“In Her Mother's Name”: Imitation, a Pre-Identificatory Mechanism of Defence

IN THE TWELVE YEARS I worked with Anne, she changed her names, both first name and surname variously, six times; she also changed her address seventeen times.

Significantly, as will be seen, on the first occasion she came to see me, she came with her mother's name, and she lived nowhere in particular. She had no friends. And she did not work; she had inherited an income from her grandmother. She spent her time entirely in the company of fellow drug addicts or in the darkness of cinemas.

Looking at the almost giant proportions of the woman who entered my consulting room, now more than twenty years ago, noting her swollen, black, infected fingers, her ankle-length skirt and short, white socks, I felt caught up in a spectacle. She made absolutely no eye contact.

I was struck by her exceptional height—almost two meters—and the poignant babyish self-presentation. The span of her hands, the vast size of her feet seemed somehow dissociated from the rest of her.

I also felt disturbed by her. She seemed blind in her unlooking. As though she were deaf, there was an almost complete lack of resonance in her voice. She did not seem to be nervous of me; indeed, I wondered to what extent she acknowledged me as being there at all.

I experienced no sense of my usual choice as to whether or not I would take her into therapy. She, however, conveyed to me the fact of her arrival and a steely determination that she was there for the duration, no matter how long this would take.

I was immensely struck by the sheer physicality of her presence, or should I also say her nonpresence. There was something compelling in the nonnegotiability of her intention to be in treatment with me that allowed no discussion. It was as if I were to have no personal say in the matter. Her presence was all.

In reality, of course, I did have a choice. I was not yet caught up in her unidimensional world. What choice I exercised was to be reminded