Discussion of M. Masud R. Khan's Article, On Symbiotic Omnipotence

M. Masud R. Khan in his excellent paper describes an unusual and interesting type of patient and shows convincingly how a major resistance in the analysis of such a patient may be successfully handled.

This type of patient suffers from a specific defect resulting from his failure to integrate aggression into his personality. His failure to integrate aggression comes about as a result of his special childhood relationship to his mother, who, though warm and responsive, could tolerate aggression neither in herself nor in her child. One would assume that the child's aggression, however diffuse and underdeveloped, was directed to the major object of his childhood, that is, his mother. Thus the child's symbiotic omnipotence with his mother expressed his aggression to her and at the same time protected him from experiencing it.

The child needed the cooperation of his mother in order to function adequately. Thus he could only cathect his self-image in an adequate manner through his relationship to her. It would seem that for the child to cathect his self-image without help from his mother was itself an aggression that he feared would endanger her. The child needed his mother's interest in him in order to remain interested in himself. The child's primary cathexis of his mother was threatened by his experience of it as an aggression to her, so that he was in danger of losing his self-image. He developed a special cathexis of his self that had a compensatory quality and that could be maintained only through his mother's special interest in him.

The patient developed a relationship with his analyst similar to his childhood relationship to his mother, and his dangerous omnipotence was externalized onto the analyst. The patient became able to function adequately through his relationship to a benign and interested personality whom he saw as omnipotent.

The special relationship to the analyst protected the patient from experiencing both his aggression and his libidinal attachment t