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This is a moving account of an analysis with a man who began his treatment in his early fifties. The article begins with detailed material from a session in 2005, the first year of his analysis, and concludes with a session in the tenth year of his analysis, two weeks before termination.
The material initially focused on the patient’s repeated complaints about his marriage. He was dependent on his wife, and relied on her for advice concerning his work, and he was terrified she would leave him. At the same time, he was fearful that she would use her power to control him.
The patient described how, in his family of origin, anything a child accomplished or enjoyed was put down or mocked. He spoke in a critical and devaluing manner about both his parents, and he complained that he had been deprived of love or attention. His parents divorced in his early teens, and his mother soon married an older man, and seemed to begin to enjoy life more.
The patient had a persistent and “vigorous” claim to being damaged and inadequate, as a lover and in his work. It was as if he had internalised a critical, devaluing and mocking presence, while at the same time revealing a very elevated opinion of himself, his power and his capacities. The analyst describes the pressure he was put under either to side with the patient in relation to his marital quarrels, or to become critical of his treatment of his wife. Indeed, throughout this account, the analyst conveys the various ways in which he was repeatedly invited, or indeed pressured, to criticise and to judge the patient, almost always in a negative fashion.
It became clear how necessary, even gratifying it was for the patient repeatedly to construct this familiar, sadomasochistic relationship with the analyst. On a number of occasions when there was a threat that the patient would come into contact with depression, pain or guilt, he would evoke an (often) unconvincing negative or masochistic version of the situation and invite the analyst t