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In the thirty-five years between my first and last readings of Jacob A. Arlow's “Unconscious Fantasy and Disturbances of Conscious Experience” (1969), the essay's impact, status, meaning, place, power, and authority have all shifted dramatically in my mind. Those shifts will serve as the focus of this commentary.
I will cite several specimen sections from the essay. First:
[1]A woman patient entered the consultation room on a Monday and said that she felt very strange because she felt as if she had not seen me for one hundred years. She spoke at some length about this feeling of an extraordinarily extended lapse of time since the last meeting of the previous Friday. This session took place on the Monday following Father's Day. Her father was dead. The patient blamed herself for his death. For certain reasons, during adolescence, she had willfully and stubbornly insisted that the family return home from a relative's house, although it was snowing. This house was many miles from the patient's home and the family had expected to spend the night there. Because the patient was adamant, the family reluctantly acquiesced and undertook the hazardous drive back. The car skidded and the father sustained injuries from which he died one week later.