On: Two sessions with Lawrence

Dear Sirs,

I am writing in response to Symington et al. (2004). In the sessions reported, Symington appears to understand Lawrence's problems as stemming from his withdrawal from a disappointing relationship with the cold, critical mother of his childhood, to chronic social and emotional isolation buttressed by incessant work and by masturbation with the aid of Internet pornography. Accordingly, his interventions clarify Lawrence's greater tolerance and trust of ‘human contact’ inside and outside the analyst's office, and interpret and reconstruct the roots of his condition in a process of identification with or introjection of the remote mother.

For Ahumada, Lawrence was sufficiently traumatized in his primordial relationship with his mother as to be suffering from a type of autism. In the language of Bion and others, this resulted from enforced splitting from consciousness of some of the intense affects related to the trauma, especially those associated with emotional closeness with her. A consequence of this in Lawrence's transference is intolerance of his awareness of the goodness of objects, including the analyst and his interpretations. Accordingly, Ahumada suggests interpretations aimed at showing Lawrence his flight from this awareness.

For Killingmo, Lawrence's transference is now dominated by the repressed rebellion of the patient-son against the analyst-father. Accordingly, he suggests interpreting the latent aggression in, for example, Lawrence's feeling and acting like an avoidant schoolboy in sessions.