Reader Discussion: Intensive Therapy by Jeffrey Deitz > Likes and Comments

Welcome to our reader discussion of Intensive Therapy by Jeffrey Deitz.

We invite readers to explore the novel's relationships, psychological themes, narrative structure, dialogue, metaphor, sibling relationships, and the role of Philadelphia in the story.

There are no right or wrong answers. We encourage everyone to share their genuine thoughts, interpretations, and reactions as readers.Intensive Therapy

Welcome to our discussion of Intensive Therapy by Jeffrey Deitz. We invite readers to share their genuine thoughts and interpretations as we explore the novel's relationships, storytelling techniques, and psychological themes.



1. Life-Changing Relationships
What other life-changing relationships does the novel explore beyond Jonas and Victoria?

2. Dialogue and Metaphor
How does Jeffrey Deitz use dialogue and metaphor to advance the plot, reveal backstory, and deepen our understanding of the characters?

3. Narrative Style
Does the novel's narrative style influence your reading experience? How do the different points of view affect the way you understand the story?

Jonas begins his relationship with Victoria as her psychoanalyst, yet their connection gradually becomes emotionally complicated. When you were writing their relationship, what did you want readers to understand about the tension between professional boundaries and genuine human connection?

Every professional connection I can think requires a human element; a client/patient in psychotherapy has to believe his/her therapist, in addition to being book smart, is emotionally qualified to identify, prioritize, and respond to their needs within ethical bounds. Victoria needs emotional honesty; she tells Jonas, "I never knew where I stood with Lorraine." She also needs validation that she can express her honest feelings without fear of emotional abandonment, which happens in her first session with Jonas; he doesn't give up when she's nasty to him.

Meanwhile, Jonas is vulnerable on several fronts: he's still grieving his father's sudden death, he's looking for a meaningful relationship, and he's developing his professional identity while mired in in therapy with an psychoanalyst who denigrates his conviction that therapy requires more of the human touch. We meet Fowler immediately after Jonas's first session with Victoria. Jonas is touched by her full display of emotional honesty which he finds both admirable and inspiring. But, he meets her with her amidst a life-threatening crisis, which means their relationship is defined within the context of Jonas-the-doctor. As such he needs to understand where she's coming from.

In terms of story, the the Jonas/Victoria relationship is definitely going somewhere, and hopefully, that gets the reader wanting to know where, Remember trusted advisor Stan tells Jonas, "there'll be sparks between you and her but that's the way it is," and Victoria closes the first act one saying, "we're headed into the unkown" while Jonas realizes that in order make sense of her therapy Victoria needs to know where he's is coming from.

Yes, the "sparks" include a sexual component, but Jonas realizes that his job is to use his therapist-self to make sense the attraction, as opposed to acting on it, He does in the service of helping Victoria get a handle on unconcious factors that are causing issuesher romantic/sexual life.

Keep in mind Jonas's statement, which reflects both his personal and professional attitude regarding Victoria: "I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't think it would help your therapy." He's come to terms with who he to her, the therapist who' s devoted to the wellbeing of her and her family, and who she is to him; the person who changed the entire course of his life for the better.

Jeffrey Deitz

Victoria's Independence, Victoria begins as a vulnerable young woman struggling under the influence of her parents, particularly her mother. Was Victoria's journey ultimately intended to be a story about healing, or more fundamentally a story about learning to become her own person?

Jonas Is Also Being Changed, Much of the story appears to focus on Victoria's transformation, but Jonas is also challenged by the relationship. Did you see Jonas as someone who was treating Victoria, or as someone who was unknowingly undergoing his own emotional education through her?

The Power of Family, The novel explores parents and children, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and siblings. What drew you to family relationships as such an important force in shaping the emotional lives of your characters?

Dialogue as Storytelling, Your dialogue does more than allow characters to communicate. It can reveal history, personality, conflict, and information about relationships. When writing a major conversation, how do you decide what a character should say openly and what should remain beneath the surface?

The “Invitation to the Dance”, The musical metaphor of the “Invitation to the Dance” appears to capture something larger than music itself. What does the metaphor mean to you personally, and how did it help you understand Jonas's journey while writing the novel?

Multiple Perspectives, The novel uses more than one narrative point of view. What did you want readers to experience by moving between perspectives that could not have been achieved through a single narrator?

Philadelphia as Part of the Story, Philadelphia seems to function as more than simply the location where events happen. Did you intentionally treat Philadelphia almost as another character, with its own identity and influence on the people living within the story?

The Passage of Time, The story brings Jonas and Victoria back together years after their original relationship. What interested you most about exploring how time can change people while leaving certain emotional connections unresolved?

What You Want Readers to Carry Away, After taking readers so deeply into the minds of a therapist and patient, what is the one question about human relationships, healing, or emotional vulnerability that you most hope readers continue thinking about after they finish Intensive Therapy?

The two are interwoven. For Victoria, a major consequence of growing up in an emotionally inconsistent environment is being unable to identify and define her emotions accurately. In her first session with Jonas dissociates from her emotions and traces figures with her finger. What solidifies the therapeutic relationship is Jonas's ability to connect her thoughts with her feelings.

He does that over and again in act one and in the final scene.

In act two h

he helps modulate her rage at Melinda to the point where she comes in touch with her mothering instinct.

I think it IS healing when a person learns to cope with overwhelming feelings, an ability that's critical for fulfilling emotional development.

So many good questions...

