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A patient presented herself at her morning session in a completely distraught state. She had been crying, as often happened to her, during much of the night, in a state of despair devoid of any thought. It was “extreme suffering” about which she could not say anything. Gradually, she was able to put together a few words and organise a few ideas in an attempt to understand this state. It was to do with the uncertainty of the current situation in her life: the sale of her house, a professional move, a trip with a girlfriend… No assurance anywhere… “It's too much!” she said. “So you should wait,” the analyst replied. She then burst into tears: “Waiting… Waiting… It's unbearable! It's helplessness!”
What prevented her from accepting feeling helpless for a while? For her, this question was inadmissible, unthinkable; for helplessness, even transitory, brought about a catastrophic experience. The uncertainty plunged her into the void. Waiting was synonymous with total disarray. Without the capacity to dream of a happy outcome, the suspense became in the strict sense unliveable: it reminded her of radical disarray and emptiness of thought. She therefore had to avoid any situation of uncertainty, mystery and doubt. The discovery of her psychic reality was therefore equally compromised.
Another patient had dreamed the night before that her boyfriend was cheating on her with another girl. When she woke up, she telephoned him, saying: “I know you've been cheating on me!” Her boyfriend's reaction of surprise, his questions as to the reasons for such an accusation, and then the soothing tone in which he told her that she was mistaken did nothing to change her conviction: “Well, then, you're intending to do it!” The analyst tried to get her to think about her dream and to see how it might portray what was happening in her, but in vain; instead, she took these suggestions as an attack on her narcissism. According to her, the analyst was calling into question faculties of “intuition”