Chapter 1. Her History

It was in the autumn of 1943 that I was rung up by a Mr X, a man of independent means, who was interested in problems to do with mental health. He asked if I would undertake a research analysis with a girl, Susan, aged twenty-three, who was just about to come out of a hospital for functional and nervous diseases. (I will call the hospital N.I.) He told me how his wife had been visiting there and had become interested in this girl and had invited her to come and live with them. Much later, Mr X was to tell me that his wife had become interested in Susan because she was so beautiful—‘She looked like the Botticelli Venus rising from the waves.’

Mr X went on to explain that although they had invited Susan and she could have left the hospital, her woman psycho-therapist, Dr F, had been telling her that she should have E.C.T., and that Susan had been in acute conflict as to whether to have it or not. She had visited him and his wife in their home, but had been unable to decide to come, since to leave the hospital would have meant opposing Dr F. Susan had therefore had the E.C.T. twice, but when Mrs X saw the ‘terrible state’ she was in after it she had finally persuaded her to leave the hospital and come and stay with them. Mr X added that he thought I might not want to take on such a difficult problem but that the main treatment would be the fact that he and his wife were providing her with a home. He also said he would pay for the analysis; he added that before going into hospital Susan had been living and working on a farm for four years but had been unable to accept any payment.

I began the treatment on 17 November, three weeks after the E.C.T. What I saw was a tall and slim girl with a walk like Garbo in Queen Christina and a remotely withdrawn madonna-like face. She began by talking quite freely and gave me a coherent account of her life up to the time of entry into the hospital, five months before the E.C.T.; but she constantly complained that since the E.C.T. someth