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When I first met Mr. I., I saw a slim man in his twenties, with shoulder-length, stringy, unwashed-looking hair. He was dressed in jeans, a tee shirt, socks, and sneakers. He was sloppy and unkempt. The clothes he wore were inappropriate for the season. He looked down at the floor or at the wall. He rarely looked at my face or made eye contact. I felt dismayed and apprehensive.
My aim in this paper is to track the minute incremental changes that took place while working with this patient. Although I experienced the analytic process as interminable, tedious, and stagnant, change took place.
When he spoke, Mr. I. was extremely fragmented; his speech was jumbled and he jumped from one subject to another. He mentioned one problem after another, in roughly this order: he was nervous because I was new to him; it was dangerous in his home; his father was a paranoid schizophrenic; his mother made a suicide attempt; he had to be on guard; it was dangerous; he had trouble sleeping; he would like to move out of his parents' home; it was hard to find a girlfriend; his sister and father had nervous breakdowns; he did not want to work; he liked bright colors; he did not like to wake up early; he had lots of problems in his teens; he was petrified at competition and taking exams, he had failed a course; he wanted to be a writer; he was unfocused, disorganized; there was no connection between them (who, was unspecified); he did not reveal himself any more than he had to, to protect himself; life was chaotic; he liked symbolism; his mother and her mother were arbitrary; his mother had a nervous breakdown in her teens.