Varieties of Psychoanalytic Experience, 1

Insofar as my assignment is to comment on the discussions rather than to give my thoughts about the case material directly, I shall attempt to illustrate ways in which the varying models used by the panelists influence their perceptions. I shall do this by focusing on salient aspects of the case that each has commented upon so as to highlight differences, as well as communalities, among them.

First, we cannot help observing that each panelist found in the patient important diagnostic features best explained by his particular frame of reference. In his opening remarks, Brenner says that he and Silverman think alike about the patient, viewing her diagnostically as a sexually inhibited, masochistic character disorder, unconsciously and conflictually attached to her father in an oedipal relationship repeated in the transference. The patient's relationship to her mother, too, is conceptualized principally on an oedipal level; for example, Miss K. sees her mother as not having wished her to grow up and become a woman, that is, develop breasts. Brenner does leave room for the earlier-than-oedipal calamities of childhood in his speculation, for example, that she wishes to take her brother's place as her parents' favorite, and in his comments concerning her wish for her mother's love. The centrality of the oedipal phase, however, as the principal organizer is most apparent in his