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I greatly appreciate this article and the treating analyst for the depth of his reflections, his approach to working through the countertransference, his delicacy toward the patient's needs and sensitivities, and his capacity to be in the here and now of her story and external reality.
I was also impressed by the sensitivity of the analyst's interpretations, reflecting his capacity to gauge the distance and depth tolerable to the patient. His willingness to doubt and question his own contribution to what happened in the session is also noted.
In short, this is an analyst I would gladly have had as my own.
I will now attempt to outline how my own approach would differ from his.
First, when a case is presented to me, I tend to consider what is recounted as a dream the analyst has dreamed to communicate as much as possible about the analytic process.
Further, I consider the people or functions that enter a session as characters of the session itself, fruit, if you will, of the interaction between two minds, the patient's and the analyst's, or, rather, of the analytic field created by the two minds.
Moreover, my approach is to deconstruct, deconcretize, and redream the patient's communications during the session.
For instance, I would consider the initial story as a description of how the patient's behavior could swing from childlike and angelic to more adult, rebellious, and aggressive. I would consider the rebellious and aggressive older brother as a character in the field who has long sought a means of expression: a split-off bound and gagged character underlying the patient's depression.
The trauma, in my view, is constituted by the fact that the patient lives and has lived in an oversaturated atmosphere of violence and unthinkable proto-emotions. These proto-emotions have not found a