Suspense. And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, the master of mystery
and adventure, William N. Robeson.
Let the AMA and the APA note, we do not wish to imply that all psychiatrists are heavies,
nor that psychoanalysis is nonsense. Without psychotherapy, a lot of us would be dead,
or worse, so sick that death itself would be a welcome surcease. So listen then, listen
to Head Shrinker, starring Miss Nina Fosch and Mr. Helmut Dantien, which begins in just
a moment.
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You really go, go, go for a Plymouth, and Plymouth will really go for you.
And now, Head Shrinker, starring Miss Nina Fosch and Mr. Helmut Dantien, a tale well
calculated to keep you in suspense.
The doctor will see you now, Mrs. Ellender. Oh, thank you. I'm his last appointment.
As usual, Mrs. Ellender. I'll be leaving shortly myself, as usual.
Thank you. As usual.
Hmm. Well, how are you this afternoon?
Well, I guess. The couch, or may I sit down?
The couch, I think. Your association seemed to flow more freely on the couch.
All right. You're the doctor. I said you're the doctor.
I heard you. Well, that's supposed to be funny.
Is it? Well, you laughed the first time I said it.
The first day I came here. I laughed to put you at your ease.
I had heard it before. You've heard everything before, haven't you,
Doctor? Does it seem that way to you?
Everything but this. What?
I'm going to kill you. When?
Before this hour is over. Why?
Well, look at your notes, Doctor. You've taken any notes while you've been
scratching away behind me all these months? I don't know, maybe you've just
been doodling. Maybe you're drawing pictures.
Yeah, that's probably it. Dirty pictures. That must be quite a file you have on
me. Ruth Ellender, manic depressive, compulsive, obsessoid, check and double
check neurotic. How long have I been turning myself inside out for you?
How long have I been doing my psychic strip tease for you?
How many hours have I spent on this couch? How many?
You know as well as I. Oh, no, I don't.
Once I knew the time of day. Once I knew how many days it was until
Christmas. I could tell when the rent was due, give or take a day or two.
I could place myself in time fairly well. No longer.
Now there is no time. Now there's nothing but five o'clock to 5.45 every
afternoon, Monday through Friday, the other 23 hours and 15 minutes of the day.
I don't know where they go. Saturday and Sunday.
What do you suppose happens to me on Saturday and Sunday, dear, dear doctor?
This is a phase of the treatment. Oh, yes, I know, I know.
Transference it's called to be followed by counter-transference and when that's
completed I'll be a whole person. But hasn't that transference gone a little bit
too far? I don't know any place where Freud suggests the weekend is a
particularly effective time for transference. Nor quiet out of the way
resorts as a substitute for the doctor's office. You shouldn't be reading, Freud.
I know I should just take your word for it. If I went to the great man himself,
I might find out what a swindler you are.
What happened to those weekends, Werner? What happened to the Saturdays and Sundays
of my transference? Am I now to expiate your sins in the agony of solitary
counter-transference? Each patient requires his own kind of treatment.
And some other patient needs the weekends. Is she as pretty as I am?
As intelligent? As sick? If you are dissatisfied with the progress of your
therapy, you are free to quit at any time. Quit? Oh no, Werner. I can't quit.
You know I can't quit. I love you, Werner. Heaven help me. I love you.
In a moment, we continue with the second act of...suspense.
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And now, starring Miss Nina Fosch and Mr. Helmut Dantien, act two of Head Shrinker.
Love.
I said I loved you. What is love, Doctor?
What is it to you? What is it to me? What is it to me?
Always you answer a question with a question. There was a Greek who did that once.
Socrates. That's right. You're a lot like him, Doctor, and you know what happened to him.
And why? Aren't you projecting? Projecting? I gave up little boys when I stopped being a little girl.
You were speaking of love. I was a little girl, one.
It seemed strange, but I was. I was Daddy's little girl.
I'd run down the walk to the meeting in the late afternoon screaming,
Daddy's home. Daddy, Daddy's home. He'd sweep me up in his arms and kiss me.
He'd be all scratchy against mine.
My mustache would tickle. And he smelled funny. But nice.
Sweaty and sweet, bitter, breath of a pipe smoker.
The smell of a man. We had so much fun together.
In the evenings, I would curl myself up in his lap while he was reading the paper.
I'd have a bed. And on Saturdays, when it was raining,
I'd hang around his workbench in the garage while he was building something.
Sawdust. Wood shavings.
Oh, there man smells too, you know, Daddy.
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, dear Daddy. Daddy, you know what I'd like to do next Saturday?
I'd like to go to the beach with you. Will you take me, Daddy? Please take me. Will you?
We'll go down early in the morning. We'll stay all day and we'll have lots and lots of hot dogs.
And... Oh no, Daddy, just you and me. We don't want Mother along.
Why did it stop? Why did it have to stop?
Why can't I sit in your lap anymore, Daddy? Why? Why, Daddy? Why, Daddy?
Daddy, why? Why can't I sit in your...
Here, I will give you something to quiet you.
