What is The Sixth Sense? A film with that title promises to reveal an additional human awareness. In fact, it provides two versions of that awareness, one in its “manifest content,” the other latent, and both are surprises.
I became interested in The Sixth Sense when I noticed that a number of patients and acquaintances were commenting on it. Many were simply confused; but two patients described important affective reactions to particular moments in the film.
The Sixth Sense should be of some interest to psychoanalysts because its central action is a psychotherapy. The therapist is a child psychologist who is attempting to recover from a personal failure in his work. At the film’s opening, Malcolm Crowe is seemingly at the height of success. He and his wife are drinking wine, celebrating his having been given an award by the city of Philadelphia for his clinical work with children. (That a city would give an award to a psychologist for his clinical work was clearly the most unlikely premise in this film.) His wife, Anna, is openly proud, but Malcolm gives hints of self-doubt. He denigrates the award, continually praising the frame and suggesting that it be hung in the bathroom.
His dissatisfaction is given form a few moments later in a scene that could be any therapist’s nightmare. It has strong pulls to the primal scene. Malcolm and his wife become increasingly amorous as they climb the stairs to their bedroom, kissing and even beginning to throw off clothing. As viewers we are anticipating a scene of love making—but it is interrupted by an adolescent boy who has broken into their home and stripped himself to his undershorts. He is a former patient of Malcolm’s who appears out of their bathroom and angrily accuses his former therapist.
”Don’t you even remember your own patients?”
In effect, he is insisting upon his right to enter their private relationship. When Malcolm’s wife asks him what he wants, he answers,
“What he promised me.”
His accusation is one which cuts to the bone of virtually anyone in this profession, that Malcolm did not understand him.
”I was afraid. You told me I was having trouble coping with my parents’ divorce. You were wrong! You were wrong!”
I doubt that there is anyone who has ever practiced psychotherapy who did not react with some anxiety to this confrontation, not to mention shuddering at the thought of a dissatisfied patient appearing in the privacy of the therapist’s bedroom. That nightmare is completed. The boy ignores Malcolm’s plea to try to help him, turns for a pistol that we had not seen and shoots first Malcolm, in the belly, and then himself. As we fade out, Malcolm is lying on the bed on his back, his wife at his side comforting him.
As the film resumes, the primal scene appears to have faded from our view except for the fact that Malcolm, the therapist, has now become an observer to the world of his new patient, a grade school boy, and his mother. The film revolves around a theme common to films about psychotherapy and not unknown in clinical practice—a treatment that will attempt to heal both patient and therapist. Malcolm will treat another boy, much like the one with whom he’d failed. By successfully treating his new patient, Malcolm can correct his past errors and ease his conscience. Like the adolescent who shot Malcolm, the new patient, Cole, is an intelligent and sensitive boy brought up by his mother, with no father available after a divorce. What he also shares with that older boy is a pervasive fear.
The therapy is unconventional in its setting. Dr. Crowe sees his patient in the field, following him from his home to a church where the boy goes with his toy soldiers, seeing him in his home, at his school, walking in the street. Nevertheless, we can recognize reasonably good technique as Malcolm engages his young, clearly wary patient. He particularly draws him out with a little game in which he attempts to read the boy’s mind, asking the boy to step forward when he is correct, back when he is wrong. It starts well as he makes what are essentially interpretations about the boy’s expectations from the therapy, guessing correctly that Cole’s mother had an unsuccessful attempt at therapy after her husband left and that Cole expects his therapy to be a failure. He begins to fail with guesses about Cole’s relationship with his father, nevertheless drawing him out.
“Your father gave you that watch.”
“He left it in the drawer. It doesn’t work.”
The dialogue subtly reminds us of the implied accusation thrown at Malcolm by his adolescent failure, that he hasn’t understood his patient. Malcolm appears to go astray when he imposes a theory upon the boy’s illness. He is convinced that the boy is reacting to the loss of his father. There may be some truth to this, it certainly is implicitly corroborated by the object hunger with which Cole attaches to this man who makes himself so available and shows such interest. Nevertheless, the partially correct theory is an obstacle to a real understanding of the boy’s problem. He had made the same error with the boy who ultimately shot him, who had accused:
“You told me I was having trouble coping with my parents’ divorce.”
