The Beaten Father

With certain patients, analytic work brings out, in different forms, the fantasy of “a father is being beaten”. What I am referring to does not necessarily mean that it is the father who is being beaten. It is more a matter of a construction derived from free associations and dreams, the fruit of the analytic encounter, that is obtained thanks to the work of interpretation. This configuration corresponds, if you like, to a moment in the analysis that makes it possible to organise a broader role for the symbolic father in the subject's psyche.

This man had been the victim of an accident the week before. His car was written off, but he was not hurt. Shortly before the accident, the analyst had felt that he was overcome by a certain degree of apathy, as if he had ceased to take interest in things. She linked this partly to a forthcoming change in his work as a teacher. In her countertransference, she also felt a loss of interest and had linked this to the approaching summer holidays and the feelings of insecurity that can be attached to it. After the accident, the day before the session that I am going to report, the analyst had pointed out that this accident might be related to his wish to have an analyst providing the role of a protective father. The next day, the patient came in and lay down on the couch. He said he had found a car on the internet. It was in good condition. It belonged to a policeman, which made him feel confident. He then added, with excitement, that he had had a dream, after several weeks during which he had not had any.

“We were in a car. I was one of the passengers and I was with my family, my mother and my brother. We were adolescents. We arrived at an open market. There were costumes from George Lucas' Star Wars guards' uniforms, with their empty masks. They were more or less lined up beside each other, but all of them were missing something. One of them had no boots. We stopped to get out. I then realised that we were wearing long trench coats