Metaphor as Interpretation

The aim of this paper is to present excerpts of analytic material in mixed chronological and thematic manner, with particular emphasis on the patient's unusual if not unique unconscious childhood fantasies. An incident of the interpretative use of metaphor, striking in its effectiveness, leads me to posit specific structural and dynamic factors to account for the lifting of the repression.

The patient, an intelligent woman in her mid-30s, came to treatment because she was dimly aware that her fits of rage and dissatisfaction over the details of remodelling of her house were disproportionate. A few months after the birth of her third child, the first son, the family, needing larger living space, moved to temporary quarters to await the completion of additions to their old house. One thing led to another; more and more changes were planned and begun. A new kitchen, new bathrooms, new windows and other rooms were added. Every stage increased her regrets that the project was begun in the first place. When her resentment, anger and rage got out of control, her husband insisted that she see a psychiatrist. After listening to the details of her discontent over the way all the renovations were going, her firing of one architect after another, her changing contractors, her threatening her husband with divorce because he was unsympathetic, I recalled that Sapirstein (1955) had written about the trials of women who redecorate; I decided to venture an explanation based on the intuition that she was essentially hysterical and might be receptive to an interpretation indicating a process of displacement. I told her that all the fuss was a façade for concern over damage to her body.

She immediately calmed down and told me that something was always wrong with her body. It never worked right. But she was too embarrassed to give me details. She stopped seeing me. For a while peace reigned; her husband called to thank me for the miraculous cure. Work on the house proceeded r