I don't want any of your shots. I don't need your fancy magic medicine with the unpronounceable name.
I want my Daddy. I want it to be like it was before.
Before?
I want it to be like... before I was 11 or 12, before he changed.
He changed suddenly, you know, all at once.
He wouldn't let me curl up on his lap anymore. He'd push me and tell me I was a big girl now.
He'd act embarrassed as if he were almost ashamed of me.
Probably not ashamed, but certainly embarrassed. You were growing up.
I didn't want to grow up. I didn't ask to grow up. I wanted to be Daddy's little girl.
That's all I ever wanted.
I wanted all those boys in school. Later, they smelled like milk. Milk that was turning sour, not pipes and sawdust and sweat.
Their cheeks were scratchy. They were just boys.
Yet you married one of them.
Well, yes, I knew I'd marry him from the moment I met him at that party during the Christmas holidays.
We started going around together once a week, then twice a week.
Soon we were seeing each other every night.
Then he would call me his princess.
Then he was my knight on a white horse and we were married in church.
I was a June bride and Daddy gave me away.
And then I was Mrs. George Ellender. I wasn't a princess anymore. And George wasn't a knight on a white horse.
It wasn't like the fairy stories. So they lived happily ever after.
Those stories don't tell about the sinks full of dirty dishes.
They make no mention of the sleep smell of the dawn embrace or the painful tedium of getting to know someone after you're married to him.
But we made it all right. We got through that first year. We played house.
I called him Daddy. He called me Mike. He thought it was fun.
Well, it was fun, but you changed all that.
You waken me. You taught me reality. You opened my eyes. You and your psychoanalysis.
Why couldn't you have left me alone? Why didn't you let this sleeping bitch lie? Who do you think you are? Gods?
No, perhaps you think I am.
Oh, no, no, no. Not God. The devil maybe, but not God.
Anthropomorphism. The last refuge of the ignorant and the immature.
Oh, come off those big words. They don't impress me anymore. Save them for your next victim.
Victim?
Yes, victim. Lawyers have clients. Storekeepers have customers. Doctors have patients, but you have victims.
Why me, though? Why should you pick on me?
There were other women at that party where we met. Lots of them. Nice, juicy, neurotic ones. Why me?
You sought me out.
Oh, come now. Who lit the cigarettes? Who brought the drinks? Who danced attendance and who told me I was more disturbed than I realized?
The fantasies of rationalization.
The distinguished psychiatrist. The great healer.
Concerned with poor little me. The beard. Like a messiah. The gentle voice. With just enough of Vianna in it.
The compassionate eyes. I arrived at that party in the best of health. I left it a very sick woman who could be made well only by you.
You convinced me that I was leading a meaningless life, that I was unhappy and maladjusted and immature.
You assured me that I would only realize my fullest potential through psychoanalysis. You practically begged me.
No. You seduced me into becoming your patient.
You came here of your own free will.
Oh, no. I came here of your will and against my husband's.
It's only natural for a husband at first to...
At first? George didn't have a chance. You saw to that. You tore him down piece by piece until there was nothing left of him or our marriage.
Your decision to divorce your husband was arrived at by you after you realized the real reasons why you married him.
Oh, nuts. I've been on this couch too long for that kind of double talk, Werner.
You guided my free association every inch of the way. You led me, oh, so deftly to the water.
And then you let me think it was my idea to drink. That first night when you took me to dinner.
I didn't know then how could I that no ethical analyst would have suggested such a thing. I thought it was part of the therapy.
Oh, I was so easy for you, wasn't I, Werner? It must have been very little fun for you. Really. No struggle.
Poor Werner. I took away your sense of conquest, didn't I?
But I gave you everything else. Everything. Willingly.
I loved you, Werner. You were a god. My god. Your pipe, your beard. You were...
Daddy.
What a contemptible thing to say. What an evil, dirty man you are.
You see, Wyneth, it's become impossible for you to continue as my patient.
Yes.
I told you when I became your lover that I could no longer be your doctor.
And you were right. And so that's the last time I will ever lie on that couch.
From this moment on I shall no longer be your patient and you will no longer be my doctor.
A very mature decision.
Yes. Because now I'm going to kill you.
In a moment we continue with the third act of... suspense.
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Bringing you more than the facts. Helping you to understanding.
And now, starring Miss Nina Fosch and Mr. Helmut Dantien, Act 3 of Head Shrinker.
That gun is loaded.
Do you think I'm just acting out my aggressions? I'm not that sick, dear doctor.
The gun is loaded.
You have considered the consequences?
All of them.
If you take my life, society will take yours.
They won't get the chance. There's another bullet in this gun. There are several.
I could ring for help.
Go ahead. You'll be dead when it gets here.
You are quite determined to kill me?
Quite.
Do you feel qualified to judge, condemn, and execute another human being?
As qualified as any other woman who's been rejected by the man she loved and found him not worth her loving.
But I don't hate you as much as I loathe myself for having loved you.
I see you now for what you are. A ridiculous little man.
I wonder how you'd look without that beard. I wonder if you have any chin under it.
