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p am grateful to Dr. Smith and to my colleagues who contributed to this debate, which I hope will be of interest to the readers of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. I shall limit my response to some of the points that emerged in the commentaries.
I find that Dr. Grotstein's observations reveal a sympathetic understanding of the way the sessions developed and the use I made of reverie. Unlike me, however, Dr. Grotstein would be inclined to offer interpretations, at the end of the first session, of the analysand's anxiety and splitting, with their consequences. I shall try to shed light on this point by clarifying some aspects of my approach, which should also serve as an opening response to the other two discussants.
I would distinguish splitting, in the classical sense, i.e., the mechanism that breaks up the contents of the mind, from dissociation, a more primitive event relating to the separation of body and mind, which should be approached with a full awareness of its peculiar qualities (see Lombardi 2002, 2003a).
“I treat myself like I treat my plants: I always let them die,” “I want immobility,” “I pretend not to notice that my body is getting fatter”: these communications convey an idea of Marta's state of internal dissociation and of the possible consequences. What happens