri) I had discovered on the Internet a lengthy newspaper article about him and his
wife; the couple had gotten married the previous year in an extravagant wedding in the
Caribbean.