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A 48-year-old man with bipolar disorder was referred for psychoanalysis. Over the course of his treatment, I repeatedly observed that he terminated his associations using different forms of interruption. In the third year of treatment when this dynamic became the central feature of the transference, I began a systematic investigation of this phenomena. My analysis of these modes of interruption indicated that they represented undifferentiated psychic experiences of the patient. They informed me of his urgent need for tension reduction and the risks affect formation posed to his psychic cohesion. The renunciation of secondary processes also symbolized his wish to maintain a symbiotic union with the transference object. The results of my analysis yielded numerous dynamic insights that were essential to understanding this patient's functioning and use of the analytic transference. This knowledge had important clinical implications. It guided my interventions in a manner that moved the treatment beyond a therapeutic impasse and helped the patient and me grow into the many meanings his words were trying to create.