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Veronica, a thirty-year-old woman who worked as a mid-level manager for a software company, began her analysis in October ten years ago. I was forty-two at the time.
She was referred to me by her father, an engineer whom I had met a few years before at a conference on psychoanalysis. On that occasion, her father had heard me give a talk on daydreaming and it occurred to him at that particular moment that his former analyst had recommended my name to him years ago to analyze his daughter.
Twenty years earlier, Veronica’s father had begun psychotherapy after experiencing episodes of fragmentation and dissociation, which resulted in him being admitted to a psychiatric hospital several times. Thanks to the successful analysis, which brought him great psychological relief, he then developed a genuine cultural interest in psychoanalysis.
He therefore suggested to his daughter that she begin psychotherapy herself, which Veronica decided to do at the age of twenty. However, this first attempt proved unsuccessful, due to the difficulties she encountered in her relationships with others and her general state of insecurity. Veronica started group therapy, but found it difficult to relate to. As a consequence, she began having doubts about psychological treatment in general, and feeling that she was not suited for it. She later told me that she had also had difficulty with the analyst, whom she considered to be too judgmental and thorough in his approach, so much so that she experienced an almost physical discomfort during the few sessions she attended.
In the course of our initial interview, I could not help but to compare the physical appearance of this tall, voluptuous woman in her early thirties with that of her father, whom I remembered as being rather short and pudgy. She had Mediterranean features and a dignity about her that is distinctive of young women from well-to-do families who are accustomed to the comforts of a cushioned existence. I noticed her elegant outfits and s