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Since this week rather marks the beginning of the end, it might be useful to take stock of what has happened in the 2 ½ months of the treatment so far. It is a week fairly full of suffering, mainly related to the father being in ‘X’ and Richard being expelled from his mother's bedroom. But it is also filled with the beginning of his suffering about the termination.
There is a very interesting episode about the catching of the ‘salmon parr’ and the killing of it. Richard has an authentic response of anxiety and guilt on the one hand and regret about it. It links with the episode where for a moment he was confused between the three women who were present at the river when he caught the ‘parr’ and the three ‘silly’ women who were outside the consulting room in the session with Mrs Klein. She takes it up only in terms of anxiety about killing mummy's baby, which is certainly correct. It comes up again in a more reparative form in the material about the kitten, as evidence that he has also good feelings towards other children/mummy's babies. Mrs Klein does not however take up his identification with this little ‘salmon parr’, feeling himself to be the baby who is hooked away from the mummy. It comes up in the drawings about the mother fish and all the little fishes, and the bait that is being let down into the water. The feeling is unmistakeable that one of the baby fish is going to take the bait and be hooked away. Perhaps she does not pay much attention to that aspect because of still being a bit preoccupied with the genital conflict and the castration anxiety.
In the Thursday session the central issue is one of jealousy and anxiety about the other men in Mrs Klein's life, starting with Mr Klein, her son, grandson, Mr Smith, Mr Evans, the ‘Grumpy old Gentleman’, the ‘Bear’. Her men are all objects of extreme suspicion and jealousy. This central problem, which she has focused on very sharply, is his distrust of his mother, how easily she turns bad in his mind. He is not a