You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
We are delighted to present the third Clinical Commentary of this new series and are grateful to the psychotherapist who has offered clinical material and to the three commentators.
Mark Budden
Ann Horne
Both my patient and I were born in Europe and we share a mother tongue in which the therapy is conducted. Early on, I suggested that she might benefit from coming more frequently but she responded as if she had not heard my suggestion, and I thought that the idea seemed so odd to her that there was no chance for her to take it in and consider it. She has now been coming once weekly for a year.
Maria (not her real name) has been taking medication for compulsive and obsessional neurosis since she was 20. She is now 30. Her compulsive thoughts centre on being a disappointment to others, especially her mother, or a bad employee, a bad daughter. She arrived in the UK three years ago.
During her first session, I got the picture of a patient who was totally psychically merged with her mother. It was difficult to tell which were her words and which her mother's. Maria said that she didn't allow herself to express the smallest criticism of her mother, and asked: ‘Am I right to talk about my mother here at all?’ A moment later she expressed a shy wish to separate from her enough to have a life of her own.
Maria's mother is a retired professional who suffers with anxiety neurosis, as did her maternal grandmother. This grandmother's sister committed suicide. Maria tried to present her childhood as bright and colourful, but gradually I heard that she had often seen her mother very unwell during her breakdowns. She describes her father as ‘a nut’, an asocial and autistic person. Her older brother has serious emotional difficulties and an alcohol addiction. He still lives with their parents. Maria is bisexual, and lives with her female partner.