On Hallucination

Descriptions of hallucinations with which I am acquainted lack the precision necessary to afford material for psycho-analytical interpretation. In this paper I describe some detailed observations of hallucination and the results that followed. I hope to persuade you that such observation of the hallucinatory processes is essential and rewarding.

The content of the paper is narrowly circumscribed and much material excluded which would be helpful to perspicuity. I must indicate two important categories of facts which suffer under this limitation. First, all the material in this paper is derived from the practical application of the theories I put forward in my paper to the British Psycho-Analytical Society on 6th October, 1955, on the Differentiation of the Psychotic from the Non-Psychotic Personalities. I am compelled to assume the reader's acquaintance with them and the acknowledgements I then made of my indebtedness to the work in this field of Melanie Klein and her co-workers. Second, I must emphasize that the clinical descriptions, though disguised, come from the analysis of a patient who has been, but now is not, under certificate diagnosed as schizophrenic. Light was shed on the case by experiences with two other patients in analysis who have also been under certificate with the same diagnosis. I hope that the rest of the paper will yield the bare minimum of fact necessary for comprehension, for I shall now turn at once to the clinical descriptions.

The patient has arrived on time and I have asked for him to be called. As he has been with me in analysis for some years and a great deal of work has been done, I am not surprised when he appears without further ado, though such unceremonious progression has not always been the rule. As he passes into the room he glances rapidly at me; such frank scrutiny has been a development of the past six months and is still a novelty. While I close the door he goes to the foot of the couch, facing the head pillows and