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Presenter: The patient, a twenty-year-old girl, came in, sat down and said, “Do you know what happened? My phone was disconnected. I went to ask what had happened and they said the account hadn't been paid. They said they would reconnect it. It's not right, is it? Do you think it's right?” Then she said, “Guess what mark I got in the test I took – you must guess – I won't tell you. Maybe you don't want to tell me because you're going to give me a bad mark.” She stopped for a moment and then said, “I got nine out of ten.”
Bion: Do you want to go on being analysed by the patient? She makes an evocative statement, “You guess – then I shall know who you are. If you say nine is a bad mark, it ought to have been ten, then I shall know that you are the sort of analyst who is like a very bad conscience.”
P: I said, “I think you are very worried about the kind of marks you think I am giving you.” She agreed: sometimes she says, “Yes”; sometimes she expresses agreement with her eyes; sometimes she smiles. Once in a while I ask her what she is smiling about. She says, “Oh no, it's nonsense.”
B: There is something about the way in which you observe her that makes her afraid of what marks she would be given as a result of that examination. “What were you thinking about?” “Oh, nothing in particular; please don't pay any attention.” It is always the same reaction: “I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I didn't think anything. Don't be an analyst and pay attention and observe me. Everybody gives me nine out of ten; don't you dare give me less.”
P: She always asks me questions like a small child. Sometimes I feel that she looks like a small child who wants to know everything she hasn't been told. And sometimes I feel that she asks me the
questions because she doesn't stop to think. Everything she tells me has a question mark.
B: In the theory of analysis one is supposed to tell the patient the truth: in practice it is much more difficult because one does not know whether the p