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.
Reversible perspective is evidence of pain; the patient reverses perspective to make a dynamic situation static. The work of the analyst is to restore dynamic to a static situation and so make development possible. As I said in my last chapter, the patient manoeuvres so that the analyst's interpretations are agreed; they thus become the outward sign of a static situation. Since the analyst's interpretations are unlikely to permit this and the patient is unlikely always to command sufficient nimbleness of mind to match the interpretation with a shift that reverses the perspective in which the interpretation is viewed, the patient employs an armoury that is reinforced by delusion and hallucination. If he cannot reverse the perspective at once he can adjust his perception of the facts by mis-hearing and misunderstanding so that they give substance to the static view: a delusion is in being.
If this is not sufficient to keep the situation static the patient resorts to hallucination. For simplification, I can restate this as hallucination in order to preserve, temporarily, an ability to reverse perspective; and reversed perspective in order to preserve a static hallucination.
The prolonged resort to reversible perspective is thus accompanied by delusions and hallucinations that are difficult to detect because they are both static and evanescent. Moreover, since their aim is to preserve the analyst's statements (interpretations) as an overt expression of agreement and a defence against change, so the true significance of the patient's behaviour as a sign of delusion or hallucination is not apparent unless the analyst is alert to this possibility. The analyst's expressed thoughts belong to the area F5, G5, and G6: the same formulation is accepted by the patient but as an expression of thought belonging to F1, G1, G2.