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 have all experienced the patient who says, “I can't think of anything to talk about”. That is an extraordinary state of affairs, for no one has said that any subject is debarred from discussion and there is a whole universe to talk about if the patient feels so inclined. The psychoanalyst is not in the same position although he is present for the same fifty minutes and in the same room; his working occupation limits his range of discussion. The minimum range suggested by Freud was discussion of the Oedipus situation, the interpretation of dreams, and sex. The work would indeed be limited if it in fact applied only to that threefold area, but each of these main topics splits up into a number of subdivisions, and these in turn become further subdivided, and so on, until before long there are an enormous number of possible interpretations. It depends upon whether you take the restricted view of the common root of the interpretations, or the various varieties. The mental domain is wider still when it is considered that the main categories change according to the vertex: for example, religious, aesthetic and scientific.
The conversation which takes place in the consulting room should resemble real life; painting should produce pictures which in some way remind you of the world we live in; similarly with sculpture. But people change, and a Greek who admired the sculpture of Hermes of Praxiteles would not understand a sculpture by Rodin who attempts to portray the character rather than the physical appearance of a person.
Already these topics have expanded in an alarming manner into a vast area of discussion. It diminishes equally rapidly when the patient says, “I can't think of anything to talk about”. What are we to say, what are we to think about this situation? Does the patient
regard the range of talking as too limited? Is he somebody who says, “I can't talk. It doesn't give me any scope. I could play my violin to you – then I would have something to say.” We may