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Presenter: The patient is a forty-year-old unmarried man, a diplomat. He came for analysis six months ago, not knowing what he wanted. He presented some physical symptoms and had the impression that he couldn't deal with his problems. His physical symptoms were migraine and gastro-intestinal disturbances like colic, constipation and digestive disturbances. This material is from the most recent session, last Saturday.
He lay down, started to talk, and told me he had had a dream. He dreamed that he was in hospital having an operation on his haemorrhoids, and was very worried because he wanted an English anaesthetic used. After he woke up he tried to work out the meaning of the dream, but came to the conclusion that he couldn't understand it. It confused him because he had already had an operation for haemorrhoids last year. He had a friend (who was also having an operation for haemorrhoids) who had told him, “I hope they use the kind of English anaesthetic that makes it easier to evacuate afterwards”. Since he was confused about the dream, he decided to leave it to be analysed together with me. He was afraid to go on thinking about it because he felt he would become more confused. I said, “You were afraid to go on dreaming”.
Bion: Were you intending to stop analysing him?
P: No.
B: How often were you seeing him?
P: Four times a week.
B: If this was the Saturday session, when would you see him next?
P: Usually on Monday, but last Monday he was not well. He
had in fact asked me to change the Monday session to another day because he is often too busy on Mondays.
He agreed that he was afraid to go on dreaming because he knew he might understand the dream, and even if his understanding was wrong, it would still be something that would have a meaning and so be analysable – he would rather come to an understanding of the dream with me.
B: He seems to have some doubt that there would be any free associations, but also some fear that there might be. This point is of some importance g