Chapter 7 Meaning and Meaningfulness: Touching the Untouchable

In this paper I will describe a patient with whom there was enormous difficulty in establishing shared understanding which carried convincing meaning to both analysand and analyst. Vast areas of his life appeared to be untouchable. Whilst he yearned for a relationship, he marshalled his forces to prevent being known. I hope to show a change in which this ‘no go’ area was reached and modified, so that he could be ‘touched’. It was only after he had been in analysis for over two years that he discovered that he had suffered from severe early infantile eczema. In my view, over and above the eczema itself, the way this had been dealt with both externally and internally appeared to have had a profound influence on the patient’s capacity to evaluate what was meaningful.

I had seen this 45-year-old man for consultation some three months before the analysis began. He then emphasised that he suffered greatly from a depression, characterised by feelings of futility and meaninglessness in which there was no will to live. He had in the past found refuge in his work which had always remained worthwhile, and in which he had felt appreciated and rewarded by his employers. Now, most dreaded of all, the feeling of meaninglessness was invading his work; he felt that he was plunging into total hopelessness. This fear brought him to analysis. At the time I had told him that I was not certain that I would have a vacancy for him and offered to explore the possibility of an analysis for him elsewhere. He politely pressed me to make room for him.

In this initial interview I learned that he had had two previous analyses, each lasting three to four years, which terminated because of work commitments in another country, as well as two previous marriages which ended in divorce at his instigation. He had recently remarried for the third time, and this was to be the third analysis. I later learned that he frequently

fell in love in a totally idealised way, and that when this broke down, the only