If there is a direct message to us, it is listen to your patients, do not let your theories interfere with hearing them.
Analysts know full well about the obstacles to listening and to exposure of the truth. The film presents Cole as being isolated with his secret fear because others’ defenses will not allow them to hear him. When Cole walks into his home from school, his mother engages him in a little game that we sense has been ongoing. She tells him:
“You know what I did today? I won the Pennsylvania lottery in the morning. I quit my jobs, and I ate a big picnic in the park with lots of chocolate mince pie, and I swam in the fountain all afternoon.”
Cole must come up with an equally creative and upbeat answer:
“I was picked first for kickball teams at recess, hit a grand slam and won the game. Everyone lifted me up on their shoulders and carried me around cheering.”
It sounds cute and benign, but in his brief session with Malcolm, Cole tells us about the danger of colorizing life. Malcolm guesses incorrectly that Cole has never been in trouble, but Cole tells him,
“We were supposed to draw a picture, anything we wanted. I drew a man who got hurt in the neck by another man with a screwdriver . . . Everyone got upset. They had a meeting. Mom started crying. I don’t draw like that anymore . . . I draw people smiling, dogs running, rainbows. They don’t have meetings about rainbows.”
The message is clear. People do not want to hear your problems. At the end of the session, Cole looks to his side, a gesture we will understand only on second viewing, and asks Malcolm what he is thinking. When Malcolm cannot answer, he says,
“I was thinking you’re nice, but you can’t help me.”
Actually, we might think that Malcolm’s admission of ignorance is a good starting point for a successful therapy.
The hollow attempts at being upbeat highlight the film’s pervasive depressive mood. The boy, Cole, looks continually tense and unhappy. The children, and even the teachers, at his school consider him a “freak”. He is convinced of this himself. He plays by himself, has few real friends, likes to wander into a local church to play with his toy men, and has a little private tent in his room in which he can hide. His mother looks depressed as well. She, too, seems to be worried and isolated. She certainly worries about her son. We know about her failed therapy after her husband left. We sense that she is lonely.
Then there is Malcolm’s wife. We see her sitting alone in a restaurant at what turns out to be their anniversary. Malcolm comes in to sit with her, but she ignores him as he explains he went to the wrong restaurant. She solemnly pays the bill, saying only, “Happy anniversary.” Malcolm attributes her coldness to the fact that he has been distant and preoccupied. We see her silently watching videos of their wedding day, and are presumably to believe that their marriage is on the rocks. When Malcolm walks into the bathroom while she is showering, he finds a pillbox with Zoloft, an anti-depressant) in the medicine cabinet.
Finally, there is Malcolm. He is clearly frustrated at the barrier between him and his wife. He is also still upset at his clinical failure. When he enters the restaurant to meet his wife, he tells her he had a bad session that day (with Cole).
The key to resolving this depression is an acceptance of the truth, relinquishment of defenses that attempt to disguise painful reality. Cole makes the first move. Malcolm has been fumbling trying to tell Cole a bed-time story. Cole asks Malcolm to tell him a story “about why you’re sad.” At first, Malcolm tries to push it aside.
“You think I’m sad?” He even tells Cole, “Not supposed to talk about stuff like that.”
When he recognizes that he is losing his patient, he relents, answering the question. He tells Cole about a man named Malcolm who worked with children.
“And then one night he found out that he made a mistake with one of them. He couldn’t help that one. And he can’t stop thinking about it, he can’t forget. Ever since then things have been different. He’s not the same person that he used to be, and his wife doesn’t like the person he’s become. They barely speak anymore, they’re like strangers.”
Malcolm meets a wonderful little boy who reminds him of the other, and “decides if he can help the new boy, it would be like helping the other one, too.” When Cole asks how the story turns out, he acknowledges that he doesn’t know, again accepting reality and his own openness to the truth, however it turns out.
It is only then that Cole dares to tell his secret,
“I see dead people.”
