Discussion: British Independent Object Relations View

Addicted to drugs in the past, to alcohol and to promiscuous behavior, Dr. Fosshage's patient had become chronically depressed after her previous female analyst had consistently refused to let the patient know whether she (the analyst) “cared” about her. The patient “needed desperately and apparently frequently requested, if not demanded, to know” this, and to this end she exercised a “relentless insistence.” After managing to transform her previous analyst into a “walking corpse,” the patient leaves her and moves onto somebody else.

The present analyst is a man, who finds the patient “highly intelligent, articulate, and naturally attractive.” The patient turns the new analyst into an idealized figure, tries desperately to keep him on a pedestal, and fantasizes marrying him and living together for the rest of their lives. She gives this up for the sake of what she calls a “deeper connection” with the analyst. Together, they are going to contribute to nothing less than psychoanalysis itself! Dr. Fosshage attempts to accept and understand the patient's “needs for recognition, affirmation and caring,” but finds himself “conveying more directly than is customary for me, through intonations, a word, a smile, my genuine caring for her.” He recognizes that he is responding to the patient's needs for and fragility with maintaining a “caring” connection, and adds that: “The analytic