Otto's exploitation of the therapeutic encounter is consistent with his exploitation of nearly everyone is his life. His great emotional distance (viewing events through the wrong end of a telescope; becoming stone-like) permits him to feel neutral about his depreciation of a woman (Sally became uninteresting and repugnant) and abuse of a man (kicking the man in the groin). He appears to like seeing others in pain (Sally's screaming & crying when he rejected her; her sensitivity to criticism; her suicide attempt after accusing her of stealing). However, he seems to feel justified in seeking pleasure and comfort for himself.
His scheme of apperception (a cognitive/emotional strategy for simplifying and dividing life into "above and below") appears to include: profit/loss; pleasure/pain; exploiting others/being exploited; and adulation/denunciation. These antithetical schemes blind him to the nuances and alternative evaluations of experiences. (He is either "the winner" or "the loser;" there is no conception of mutual benefit.) Paying people off (finding Sally an apartment, packing her belongings, and taking her out to dinner) probably permits him to feel "fair" about his actions.
Capitalizing on Otto's questions about "normal people," I would have approached him initially within his cognitive "safety zone," utilizing the Socratic method of questioning as well as dialectical discussion. ("What are the advantages of being normal?" "Are there any disadvantages?" 'What has been the most profitable experience of your life?" "What has been your greatest loss?") We would have explored his private logic (the hidden reasons for his feelings and actions) and gradually expanded the implications of his reasoning and behavior ("What would life be like if everyone acted this way?").
Overcoming Otto's resistance to cooperating in therapy might have taken two stages: first, winning him over intellectually, then attempting to win him over emotionally. After giving him the experience of being deeply understood, (this might take many months) he might have felt safe enough to talk more fully about his childhood. We would then gradually begin to explore the unfamiliar territory of his feeling life. I would try to elicit eidetic (vivid, emotionally charged) images of each parent. Weaving back and forth between these images and his earliest recollections (remembered events), I would attempt to tease out and help him identify even the smallest expressions of feeling.
I might have attempted to get him talking more about his business negotiating strategies. He might have been tempted to brag about his ability to "get what he wanted" and could have tipped his hand about using deception. If he admitted using deception as a business strategy, I would ask him if he also used it elsewhere (where and when).
Otto, like many other aggressive, dominant, and very successful clients often surround themselves with people who do not tell them the truth about their social impact. They usually elicit either superficial flattery to indulge their self-enhancement, or they provoke familiar aggressiveness to justify their self-protection. They are not used to the respect, empathy, contact, and honesty of a therapeutic encounter.
Finding the key to unlock Otto's self-constructed prison of egocentricity and self-protection would have required some therapeutic risk-taking, as well as very creative cognitive, affective, and behavioral strategies. I would have tried to: unveil and dissolve his core inferiority feeling (having been abused); change his hidden unconscious goal (wanting to dominate, exploit, and punish people); and develop his feeling of caring for the welfare others. Without a full psychotherapy, he would probably continue to "use" others, with merely superficial alterations of his behavior. Sadly, Otto might have only been willing to learn how to "fake" appearing normal.
(For an overview of Classical Adlerian theory and practice, visit Web site http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/theoprac.htm -- then return to this forum, or the Classical Adlerian Discussion Forum to post your comments or questions.)