A Patient and Her Cats

Most analysts are familiar with patients who bring material about their pets which can be interpreted as projected parts of themselves, but we do not often have the chance to see the effect of these projections on the pets.

A well-defended psychotic patient of mine gave me the opportunity to observe at close quarters how she uses her cats to people her lonely worlds, both inner and outer, and to serve as receptacles for her projected impulses and feelings.

The first opportunity to see this in action occurred when the patient brought her cat to analysis. Later during a rather severe crisis in her life, I went to her home three times, and had tea with her and her cats.

I will call my patient “Elsie.” She first came to me for analysis in 1951 when she was thirty-five years of age, a worthwhile, likeable, intelligent and witty person who was, at that time, about eighty per cent mad. This percentage varied a good deal; sometimes the sane part would be almost completely submerged.

She was born to a psychotic mother and an ineffectual, and often absent, father. Her mother—a severe asthmatic—was mentally and physically too ill to cope with a baby, and Elsie was left to starve for a good part of her infancy. Later her mother beat her unmercifully nearly every day “for her own good,” as Elsie dryly remarked.

She cannot remember ever having any toys but on two occasions she had a kitten, which her mother got rid of as soon as the child grew

fond of it. Elsie, however, made friends with the cat next door and carried on a secret and close friendship with this cat until it died.

When Elsie was six years old, a brother was born. Whatever she may have felt of envy and jealousy was completely overshadowed by the fact that she now had someone who loved her devotedly. From a very early age, he protected her and stopped mother from beating her.

Elsie did well at school and went to the University, but while there, disaster overtook her. She suffered a double loss; both her brother and her f