Meet the panel

The abusive coworker  |  The procrastinator
The loner  |  The commitment phobe
The rejected gay son  |  The cutter
The crime victim  |  The serial dater
The fast and the furious  |  The coaster

{Dilemma 1}

The abusive coworker
I’m a 25-year-old female who’s finally found a job that I like! The pay is more than I’ve ever made, and I’ve been there almost a year. I work closely with “Lucy,” who seemed great and we bonded instantly. As time went on, I became disillusioned. She seems to hover over me all the time and I feel like she’s got it out for me. It’s mostly her and me in the office; the other workers are part-time and they all seem to like her better. What can I do?

Matt Lundquist: This patient feels victimized by her work circumstances—most people experience this at some point in their careers. Unfortunately, the only way for her to perform her way out of the problem is to relate to herself as capable of creating a different kind of work environment. I would likely begin with short-term individual therapy, focusing on helping her get better at learning more about who people are. For example, taking the time to get to know Lucy before determining they will be friends, and finding out what’s going on in Lucy’s life that might be contributing to Lucy giving her a hard time. This seems like a great opportunity to discover new ways of building relationships—an ongoing life-construction project. “Clicking” with someone, and then thinking through in her head what their relationship will be like down the line, is not the same thing as building a relationship. This patient needs to get out of her head and work at more actively creating what’s happening in the office going forward, including her relationship with Lucy.

Richard Sugden: I want to know what else is going on in this woman’s life. Where does this problem with Lucy fit in with her other relationships, past and present? Usually, if this is an isolated event, a short-term behavioral therapy focusing on the patient’s difficulty with asserting herself can suffice. If this difficulty with Lucy is within a constellation of difficulties with other people in her past or present life, we will need to venture into an open-ended exploratory therapy. This woman may have certain personality features that she is unaware of or that she refuses to accept as problematic. Psychodynamic therapy or psychoanalysis at multiple sessions per week can be productive as they look into the patient’s thoughts and feelings about the therapist as examples of unconscious emotional conflicts adversely affecting her relationships.