The Case of Emily by Michael Glavin


			by Michael Glavin s there something within the human psyche that calls forth its own destruction? Do we summon beings to us in order to mete out a punishment that deep down we think we deserve? These are the questions I must ask myself tonight as my mind races to try and make sense of the case of Emily. Emily was a nondescript woman of middle age – a schoolteacher, never married, without children. She first came to me complaining of paranoid delusions. She said that in the small hours of the night, an elderly woman, who she described as a 'witch,' would appear to her. Not so much appear but that she could 'feel her presence.' Emily talked about the 'traces this evil woman left behind' – 'the lingering smell of her perfume,' 'the warmth of her hand left on an evening's glass of wine,' 'a subtle movement in the shadows.' Emily knew that this witch was intimately familiar to her somehow, even though Emily had never seen her face. Emily would describe how she would be reading, and there – out of focus, amongst the shadows – the old woman would be standing, watching, waiting. Emily was convinced that this apparition was there to take her life. She felt that this 'witch' wanted to poison her. Emily was so disturbed she would often go for days without sleep. This was disrupting not only her mental state, but also the teaching of