This month I had another quasi-sabbatical in Vienna: reading and writing and doing yoga during the day and seeing clients virtually in the evenings. Most clients I see on video. A few prefer phone calls where we both walk in our respective neighborhoods: peripatetic therapy. I was staying in Leopoldstadt, one of the old Jewish neighborhoods east of the Donaucanal, a ten-minute walk to my yoga studio. During phone sessions I’d walk in the secluded, maple-lined paths of a park called the Augarten, 129 acres enclosed by ancient stone walls.
In the center of the Augarten looms a Flak Tower, an anti-aircraft monstrosity, installed after the 1938 Nazi takeover, used to protect the city during air raids. Austrians don’t know what to do with it, it’s a part of their dark history, so it stands empty and foreboding in an otherwise picturesque baroque garden surrounded by children’s playgrounds, playing fields, swimming pools, and picnic areas. Graffiti on its side states NEVER AGAIN.
The park closes at nine o’clock. An alarm goes off warning everyone to get the hell out, and security guards sweep through to make sure the message isn’t missed. It’s absurdly efficient. One evening, deep in the center of the Augarten, I was talking to a client and lost track of time. The alarms startled me. Still listening to my client’s story, I picked up the pace, heading to one of the entrances. It was locked. Had I waited too long? Dusk was falling. I didn’t see many people in the park. Not saying anything to my client, I skedaddled to another exit, breath quickening.
It’s an amazing thing about being a therapist: we compartmentalize so efficiently. While I was attuning to my client’s story, in another part of my brain a panicked thought was rising: I’m going to get trapped in the Augarten. I’m going to spend the night under the gruesome Flak Tower. Or maybe a security guard will arrest me with my terrible German and call my spouse back in the States to come and get me, and she’ll be pissed.
I hurried for an exit a quarter mile away. There was no hiding. “I have to apologize if I seem distracted,” I told my client, “but the park where I’m walking is closing, it may already be closed, and I can’t find an exit that’s not locked.” An odd thing to confess, but it was true. We laughed, uneasily, but I was worried. We were at the end of a session that had run over. It was nice to have my client’s company while I continued fumbling in the dark to find a way out. When I reached the next locked entry, a teenage boy noticed my anxious expression. “Der einzige Ausgang befindet sich in der Sudecke!” he shouted. My panicked brain didn’t understand, but he pointed to an exit in the distance. Flanked by security guards, it was still open. “Danke!” I ran, my client still on the line.
“We’re going to have to wrap up,” I told them breathlessly, still a therapist in the session. “The only way I can get back for my next session is if I run like the devil.”
While I was on this quasi-sabbatical so far away, I did pay attention to news at home. It brought up questions about how we’re supposed to live and do our work caring for clients while enduring a cruel era with our government turning against its people. It was helpful to remember: many of us have developed a mental discipline enabling us to focus on our role and purpose while at times holding worry and fear in another part of our bodies. It was helpful to consider: the intentional use of authenticity builds safety and a healing connection. It was helpful to recall: it’s not the first time in history therapists have done their work while the world fell apart. Finally, the truest thought of all, it was helpful to confirm: the illusion that we never get lost doesn’t fool anyone.
Wayne Scott
Wayne Scott, MA, LCSW is a psychotherapist and writer in Portland, Oregon. His memoir, “The Maps They Gave Us: One Marriage Reimagined,” about a couples’ adventures in marital therapy, is available at: https://www.waynescottwrites.com/.