From Soma:

Did you see Jonas as someone who was treating Victoria, or as someone who was unknowingly undergoing his own emotional education through her?

In treating Victoria, Jonas becomes more of his own man as therapist. If you recall, Jonas's mentor Stan was highly critical of his daughter Jenny's choice of first husband who hadn't accomplished anything on his own. It is only after Jonas stands up to Fowler that Stan, realizes that Jonas is breaking free from his stilted psychoanalytic upbringing and becoming a man in his own right which makes him, in Stan's eyes, worthy of his beloved daughter.

Manliness and feminity ARE important themes in the novel but, from the outset, I decided the book had enough conflict in it and to infer that either Jonas or Victoria were conflicted about their sexual identity would be unnecessarily distracting.

Developmentally speaking, when they meet, Jonas and Victoria are at very different stages of life. He's on a solid career path and is looking for a relationship that's going somewhere, while Victoria's a college student who, despite her fancy clothes and exotic family vacations, has a lot of living to do.

Still, Victoria's fire is inspiring: In act one, Victoria and Jonas are grappling with different developmental transitions: she: moving away from family of origin; he: moving away from old-school psychoanalytic thinking and becoming his own man and settling down with a good woman.

What attracts Jonas to Jenny? In addition to her beauty (Victoria doesn't mature into a beautiful woman until later) he sees something of Victoria in Jenny's eyes, a sparkle that has him recognizing that there's more to Jenny than meets the eye.

Both protagonists learn from and shape each other, and as act one closes they both realize they're ready to move on to the next stage of life. I thought long and hard about the closing scene of act one. It needed to be an uncomplicated, clean break. In my training, I had firsthand experience looking out that window in Jonas's office, which indeed did face due west, When I started working on that scene I knew I wanted it to be whistful, but I had no conscious idea that it would end up with the Robert Frost poem. But, if you read the poem aloud, you'll see it's in classic rhythm, iambic pentameter. The words are melodic and the tempo aligns perfectly with the poignancy of the moment.

Kim wrote: "The “Invitation to the Dance”, The musical metaphor of the “Invitation to the Dance” appears to capture something larger than music itself. What does the metaphor mean to you personally, and how di..."


Listen to: “Invitation to the Dance” by Carl Maria von Weber

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSluk...

When I first listened to “Invitation to the Dance” I was struck by the structure of the composition. There is such tenderness to the beginning and closing passages, embodying both the invitation and the afterglow of the glorious concert waltz which begins at 1:40.

Jonas knows every note of the violin part, which no doubt he would have relished playing were he a symphony orchestra musician. In the novel, Jonas hears the music in his head in his last sessions with both Fowler and Victoria. In the last session with Fowler, Jonas can literally recreate the motions of the violinists and tells Fowler he doesn't deserve to be invited to his (Jonas's) dance.

Therapy in itself invites the patient/client to reveal their inner selves however there are several key invitations in the storyline that alters the lives of the protagonists:

Stan's invitation to Jonas for Thanksgiving changes Jonas's life as he meets his future wife; brother Eddie's invitation to the World Series baseball games, culminating in Jonas's coming to peace with his father's death; Victoria's dream where she doesn't feel invited to wedding; also the invitation of Victoria's family to the horse races at Saratoga, the memory and significance of which, is revealed in Victoria's final session.

It's also woth noting that when Stan talks about Dr. Frantz, the analyst he recommends for Jonas, Stan points out that Frantz's wife is professional cellist. Since Frantz and his wife play duets, the implication is clear: Frantz understands that therapy is a duet and knows how to make music with another.

JLastly onas describes the music-making (and by analogy the lovemaking) with Jenny as lilting melodious; whereas with Victoria the connection is much more tempestuous. No doubt Jonas loves Victoria, but I have no doubt that he married the right woman,

A reading guide would help us discuss the three-act structure and point of view.

Could we have a reading guide to help us understand the deeper themes?

Why does Jonas become so emotionally connected to Victoria, and could we have a guide to explore their relationship more deeply?”

How does Victoria's relationship with her parents shape the person she becomes? A reading guide would help us discuss this.”

How does Jonas change through his relationship with Victoria, and could we have questions that help us examine his transformation?

How does the dialogue reveal the characters' pasts and move the story forward? A guide would make this easier to discuss.

Happy to respond with elements of the readers guide: will begin with a Q and A I engaged in with the publisher that addresses issues you're intersted in.

I'll start with dialog:

Q: How important is dialog in your novel?

A: Every novelist/storyteller has their own voice. Writers from the Southern tradition like Faulkner and Pat Conroy spin paragraph after paragraph of the most melodic, descriptive prose. Molly Bloom’s musing at the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses is essentially one long aria.

Personally, I use dialog in my story-telling first off, because in my professional life I live in a world of dialog; second, since my underlying metapsychology is relational, my characters often (but not always) reveal themselves and their backstory when they talk with other. For me, dialog is musical and improvisational like jazz. When I’m at the keyboard I’m often surprised—often moved to tears—by what the characters say to each other. For me, writing dialog is fun, my chance to improvise.

Since my themes are psychological I could either spend long sections describing characters’ thoughts and reflections, or let them show their emotions and reveal their backstory through their interactions. How well I remember what my first writing mentor told me when I said I want the readers to hear what Jeffrey Deitz has to say. He said, and I remember this well, “Your job is to keep Jeffrey Deitz out of the story. If Jeffrey Deitz has anything worth saying. he better find a character to say it!”