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The patient who is the subject of this paper, and whom I will call “Miss E.”, undertook analysis after much urging by her suitor named “Steve”, who himself was in analysis. She agreed out of desperation, for she quickly made it clear in the initial interviews that she was “suspicious of psychoanalysis”.
“Miss E.'” main presenting symptoms were feelings of hopelessness associated with intense, persistent agitated depression resulting, she said, from her quandary about getting married. She spoke of her perplexity regarding the two men in her life: “Steve” and “Marvin”, both of whom wanted to marry her, though she was unable to choose between them. In spite of parental urging, and her own discomfort at being the only woman in her group still unmarried, she was full of doubt and dread at the prospect of making a decision. She feared falling asleep at night, yet took so many barbiturates that she feared becoming an addict, or perhaps not awakening again.
“Miss E.'” professional skill had suffered too. For many years she had been a successful screenwriter, but now her capacity to write had deteriorated. She thought perhaps marriage and her writing career could not co-exist and one would have to be given up, but she was unable to decide which.
In spite of her turmoil, “Miss E.” was remarkably communicative and it was immediately apparent that she was highly skilled in verbalizing, in forming the apt, well-turned phrase. Poetic imagery, quotations from proverbs, verse and foreign phrases spiced her speech, and quick, graceful gestures of the hands seemed both to accentuate and illustrate what she meant to say. She was masterful at weaving long, intricate sentences which, whether pertinent or not, always were interesting. Obviously she savoured words and used them as a means of taking one in seductively. During the analytic work, silences were conspicuously absent.
This lavish verbalizing has been a resistance throughout analysis and has had to be dealt with consistently. It, in