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Presenter: The patient is thirty years old, a university departmental director. He came for analysis because he had a problem with premature ejaculation. He has a phantasy of soon becoming President of the Republic.
I am reporting a mid-week session. He arrived punctually as usual, wearing a stern expression – also as usual – and was silent for a while. Then he said that he had been choosing what to say about something that was causing him great anxiety: a friend had told him that a former girl-friend of his had returned from abroad.
Bion: Supposing you were God and said to the patient, “Right – go on ‘President of Brazil’.” Would that be a premature ejaculation for him?
P: It could be – he is always ahead of himself, always puts the cart before the horse.
M: Do you think that the patient's silence was related to his fear of premature ejaculation?
B: Yes, and I think his attention could be drawn to the fact that his fear is of such a kind that he has to go to the opposite extreme.
P: When he got home that evening his wife was waiting for him in bed, but he was so disturbed by the news of the arrival of his girlfriend that he didn't go to bed and decided to watch television until three o'clock in the morning, although he knew that his wife was waiting for him. He said the programme he was enjoying so much was the presentation of the Oscar awards; he could see all the stars he admired so much.
B: We all think we know what ‘television’ means, but we forget that it actually means ‘vision at a distance’. It is all right to want to be President if it is far enough away, but not if someone says, “All
right – you go and be the President.” It is all right to see someone having intercourse, but not close to. If he has a wife, he can see the couple having intercourse but he is one of them. He may not be much better at having a loving relationship with a wife than he would be at having a loving relationship with the Republic. He is always ahead of himself, as you have described it;