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In a recent publication, some clinical observations were presented in support of the hypothesis that wall writing is a destructive act provoked by feelings of being left out, neglected, or separated.5 Until now, such case reports were rare or nonexistent, since there was little or no scientific interest in the subject. On the surface it would seem that writing on a wall is an innocent act of communicative or aesthetic intent performed by lower-class juveniles.6 While it is no doubt true that there are connections to be made between graffiti and art, this brief article concerns additional clinical observations that point in another direction, that is, toward revenge. If the conclusions to be drawn from this investigation are correct and they are placed alongside those of Stoller, for example, presented in his monograph on perversion,7 or Kohut and his study of narcissistic rage,3 the subject of revenge will become increasingly important to us in the days to come.
Since the original clinical vignettes concerned patients who may have known of my research, leaving open the possibility of unconscious collusion or compliance, the two additional cases presented here concern wall writing episodes that did not directly involve me and occurred incidentally to the treatment (i.e., they were mentioned in passing). Of course, these isolated mentionings could be placed alongside other associations and transference manifestations to become coherent.
In contrast to the original cases, both patients reported on here were being psychoanalyzed, and both were considered suitable for analysis (i.e., neurotic, not psychotic or borderline). As in the first report, every attempt was made to disguise the true identity of the patients; if this article is sparse it is because we are only concerned with what light these patients can shed on the study of wall writing.