You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
I watched a patient recently poke herself in her abdomen and chest while she associated during an analytic session until the pain of the repeated gesture interruped her thoughts and made her aware of what she was doing. She later realized the significance of her gesture: that she was exploring her body with her rigid index finger to find an opening, to find a hole.
Another patient dumped her heavily-laden handbag at my feet accidentally as she left at the end of a session. She had just spent 50 minutes telling me that her recent extra-marital affair had nothing to do with me or treatment. Although she had had fleeting erotic feelings about me, she was too embarrassed to talk about these feelings lest she say or do something that would embarrass both of us. A few seconds later, at the end of the session, her face flushed with excitement and embarrassment, she bounded up from the chair, dislodging the thick shoulder strap of her bag causing the bag to fall unceremoniously at my feet. She and I both recognized instantly what she had been unable to communicate verbally: inspite of her denial, she had wanted to give herself to me.
A third patient, a man undergoing psychotherapy, often unwittingly made a specific sign with his hands as he associated. He kept making triangles by connecting the extended thumbs and forefingers of each hand. Sometimes the apex of his triangles pointed to his head, sometimes, the apex pointed to his genitals.
Yet, another patient, a woman in analysis, would massage her nose for several minutes before proclaiming that she felt that she was filling up, that she felt an inner swelling. This behavior was