The Case of Ms. A

This is an analysis of a woman who, when she began, was a 26-year-old, obese virgin struggling with conflicts on many different developmental levels. Of particular interest was the way in which Ms. A used the analysis to engage (or, more accurately, to reengage) the adolescent tasks of separation from primary objects and the resolution of her sexual identity. There is current controversy over whether analysis with adults can be said to further “development” (as we commonly think of it with children). This case nevertheless provides convincing evidence that analysis with adults at the very least provides them with the opportunity to find new resolutions to earlier developmental tasks, and thus, in some important ways, becomes the vehicle by which a derailed developmental process of childhood can be put back on the right track. The crucial difference with adults, of course, is that there is (supposedly) no longer a maturational push toward development and growth, although it is not clear just when this biological factor ceases to exert its influence. Ms. A's experience of herself in the course of the analysis underwent profound change. She often spoke of “having the adolescence she never had” and, indeed, she emerged from the process a woman. The fat, undifferentiated girl unable to leave her mother to join the society of productive (and reproductive) adults was replaced by a svelte, sexually active,