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On March 6, 2006, Dr. Lewis A. Kirshner, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, and faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis, furthered his exposition of Lacanian thought by introducing the concept of “figuration” to help explain his analysis of a patient whose failed dream heralded the breakthrough of previously unacknowledged trauma. His book, Having a Life: Self Pathology After Lacan, was published by The Analytic Press in 2004. As an aside, he informed the delighted assemblage that he had watched with great interest as the biography of Karen Horney flowed from the pen of his friend, Susan Quinn.
Kirshner presented the compelling story of Mr. S, who came to him burdened by a frightening inability to swallow, which was predicated on the fear that he could choke to death while eating. Mr. S was at a pivotal point in his life: a thesis just completed, ambivalence concerning a coveted but stifling new job, and his impending wedding, which would be attended by his father, who, brandishing a hatchet, kidnapped Mr. S from his mother when he was 6 1/2 years old. A year and a half earlier his mother had whisked him away to a nearby city, accompanied by her boyfriend and brother. During this period, Mr. S was emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by these men, while his mother repeatedly tried to convince him that it was his father who was responsible for all of his suffering. Things were seemingly better for Mr. S with his father, but it was a life on the run, which required secrecy, assumed names, and a constant fear of discovery and reprisal. He was never to see his mother