You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The character description of Genevieve Le Theil in this book is studied from the point of view of all the vicissitudes of the symbiotic relationship. When she arrives from Paris to collect her inheritance, she finds herself alone and, by coincidence, in a hotel room with a man who has tried to commit suicide. The contradiction of the double aspect of the 'transference' is analyzed. The vicissitudes include a phobic panic at two typical moments. The first, when she establishes the symbiotic relationship with a man, creates claustrophobia; the second, when the symbiotic relationship is weakened and threatens to break, brings on agoraphobia. This quality of symbiosis is compared to a 'pact', such as that of a patient in treatment, which leads to a negative therapeutic reaction. The element of timelessness is well illustrated in the symbiotic relationship, as is the compulsive quality of sexuality as a means of communication. In fact, there is no need to speak because communication is experienced regressively, body to body—'the freedom of the dead ones'. It is not coincidence that compulsive sexual life is exemplified in the drinking bouts preceding intercourse. 'In that way life is experienced with no anxiety, no annihilation, and the sexual relation becomes a technique to pacify all types of anxieties. This is a vicious cycle feeding itself.'