You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
‘Cure’ The problem that I want to discuss may be introduced by a somewhat compressed and distorted – in the instincts of discretion – account of some episodes in the treatment of a borderline psychotic. I call him that because although he had been certified and kept in a mental hospital as a schizophrenic for about a year, the psychoanalytic experience made me dissatisfied with such a diagnosis without making it possible for me to propose any other.
The psychoanalysis went on interminably, week after week, year after year. The patient claimed he was better. If asked to substantiate the statement, he would report that his writing had improved, or he no longer blinked in a bright light. There were various items of this kind, none of which could be regarded by a sane man as offering evidence in support of the idea of improvement and all which could be seen as requiring further psychoanalytic interpretation.
Ultimately the analysis terminated. The patient, as if feeling it would be hopeless to resort to his usual procedures for prolonging it, seemed to be stupefied and helpless. There were no communications from the relatives or medical practitioners: my last memory is of his face, agonized, with beads of perspiration showing, though it was not a hot day.