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Possessed Psychologist. Dr. Stein confesses that when first confronted by such a formidable patient, the analyst himself "is liable to become possessed of his own witchlike soul." If hag and analyst survive this initial stage, they will eventually come cordially to loathe each other. At this point the patient begins to look "old, hard, spiteful and evil" and uses every instrument in her power short of tears to establish dominion over the analyst. (True to the medieval belief that witches cannot weep, Stein has never seen the loathsome woman shed a tear.) Alternately sadistic and seductive, Dr. Stein's hag patients sometimes invited him to manhandle them, and sometimes circled his chair in "increasingly narrow circles," reminiscent of the legendary tracks dancing hags described on the grass. One disturbing result, Dr. Stein found, was that the hags began to occupy a place in his dreams. "The analyst is in danger of succumbing to the patient's fascination, so bringing about his own downfall," writes Dr. Stein somewhat nervously. "That witches possess the power to emasculate men, or to cause the death of a person as well as to cause a person to fall in love, is well known. The analyst should take heed of this."
What Women Want. What did his loathsome patients expect of him? Dr. Stein points to the young knight's experiences in "The Wife of Bath's Tale" from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales:
"My liege and lady, most of all," said he,
"Women desire to have the sovereignty
And sit in rule and government above
Their husbands, and to have their way in love.
This is what most you want . . ."
When Chaucer's young knight acts on this conviction and, in effect, gives her freedom to the old hag he has been trapped into marrying, she is promptly transformed into a beautiful and faithful young woman. The analyst, says Dr. Stein, must symbolically grant "sovereignty" to his hag patients by freely accepting "the negative destructive aspect of [his patients'] feminine nature" and casting aside his own "inquisitorial attitude." This, the doctor adds, "is the key to the secret which the analyst must discover if he is to deal successfully with 'loathsome women.' " How well does the key work? Dr. Stein noted with satisfaction last week that all but one of his six hag patients had left his office noticeably less loathsome than when they came in. He added: "I love these women that others find loathsome. I understand them. I'm trained to." But his account of the analytic sessions nevertheless leaves readers with the feeling that he must often have longed for a good old medieval rack or a bundle of faggots.