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Presenter: The patient, a woman of twenty-four, was sent to me for analysis two years ago by a psychiatrist after a depressive breakdown for which she had received drugs. She had almost finished a course in psychology and was preparing to be married. She said that when she was twelve years old she underwent psychotherapy but no progress was possible because she sat and wept all the time. In the session I am reporting she was silent for forty minutes, wept all the time, and was apparently only aware of what I said for the last ten minutes.
Bion: She fears that the conversation, the verbal intercourse, between you and herself is going to be interrupted by a twelve-year-old who can drown it in tears. She is also afraid that intercourse between her and her potential husband will be interrupted by a twelve-year-old – or perhaps even by a one-year-old, or two-year-old.
What would I say to her? If I say, “You are feeling depressed”, she can compare that with what she knows she is feeling. The advantage of that kind of interpretation is that I am talking about what is happening now, not about something that happened twelve years ago. One could say, “You are afraid that if you are depressed I will have nothing more to do with you. You are afraid that I will not go on with the analytical marriage.” She, who knows most about the whole matter, can then feel whether I am right or wrong, and can help to keep me on the right track; she has a chance of knowing that I am talking about her self; and I have a chance of being able to judge what her reaction is to what I have said. The analyst and analysand can know what is going on in the consulting room, but neither of them can really know what happened twelve years ago, or what happened in the psychiatric hospital; that depends on memory which is very deceptive. It is therefore useful to dismiss both one's memories and one's desires so
that the present is unobscured. It is a great advantage for the analyst to feel that he does not h