How do You Get Out of a Balloon?: Discussion of “Deadlocking and Stalemating: Primitive Defense Mechanisms Against Progression in Psychoanalysis,” by Jochen Kemper

First I want to thank Dr. Kemper for a very interesting and stimulating case presentation. A case presentation seems to have similarities to holographic phenomena. What at first sight may look like a condensed and highly abstracted section of an indefinitely varied and multidimensional process turns out to give rise in the reader to an equally unlimited universe. This is fascinating, and also makes the selection of items to bring up for a discussion a very open question.

I will start by discussing the ways Dr. Kemper is using dream material in his presentation. Then I will continue to a more detailed study of the first dream, and finally make some connections between my understanding of the dream and some features of the clinical material five years later.

Kemper has chosen to present this borderline patient by recounting three dreams. He does so without supplying any associations from the patient, or any other specimens of the work which has been done with these dreams. This way of using dreams reflects a philosophic and theoretical stance regarding human nature in general and more specifically regarding dreams and the way they can be understood. He writes:

While to me, my patient's dreams constitute an extremely rich source of access to his inner, unconscious conflicts and predicaments, because I can assimilate, process, and understand the unconscious symbolism of his manifest and latent dream content since I have the privilege of being able for that purpose to employ my own independent and autonomous psychic and mental apparatus, my patient not only cannot do the same, but will ward off with all his strength any effort on my part in helping him to reach a similar understanding.