Malcolm’s initial reaction is to believe that Cole is psychotic. He makes a note to himself that hospitalization may be necessary. He is headed towards his original mistake, allowing his preconceived ideas to interfere with hearing what his patient is telling him. We will later learn that Malcolm’s dismissal of Cole as psychotic is another example of defensive denial. But he has gained enough humility to question his assumptions. He goes back to a tape of an interview with the first boy, finding evidence of the presence of a ghost.
We, too, could easily dismiss “I see dead people” as Cole’s fantasy, but we know that in the context of the film it is real. We could dismiss the film, and some did, leaving with a sense of confusion; but I started by saying that two of my patients were very moved by scenes in this film. The film’s popularity is greater than the likely number of people who actively believe in ghosts. We are willing to suspend our disbelief in the interest of gratifying our fantasies. To be convincing, the film must give us a reason for wanting to believe that there are ghosts among us, that the dead do not leave us.
We can begin to discover that reason by understanding the depression that pervades the film and its characters. Although we have sensed each character’s depression, we have been led astray about the causes. We believe that Cole is reacting to the breakup of his family and the loss of his father, that his mother is similarly reacting to the loss of her husband, that Malcolm and his wife, Anna, are reacting to a distance that has grown between them. He attributes it to his dedication to his work, and, in fact, in the opening scene amidst her admiration of his achievements, she says that even she has come second to his work with children. In a sense, each of these formulations has some truth, yet they miss the point.
Like his predecessor, Vincent, Cole is not primarily frightened and depressed because his father left, but because he is literally haunted by ghosts and the tragedy of their often violent deaths. Malcolm helps him resolve his problem by applying what he has learned. He tells Cole to listen to the ghosts, find out what they want from him. He encourages Cole to be a therapist to them. Cole overcomes his fear and discovers that they are looking to him for help. A young girl directs him to her home to uncover evidence of her murder by poison. The dead girl gives Cole a box containing a video tape that incriminates her mother, making it safe for the girl’s younger sister who was to be the next victim.
We also learn that Cole’s mother’s depression, perhaps triggered by the breakup of her marriage, has to do with another source of grief. We learn of it when Cole, having resolved his own conflict, decides that it is safe to reveal his secret to his mother. At first, she, too, is frightened that he is psychotic, but she becomes convinced when he tells her he has spoken to her mother.
“She wanted me to tell you she saw you dance. She said when you were little you and her had a fight right before your dance recital. You thought she didn’t come to see you dance. She did. She hid in the back so you wouldn’t see. She said you were like an angel. She said you came to the place where they buried her, asked her a question. She said the answer is ‘every day’. What did you ask?”
“Do I make her proud.”
Cole and his mother hug tearfully. She has been grieving not only at being alone, but particularly at not having her mother’s support and recognition, recognition that she apparently needs to remove self doubt. This is one of the scenes that a patient responded to with strong emotion. He is a man who has struggled with the death of his mother when he was a child. He was deeply moved at the thought of a loving parent looking down and giving approval.
We have also been led astray about the full cause of Malcolm and his wife Anna’s depression. At their last session, Cole understands that Malcolm has helped him with his problem and will no longer need to treat him. He reciprocates, giving Malcolm advice that will ultimately help him overcome his own defenses to understand and come to terms with the source of his grief. He tells Malcolm that if he talks to his wife when she is sleeping, she will hear him.
Malcolm finds her sleeping in the living room, the TV showing their wedding video. She pulls her shawl up over her as he enters. He speaks to her when she is asleep. She asks him why he left her, and he says he didn’t leave her. Then he recalls Cole’s words, “They don’t know they’re dead . . . They only see what they want to see.” We can see the cold vapor of her breath, reminded that Cole has said we feel a chill when in the presence of a ghost. Malcolm begins to realize that Cole’s words apply to him. The film’s secret that confused some of its viewers is that Malcolm Crowe, the therapist, did not survive the shooting. He is a ghost, not yet willing to accept his death. His “cure”, his self-awareness comes through his therapeutic relationship with his patient. Finally, he remembers his own fatal wound and his death. He tells Anna,
“I think I can go now. I just needed to do a couple of things. I needed to help someone. I think I did. I needed to tell you something. You were never second, ever. I love you.”
