Letters to the Editors: On: Death in the Afternoon

Dear Sirs,

I read Suzanne Chassey (2006) with great interest. The article showed limits we might all face when dealing with omnipotency and destructiveness. What struck me most in the patient's act was that it looked like an envious attack aiming to destroy the capacities of the analyst. In this article, the generosity of the author was patent in her desire to give Anne some gift by means of the card, and generosity was even more evident in the fact that this article was written to keep in mind Anne's beauty and the analyst's love for her. At the same time, the author has certainly given us—lecturers—a gift, as she wrote in such an intimate way about what we all feel as a traumatic professional event (Tillman, 2006). It was probably this generosity that the patient envied and attacked. By her act, she tried to destroy the analyst's capacity to give and heal; her envious attack also destroyed her own creativity; and her envious feelings towards her son led her to destroy his possibility of having a good mother. The author has also pointed out the patient's attempt to control. It is true that in all destructive processes as in war or terrorist attacks we always find either envy or desire of control or both!