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Presenter: This is material from the second session on the same day. She had a very tense expression, more anguished than sad. She said, “When I got here this morning for my first session I felt very distressed. I went to visit a friend who told me that she had had a sexual affair with a teacher and as a result was pregnant. She had told two other people about it and soon everybody in the town knew about it. Her husband knows about it too, but they are making a show of living happily together for everybody to see. It reminded me of what happened with that psychiatrist; I felt that what had happened to my friend had happened to me. I was so upset I could hardly disguise my feelings from my friend. What confuses me so much is the fact that when I went to the psychiatrist I didn't want any such thing to happen.” The psychiatrist had told her that she should work it through with him. Sometimes he held her hand and said that it would help them to feel close and would also give her the feeling that she had a body. I told her that I thought she had difficulty in recognizing facts, and that therefore she felt as if she was her friend, living her friend's life.
Bion: Did you draw attention to what she was afraid you might do?
P: Yes. She said, “What I am afraid of is that you won't understand my feelings.’ I asked her what her feelings were. She said, “I would like you to embrace me but that nothing should happen.”
B: She may want to have a physical contact with you, but at the same time she is afraid that you would tell the whole town about it. She also feels that if you embraced her, then she would tell the whole town about it. So while she may want an analysis, she is afraid of its
being a situation of frustration, danger and publicity in which everybody knows what is supposed to be secret.
P: She is afraid that people in the town where she lives know about what happened between her and her psychiatrist.
B: And there is also the anxiety that you know what happened – especial