Chapter 9. Learning from Experience

1 A small number of patients with whom I have had to deal have presented prominently symptoms of disordered capacity for thought. In the course of their treatment opportunities for orthodox transference interpretations occurred and were taken, but the patient often learned nothing from them. The stream of disjointed associations continued. Interpretations based on theories of anal erotism in its various forms, theories of the patient's need to improvise a personality out of elements he felt were worthless and which he could therefore afford to lose, theories of splitting, projective identification, defence against assault and so on had only slight effect. There were signs of confusion that I had learned to associate with projective identification. I therefore assumed that I was the repository of a part of his personality such as his sanity, or the non-psychotic part of his personality. Before long I decided that further interpretations based on these theories were not likely to achieve any useful purpose. I tested the supposition that I contained the non-psychotic part of his personality, and then began to be aware that I was supposed to be conscious of what was going on while he was not. I was (contained) his “conscious”. Sometimes I could visualize the situation, unfolding in the analysis, as one in which the patient was a foetus to whom the mother's emotions were communicated but to whom the stimulus for the emotions, and their source, was unknown (see “model making”, Chapter 22). At other times he seemed to have a rudimentary idea of what was going on, but no idea how he felt. I shall not here describe the variations on this theme, as they were not substantially different from those described by Klein, Rosenfeld and others. The problem which awaited solution, and which I am now discussing, was to determine what this part was. The theory of functions offered a prospect of solving this problem

by assuming that I contained unknown functions of his personality an