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Winnicott, who writes the foreword to this story of a psychoanalytical treatment spreading over 20 years, speaks of ‘a miracle of detachment’ achieved by the author in describing her efforts to understand this deeply schizoid woman with whom she was inevitably much involved. Her awareness of the impact of the experience in herself is evident throughout as the account is largely made up of her own reflections during the majority of the years when the patient's contributions were repetitious or altogether absent. Such patients force introspection, particularly of unknown or unassimilated parts of the self.
In fact, in her preface, Mrs Milner felt she should give some account of her own search. During this she had what strikes me as the unusual experience of working with two Jungians who both used Jung's psychological types as a basis for interpretations, and ignored the transference which, as some of us know, can be a painful lack. The second attempt was due to the poor reception of her first book (A life of one's own) by Freudians who were mostly then far behind her in acknowledging intangible ‘ineffable’ effects, including counter-transference phenomena. Paradoxically, it was the absence of the body in the then current Jungian thought which brought her to psychoanalysis.
Of considerable interest was the author's discovery that her extensive notes, consisting mainly of what the patient said and did, were too difficult to use, and if the patient had not started drawing, she would have felt unable to write this book. Here was ‘objective’ material which readers could follow with her and about which they could also have their own ideas. It is a fascinating fact that the patient started doodling without ‘knowing’ that her analyst had written a book about it (On not being able to paint), and we have the benefit of 154 of them, selected from many hundreds.
I do not intend to attempt a summary of the treatment, but the title of the book to which I understand Mrs Milner clung ag