Sofia Zetterlund–Samuel Bai therapeutic relationship

Sofia Zetterlund’s therapeutic relationship with Samuel Bai is founded on a rare point of recognition: she can meet him in Krio and discuss familiar places in Freetown, rather than approaching him only through clinical symptoms. That opening helps Samuel begin to trust her, while his marked shifts between ways of speaking and behaving lead Sofia to suspect a complex, trauma-related dissociative condition. The work offers her a sense of care that she finds absent from her criminal-justice assessments, but it also tests her attention and equilibrium; the narrative establishes a serious therapeutic undertaking, not a completed recovery.

Establishing contact

The relationship begins at Sofia’s office after a day already weighted by other people’s suffering. She has left a conversation that took a toll on her, agreed to take on another demanding case, and is due to meet Samuel with social services. She anticipates a conversation shaped by violence and abuse. The surrounding exhaustion matters: Sofia does not enter the encounter as a detached observer, but as a therapist aware of how another person’s pain can press upon her own capacity to remain steady.

Samuel initially appears reserved and uninterested. Sofia proposes that they speak in Krio rather than English, and his manner changes: he becomes more communicative. She learned the West African language during three months in Sierra Leone. Their conversation turns to life in Freetown and to places and buildings both know. The shared geography gives their first meeting something more specific than a general expression of sympathy. Samuel recognizes that Sofia can understand at least something of what he has experienced, and trust begins to form through that exchange.

After about twenty minutes, Sofia allows herself to hope that she might contribute something positive. They continue talking for over an hour. When Samuel leaves, she feels that she has a slightly clearer picture of his wounded psyche. The change is modest and carefully measured: she has not resolved his difficulties, but the conversation has made him more legible to her and has given the encounter a possible direction.

Reading Samuel’s changes

Sofia first notices problems with focus and concentration, an inability to sit still for more than thirty seconds, and difficulty restraining sudden impulses and emotional outbursts. These signs resemble attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, particularly the hyperactivity and lack of impulse control. Yet she quickly recognizes that this description cannot account for the whole pattern. The novel lets her clinical reasoning proceed through observation: an apparent resemblance to one condition becomes a question when other details fail to fit.

Samuel’s voice, intonation, body language, and language change with the subject of conversation. At times he switches from Krio to English; at others he uses a form of Krio that Sofia has never heard. His posture and gaze change too. He may sit bolt upright, look intensely at her, and speak clearly and loudly about wanting to open a restaurant one day. Then he may slump, his eyes dull, and mutter in the unfamiliar dialect. These are not simply different topics within a stable conversation: Sofia perceives distinct shifts in how Samuel occupies the room and communicates.

Her experience treating Victoria Bergman gives her a point of comparison. Sofia had discerned dissociative tendencies in Victoria; in Samuel, she believes the phenomenon has developed further. She suspects post-traumatic stress connected to the terrible experiences he endured as a child, with a personality disorder arising in that context. She observes what seem to be several personalities, between which Samuel switches unconsciously. She knows the condition has also been called multiple personality disorder, but prefers the term dissociative identity disorder. The account presents this as Sofia’s clinical assessment, not as a definitive resolution of Samuel’s history or prognosis.

The demands of treatment

Sofia understands that work of this kind cannot be contained within her usual appointments. Treatment would take considerable time both within each conversation and across the overall course of care. She concludes that forty-five- or sixty-minute sessions would not suffice: she would need to extend Samuel’s appointments to ninety minutes and ask social services to arrange meetings at least three times a week. The proposed frequency and length convey the scale of attention she believes the work requires; they are a plan, not evidence that a lasting course of treatment has already been completed.

The difficulty is not only duration. Sofia knows the sessions demand her complete concentration. During their first conversation, she experiences something familiar from Victoria Bergman’s monologues: Samuel appears capable of self-hypnosis, and his sleep-like state begins to affect Sofia. The clinical encounter therefore places pressure on the therapist as well as exposing the patient’s vulnerability. Sofia knows she will have to be at the top of her game if she is to have any chance of helping him. Her concern makes the relationship more than an exchange in which she gathers information; the act of listening itself requires vigilance.

The contrast with her criminal-justice work sharpens what the relationship means to her. That work, she reflects, ultimately has nothing to do with caring for the people she meets. With Samuel, by contrast, she feels she may actually be able to help. This hope remains tentative, and the narrative does not promise that treatment will succeed. Its significance lies in Sofia’s recognition of a possibility for care even as she acknowledges the time, concentration, and emotional steadiness it will demand.

Continuation and limits

At a subsequent appointment, Samuel arrives punctually with a social worker from Hässelby. Sofia has arranged for him to stay until three o’clock, rather than ending the meeting at half past two, because she wants a longer conversation. His arrival is accompanied by a broad smile and a polite, extroverted manner. Sofia feels relieved when she recognizes this presentation as the personality she calls Frankly Samuel in her notes, who speaks in a homespun form of English and often introduces his remarks with the same conversational phrase. The moment shows how closely her work has come to depend on noticing which of Samuel’s changing presentations is present, while preserving the distinction between her clinical shorthand and Samuel as a person.

Sofia’s nervousness beforehand also reveals that the first meeting has not made the work easy. She worries that their conversation may run into a dead end as it seemed to do previously, and feels she must get close to him before he slips out of her hands altogether. Her decision to lengthen the appointment is thus both practical and relational: it gives them more time, while reflecting her fear that connection may be fragile. The evidence shows repeated contact, a developing understanding, and Sofia’s commitment to make room for demanding sessions. It does not establish a final diagnosis beyond her suspicions, describe a completed treatment, or state what becomes of Samuel. The relationship remains defined by that tension between the hope of helping and the limits of what one conversation, or one therapist, can secure.