The Inner Discourse

The notion of inner discourse proposed by Jean-Claude Rolland (2002) extends the notion of countertransference. It is based on his listening in analysis to movements experienced by the analyst and secondarily relayed to the patient. A short clinical sequence will help to situate the establishment of this singular listening and its development during the analysis.

A modest man, who had a good understanding of himself, had been coming to analysis for a long time. On the basis of what he had said about his current difficulties and his internal experience of traumatic events linked to his early childhood, the analyst had formed a version of this patient's history in his mind. This was the history that the patient himself was unable to talk about freely in the sessions. This narrative - for its form had become the equivalent of a text - featured a silent pain that had overwhelmed both the child that he was and his parents. It was linked to health and had evolved against a background of stoicism consisting of abnegation, courage, and also discreet seduction. In short, never explain, never complain could have been the motto of these childhood and parental universes. However, for a long period, this representation remained inaccessible during the sessions. A state of shock repeating the initial wound put the same silence at the heart of the transference.

The analysis nonetheless unfolded at its own rhythm and, gradually, by paying attention to associative openings, elements forged at the heart of the analyst's listening could be introduced. The patient was then able to appropriate these elements and link them up with his conception of his own past. One day, the analyst's silent narrative was used and embraced within that of the patient: evoking a silent mother figure going away sadly, the analyst made a connection with the patient's mother going away in the evenings from the place where he had been hospitalised as a child, leaving her child there alone. This connection facili