The Case of J: Returning to the Office

Before commenting on the clinical material that has given rise to a written text, it is necessary to recall two general points. The analyst who writes a text operates in very different psychic conditions from those that obtain when they are listening to their patients during a session. Writing a text thus requires supplementary work, for which I would like to thank the author. Moreover, the commentator only has access to the text and not to the patient. The account expresses the “patient as an internal object” constructed by the patient's analyst, a construction that thus reflects the reality of the patient and that of the analyst's countertransference. It is therefore important for the commentator not to confuse the text and the patient.

J.'s sessions took place in person in the analyst's usual office after a long period, 14 months, of online sessions. This physical distancing was necessary due to the risks of being contaminated by COVID-19 and because of the lockdown measures put in place.

This situation might be considered as an experimental opportunity set up artificially under the constraint of elements external to the analysis itself. The sensorial relationship between the analyst and the analysand was therefore much more reduced and concentrated on a single sense - acoustic. It is probable that this sensorial channel drained all the other senses and represented them because they were impeded. During the lockdown and the setting-up of remote sessions, this restriction and focalization were accompanied by experiences of intense solitude, lack, frustration, sadness and hope for a better future, all of which were expressed by J. The analyst, for his part, tells us that he/she often felt relieved at the end of the sessions to find himself/herself alone in an empty office next to an empty couch. The analysand was deprived of the sensorial presence of his analyst, and thus of close attention. The reminiscences that can be inferred from thi