She tells him good night. This was the scene that affected another of my patients, an elderly man attempting to come to terms with his own mortality and the possibility of leaving his loved ones behind.
We now understand better the depression of each of the central characters. Cole lives with the knowledge of death, and particularly with sudden and violent death. Malcolm’s wife is grieving for her dead husband. Cole’s mother is lonely, but it is her deceased mother that she misses, not her estranged husband. Malcolm is depressed and in denial at his own removal from the world and from the wife he loves.
It is on this level that the film affects us. The “sixth sense” is more than an ability to see dead people. In heart, the sixth sense is an ability to be in contact with others. We might call it empathy, but it is something more. It is the ability to hear others and to understand them in their own terms. It is an ability to overcome isolation and the emotional barriers that keep people apart.
In each case, the film shifts the cause of sadness and loneliness from a relationship with the living to a relationship with the dead. Cole and his mother are not grieving their separation from their father/husband. Malcolm and his wife are not sad over problems in their marriage. I don’t think the film trivializes the emotional distance between the living. Cole’s mother had unfinished business with her mother, repairs to be made, as did Malcolm with his wife. The film, while offering a solution, reminds us that death is a potentially unbreachable gap between us and our loved ones.
Death is the ultimate barrier. We will go with the film’s premise because we want to believe that our loved ones who have died are still in contact with us. I have known patients, combat veterans, who believed that literally to be true, that their buddy was still there with them, talking to them. That degree of concretization is unusual, of course, but I would venture a guess that the fantasy that certain loved ones are still watching and listening is ubiquitous. As the film tells us, that fantasy is entertained to help us overcome a sense of loneliness and emotional need. The ability to be aware of the feelings and needs of those around us and to maintain emotional contact with our memories of those who have left us—that is “The Sixth Sense”.
But there is another thread that I have left dangling, the thread begun by the film’s dramatic opening scene and seemingly forgotten. In that scene, an angry, accusing patient, a boy, breaks into his former therapist’s bedroom, interrupts his intimacy with his wife, and shoots him, separating him from his wife forever. From that point on, it is Malcolm, the therapist, who is an outsider, an observer to the world of a boy and his mother. He is shut off from his own wife, as well. She cannot see him or hear him, and he becomes increasingly enraged as he watches a young man with whom she works flirting with her. At one point, he gives full vent to his anger, smashing the window on the door to the shop in which he sees them together, causing it to display a crack line. Ultimately, he must accept his loss and willingly give her permission to go on with her life, presumably with this younger man.
From one perspective, this is a film about a mutually successful psychotherapy in which patient and therapist come to terms with the reality of their lives. From another perspective, it could be called “The Patient’s Revenge.” Indeed, the young man who feels that his therapist has ignored and forgotten him has succeeded in separating Malcolm from his wife forever, reducing him to the role of a ghost who can observe and comment, but cannot enter the activity of this world. The therapist/father is forced to step aside, leaving his wife to the younger man.
From this perspective, it is no coincidence that the two boys with special powers to see ghosts are left alone with their mothers. They have gratified the Oedipal fantasy by eliminating an uncaring father. Their gift and their punishment is awareness of the dead people who spy on their unique relationships with their mothers. The dead are a projection of the primal scene fantasy, people who are condemned to being on the outside looking in forever. In appearing to Cole with visible signs of their violent deaths, the ghosts also force Cole to undergo a recreation of primal scene trauma as he helplessly is privy to terrible secrets of violence and death.
The film reminds us that the comforting fantasy that our departed loved ones are watching us can also be a secretly gratifying fantasy in which the primal scene is reversed, the dead parents forced to watch their children. When our parents die, they become ineffectual passive observers of our lives. When we die, we regress to the passive helplessness of infancy in which we can only observe our parents in their love for one another. In this sense, death is the ultimate frustration, and coming to terms with it the ultimate task of resolution.
Published originally in:
PANY Bulletin Fall, 2000 38:3
and in,
Stein, H. (2002) Double Feature: Discovering our Hidden Fantasies in Film. New York: E-Reads.