Seventy-First Session

Richard had been waiting for Mrs K. at the corner of the road and told her that he had met the red-haired girl. He had ignored her and she had not spoken to him, but he was sure she ‘choked with rage’. He had not been very afraid of her—no, not afraid at all. (Obviously it was a relief to him that he could deal better with his anxiety and feel more like other children.) Richard had his attache case with him because he was ready to go home for the weekend after the session. He looked a little depressed, but much less so than on the previous Saturday, and did not seem particularly interested in the people who passed by. Inside the room, he took out two half-crowns, played with them, made them spin round on the table, and was pleased with the way they moved and the noise they made. While playing with the money, he asked whether Mrs K. thought (and at that moment he looked worried) that the bus would be very crowded since the weather was rather bad.

Mrs K. interpreted that the two coins represented her breasts, and that when Richard played with the two coins he was like himself as a baby playing with his mother's breasts or wanting to do so. Making them move stood for reviving them; he had been afraid when he was weaned that they had either gone away because he attacked them or that he had eaten them up. When he asked at this moment whether the bus would be crowded, that meant that Mrs K.'s children and patients would all crowd to her breast and attack Richard because he wanted to have her entirely to himself. Mrs K. reminded him of his earlier remark (Sixty-seventh Session) as to what would happen if the whole population of ‘X’ crowded together