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I shall discuss this with the help of an example which, as will be seen, is quite differently structured from the example in Chapter 11.
This case deserves special attention because it proposes various important conceptual questions. Here are some details of a period of an analysis. We had been repeatedly considering the patient's attachment to his mother, which was also connected with deep aggressive feelings towards her. This was intensely lived in the transference situation. The analyst was felt to be a powerful mother who could give him what he wanted; at the same time he did not wish to feel any gratitude towards him, and this led him to deny the obvious progress made in the analysis. His denial was, however, ambivalent, because frequently and almost in spite of himself the patient would comment on the very noticeable improvements both in his behaviour and in his relations with others.
After a particular session where we discussed the patient's difficulty in accepting improvement he dreamt that a friend said to him, ‘How changed you are, and how different your face is.’ In the dream he denied this and took off his glasses to show that he was the same. His friend looked at him and shook his head.
Among the patient's associations he mentioned his desire to change, and also a distinct feeling of weakness. He interpreted the dream as expressing that he had aged, was finished, and should prepare to die. He added that maturity means ageing, and death