Internalising the Experience of the Negative. Effects in the Analytic Relationship1

In my clinical practice I have sometimes experienced analytic dynamics with individuals who had been exposed to early traumatic experiences, and whose analysis could be called successful if we assess the way they live their lives today, compared to how they had begun their analytic journey. A form of silent melancholy dominated their lives, and it was often a «private» suffering. Thinking about these patients, Winnicott would say these people are well established and highly esteemed, and that it is highly probable that others who come into contact with them do not recognise how ill they feel.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the analytic dynamics associated with late stages in these analyses: I shall focus only on certain moments relevant to the subject I wish to explore in detail. The first coincides with the confident start at re-constructing, not only in the historical sense, but above all as re-composition and enrichment of the Self, functions which run through the whole of the analysis. The area of disillusionment slowly emerges in the analysis: that is, the patient becomes ever more clearly aware that further change is impossible, because, as we shall see, the only change that is possible (or thinkable by the patient) would be that of reality as it was; so it is with a feeling of regret that we move on towards our parting.

What is striking in these people's history from the outset is their clear awareness of the traumatogenic conditions undergone in their childhood. However, the acknowledgement of the devastating effects on the construction of their Self is quite another matter. These are patients who have always viewed themselves through the eyes of the adults who brought them up, who did not recognise their substance as individuals, but looked instead at the narcissistic use that could be made of them. As a result, their self-awareness is partial, confused, dissociated, and based on action, always ready to take on the form which best corresponds to the