Marcie's Phobia of Doctors

Marcie Monatella’s phobia of doctors is an outward sign of anxiety that remains unresolved even when she appears comfortable with a doctor. As Ted Coverly comes to understand it, the fear does not simply disappear: its pressure surfaces instead as Marcie’s increasingly intense preoccupation with the moon, leaving its deeper source unexplained.

First Encounter and Concealed Fear

On Thursday, Marcie saw Ted Coverly for the first time and liked him. If her abnormal fear of doctors was still present, she concealed it so effectively that it was not apparent. That ease did not establish that the phobia had lifted. The distinction matters: Marcie’s outward response to one doctor was positive, while Coverly would later judge that the anxiety behind the fear had not been relieved.

Anxiety in a New Form

Jorja noticed the shift when Marcie became absorbed in a photograph of the moon. The intensity of her gaze recalled the single-mindedness with which she had played Little Ms. Doctor, prompting Jorja to wonder whether the doctor phobia had begun in the same quiet, apparently innocent way. At first, she tried to reassure herself that Marcie was merely experiencing one of the fierce but temporary enthusiasms of a bright seven-year-old, not developing a new fear.

The fixation soon acquired a visible form. Marcie filled an album with lunar images, using magazine clippings where she could find them and drawing hundreds of moons with outlines traced from everyday objects such as coins, jar lids, glasses, cans, and thimbles. She gradually devoted more time to the collection. Coverly understood this preoccupation as another expression of the anxiety that had generated her irrational fear of doctors: anxiety did not have to reappear as a second phobia; it could take the form of an obsession. Marcie did not seem frightened of the moon, but the absence of fear did not mean the underlying distress had been settled.

Unresolved Source

Coverly described therapy as a search for the anxiety’s source, something Jorja could not identify. Her concern sharpened after Alan Rykoff died by suicide. Before telling Marcie, she consulted Coverly, who was astonished to learn that Alan, too, had dreamed of the moon and independently developed an intense lunar fascination. He advised waiting until Monday to tell Marcie and proposed that Jorja bring her to the appointment so they could tell her together. The shared lunar fixation deepens the uncertainty around Marcie’s symptoms, but the account does not establish that her father’s experience caused them. Her doctor phobia remains significant as the first recognized expression of an anxiety whose later form is more visible, not more understood.