The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [108]
When I ask if he is suggesting that Dr. Broadhurst sent those letters, he nods, adding that Dr. Broadhurst’s handwriting matches the signature. He therefore needs no further proof. “My uncle told me about her—she’s a morphodite. I’m glad I didn’t show the letters now, the way it’s turned out; it’s better for me.”
I carefully explain that no one has ever touched the money in his account and that, if he likes, we can both go over to the business office to see if any withdrawals have been made. He refuses, saying that the facts are self-evident. I ask Dr. Broadhurst to come in and sign the name “Madame Yeti Woman.” We then compare her signature with the one on the letter, and I point out to Leon the many differences. He replies: “I don’t care for any more inquest. I don’t care to hear anything more about it.”
What, we asked ourselves, could have brought on this sudden, unexpected turn of events? Why did Leon now reject the letters, when before he had so eagerly accepted them? Had we proceeded too hastily? Was it because of the letter suggesting that he give up his name, Dung? Was it because we continued to sign the letters “Madame Yeti Woman,” even after Leon’s delusions about her had patently changed? Was it because of the money? Or was it because, coincidentally, a young, attractive resident psychiatrist had just been assigned to the ward?
Our best guess was that it was because of the money. The first sign of ambivalence Leon had shown toward his wife coincided with the receipt of the first dollar bill from her. From the beginning he had been in conflict about accepting and spending the money, even though he was able to salve his conscience a little by giving part of it away—first, impersonally, to the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish chapels; then, personally, to Clyde and Joseph. But money and its expenditure for personal gratification seemed to burden him with unbearable anxiety and guilt. As he himself had told us, “I didn’t deserve it.”
Whether or not the money was the main reason, we would probably never know. But this much we did know. Leon had received a series of suggestions for change from a positive reference person—his wife. At first he accepted these suggestions and followed them. Then he began increasingly to resist. Along with the resistance, changes also took place in his delusions about his positive reference person. His wife, God Almighty, who had been male as well as female, now became split into sane and insane, positive and negative. This enabled Leon to reject any suggestions he could not accept by attributing them to the insane or negative side of God. A reasonable hypothesis, then, was that when an individual receives suggestions for change from a positive reference person, one of two things must happen: either the suggestions must be followed or, if the suggestions are for one reason or another unacceptable, one must change one’s attitude toward the reference person. The reference person is no longer positive.
All that had happened with respect to Leon was consistent with this interpretation. We had unwittingly destroyed his positive reference person and with it our potential for continuing to change his behavior in a therapeutic direction. Was there anything we could now do to restore the reference person to her original positive position? The results obtained thus far had suggested that with Madame Yeti Woman, now turned God, “on our side” there was no telling how far we could go in changing therapeutically Leon’s confused, withdrawn, and self-denying behavior for the better. I was now in the peculiar position of trying