Three Psychoanalytic Sessions

Marta is just under thirty years old. She suffers from an eating disorder, claustrophobia, and agoraphobia. The latter takes the form of her not being able to go out without a bottle of water; when she takes a sip and feels the water in her throat, she then feels able to go on. She also presents with various phobias, incipient alcoholism (seven to eight liters of beer every evening), and tobacco addiction (about forty cigarettes per day). She was in analysis once before, with another analyst, but was dissatisfied and broke it off in the third year.

We are now in the fifth month of Marta's analysis. For most of that time, she has seemed constantly out of touch and unable to spontaneously express or formulate any kind of emotion. Early on, she asked if we could reduce the number of sessions to half, which I thought would make her analysis impracticable.

In this, the second of Marta's four weekly sessions, my first impression is that she is a little more present than usual.

PATIENT: I saw a pair of socks on my way here and was reminded of a dream I had last night, which I'd forgotten. [At this point, I start to feel rather bewildered and have difficulty focusing; this persists for the whole of the first part of the session.]

Translation by Carole Preston and Richard Carvalho.

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In the dream, I had on a pair of red socks with holes in them, so that my toes were sticking out. Someone was with me, maybe Pietro, my boyfriend, and a girlfriend who said, “Why don't you get a new pair of socks from the sock shop?” I answered, “I don't wear them.” In the dream, I realized the absurdity of what I'd said, since I had on a pair of socks.

I then ask some questions to try to understand what Marta is saying; I am finding it difficult to “see” the dream. I think of the strange connection between my not seeing the dream and the patient's not seeing the socks that she's wearing in the dream. I keep quiet and listen to Marta's answers.

PATIENT: This sock thing came back to me on