ABSTRACT
Today I’ll be seeing a new patient, a man by the name of Dr. Harry Davis, a medical researcher he told me in his initial phone call, not a practicing physician. I walk to the waiting room to greet him. As he rises to shake my hand I am instantly aware that I am sexually attracted to him, a relatively short, stocky man with curly black hair and a slender moustache. I’ve never experienced this before, this immediate attraction to a patient, and nd myself distinctly uncomfortable. I also know that I’ve just completed the quickest diagnostic assessment of my career. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this man will prove to be a narcissist. Although George is denitely the exception to my rule, I spent too many years involved with narcissistic men, trying to win or change the father of my childhood, to expect Dr. Davis to be anything but a continuation of my old pattern. He even has a moustache like my father. What do I nd so attractive about this man? What is it that so captures me? Certainly there is nothing particularly distinctive in his appearance. He’s not that handsome. He doesn’t have rugged good looks. Perhaps it is the self-assurance he projects, an aura that declares his feeling of being at the top of his game.