Don't you think this comedy has gone far enough?
It is a comedy, isn't it? And you're the comedian.
The apostolic descendant of Sigmund Freud.
From all our sins, dear Freud, deliver us.
Thy will be done. Deliver us not into our ick and forgive our ego.
For thine is the power and the superego forever and ever.
And little bearded Werner is thy vicar on earth.
You are becoming hysterical. Now put that gun away and get a hold of yourself.
Uh-uh. I'm enjoying our little comedy. And my hour isn't over for twelve more minutes.
It is my hour. I'm paying for it.
You're insane.
Uh-uh. Insane is a legal term, not a psychiatric term.
Remember we learned that early on the couch. There is no such thing as insanity.
Only varying degrees of adjustment to reality.
There. See how well I learned my lesson?
But there's so much more I don't know.
For instance, Doctor, I've often wondered why you chose psychiatry as your specialty.
I've always been interested in the human mind.
Honestly.
Yes. How it works. Why people do the things they do.
Our number one problem in this country is mental health.
Yes, I know. And you're dedicated to combat discourage at twenty dollars an hour.
That is not an exact...
It's quite a racket. All that money.
Plus the innermost secrets of some of the town's most prominent men and women.
The ethics of my profession...
Were you ethical with me?
Rose, please try to understand me.
You were not just a patient. You were so much more to me.
You made me a man.
I know. So you told me.
But you didn't tell me about the one before me.
The one who tried to commit suicide after you refused to continue therapy.
How?
I've been doing a little checking.
It's very interesting the things you hear around town when your name is mentioned.
You know, Werner, you aren't very highly thought of in this community.
I'm surprised no one has named you as co-respondent in a divorce case yet.
How many of your patients stay married after you're through with them?
What is it you have against marriage, Werner?
I can't be responsible for what a person does once he learns the truth about himself.
Of course you can't.
A surgeon can be held responsible if he leaves a pair of pliers inside a patient after an operation.
An obstetrician could be held responsible for a bungled delivery.
But you can't be sued for a ruined life.
It's a great out you have. The patient did it himself.
Name me one patient you've made happy.
Psychoanalysis does not guarantee happiness.
No, you tell me.
It seeks to help the individual to adjust to reality.
There is no such thing as happiness.
That's not what you said once.
There is only the absence of angst.
Translation, please.
Angst, anxiety, fear.
A person can function normally only when he has rid himself of fear.
What are you afraid of, Werner?
Me? Why, nothing.
Then why do you hide behind that beard?
Why, I...
Aren't you afraid to look like other men, lest people realize that's all you are?
Just another man.
No, no, of course not.
Why do you use your analyst couch as a lonely hearts club?
Can't you meet women any other way?
Are you afraid to compete with other men in the world of women?
Ruth.
Ruth, don't say things like that.
Why, because they're true?
Are you afraid of the truth, Werner, of reality?
Ruth, you said you loved me once.
So I did.
And you said you loved me.
And I believed you.
But now I know you didn't love me.
You hated me.
You hate all women.
And you hate the happiness they can bring to a man.
So you try to destroy love wherever you find it.
You aren't an evil man, Werner, you're a sick man.
I know I am.
But what can I do?
I sit here all day long, listening to the deepest problems of others.
But...
And who can I turn to with my problems?
Forgive the bad joke, Werner, but what you need is to be psychoanalyzed.
I was, you know that.
Then you need to refresh your course.
No, Ruth.
I need you.
Me?
Yes.
You.
You know all about me.
You understand me.
I need your help, Ruth.
Oh, no, no, Werner, no, no.
You must help me, Ruth. Please help me.
You seem to forget that I came here to kill you.
But you didn't really mean it.
You were acting out your regressions true, but you wouldn't go that far.
Oh, yes, I would.
No, not when I need you so desperately.
You're really afraid, aren't you?
Yes.
Yes, terrified.
But not of dying.
Of living?
Yes, without you.
I know now I can't go on living without you.
Then the biggest help I could be to you would be to kill you.
I couldn't do that now.
It would be ungrateful of me.
Ungrateful?
Yes.
You see, Doctor, you've cured me.
Of what?
Of you.
But I need you.
That, my dear Werner, is your problem.
Well, I see my hour is nearly up.
You're not leaving me.
Yes.
But you can't. No, you can't.
Oh, yes, I can.
You are no longer my doctor, my father, my lover.
Or my god.
You're just a frightened little man.
Please, Ruth.
Ruth.
Oh, I might as well leave this gun with you.
I have no further use for it.
Good luck, Werner.
Suspense.
In which Miss Nina Fosh and Mr. Helmut Dantien starred in Head Shrinker,
written, produced, and directed by William N. Robeson.
The nurse was played by Florence Hawksworth.
In just a moment, a word about next week's story of suspense.
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Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with James and Pamela Mason.
And we'll be back with James and Pamela Mason.
Listen. Listen again next week when we return with James and Pamela Mason
in The Dealings of Mr. Markham.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
This is the CBS Radio Network.