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Presenter: The patient usually arrives a little late, lies on the couch and immediately starts to talk. Yesterday he arrived ten minutes late and paused for about a minute before speaking. He said that while he was silent he was thinking about your lectures. He had considered attending those meetings but was afraid he would meet his former analyst (with whom he had been for eight years) and would not know what to say to him. He said, “It's funny – I remember things people tell me; I remember things about those people; and yet I don't remember the people themselves.” He has been in analysis with me for six months, two months of which he spent in Europe. He said that while in Europe he sometimes remembered what I had said to him but never remembered me. He said this also applied to his memory of his father; he remembered his father's words but never his father.
While he was saying this I recalled that he had a habit of using quotations. My interpretation was, “You use words as if they were something that can be kept in a cupboard and which are at your disposal, but you leave people aside.” He seemed to agree with my observation. He said that although he is ‘intelligent, sensitive and shrewd’, he is unable to retain the things he learns. As a result he feels ill at ease even when among friends. He thinks that is why he doesn't enjoy any serious conversation.
Bion: What strikes me about this is that he thinks he knows ‘why’. People very often say, “Because … because …”; then while you are waiting to hear the cause, they don't tell you. This patient tells you the cause, but we don't know that he really knows what it is. If he knows the cause, why bother to tell you? The reason why he tells you is in fact that he does not know. I think he is frightened of you and of what you will find out. In physical medicine this fear can be so great
that someone who thinks he has cancer won't even go to see a doctor. When a patient comes to see an analyst, he hopes that the analyst wi