Final Discussion

Introduction: This is the recorded spontaneous discussion of all the presentations, as well as general issues of the conference. This includes the speakers as well as questions/comments from the attendees.

Participant: Actually, this is kind of a general observation, but a question to the whole conference of speakers. First of all, I just want to say off the bat that I’m the director of an Institute and this has been incredibly powerful, moving, and, it feels to me, uniting experience to do this conference in this way on Zoom and to bring all of us together in this manner. What I was going to pose as just an illustration, ask if any of the conference presenters have a thought about, it does—I think—relate a lot to what Nancy just presented. But I’d be curious about others in general. I have a patient who I’ve been seeing for about a year who was very sadistically abused as a child. He has gradually revealed more and more of this to me over time. But at first, when he started presenting it to me, I had to really steady myself, as many of us have experienced in the consulting room, I think, you know, sometimes to hold back tears, you know; I was furious at his parents. This resonates a lot with what I think you were saying, Nancy, a moment ago.

But my being a steadying presence has let him come forth with more and more of this, and what he managed to tell me in the last couple of months, and it’s notable that he managed to do this once we were on the phone during COVID, not in person, is that as a child, he held a fantasy of another person, this was a woman, who stood in for him in a certain way and had successes and pleasures in her life and this very elaborate narrative, and she stays with him today. And she has given him pleasure in the idea of a life that could be fulfilling and complete and expansive. And when he first told me about this, he was a little bit worried that I was going to tell him he was crazy. And, of course, I told him, “You’re not crazy at all. Thi