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Presenter: The patient is a woman, about fifty years old. In the session I am presenting she arrived, kept silent, and then in a demonstrative way yawned and showed that she was sleepy. Then she said, “Why did I come here if I am sleepy? I should stay at home to sleep. I don't come here to sleep”. Between each phrase she was silent. I said nothing. After a longer silence she asked, “Why do I come here?” I asked her, “Yes, why do you come? What does coming here mean to you?” She answered, “This means that; this is that”. I pointed out to her that this didn't tell me anything. She continued, “Well, I come here to get to know myself better. I think that with your help perhaps things will be clearer to me”. But she said this in a very unrealistic way.
Bion: One could say that if that is the answer, then what is the trouble? She is hardly likely to come to ask a question to which she thinks she knows the answer. If you ask her, “Why did you come here?”, then she can say that is what she is asking you. So I think I should simply leave it and say to her, “You have posed the question; perhaps later on you will be able to say what the answer is!”, or simply say, “You have posed the question”. I would rather leave her the chance of saying what the answer is when she has found it. It is as well to bear in mind also that there are two people in the room and that this question can apply to one or the other, or to both of them.
P: Suddenly she interrupted herself as if remembering something I had told her before. She lay down on the couch and turned her head towards me saying, “Didn't I say anything? Well, you said it doesn't mean anything”. She stared at me and then said, “You said I didn't say anything – perhaps I didn't say anything”. I said, “You
look at me as if I know the right answer and that you are supposed to guess it but you can't”. Then she said, “You could help me, but you keep saying that I have to do everything by myself here”. I said she was attributing me with th