From feeding to containing – a verbal and nonverbal therapy with a psychotic woman (60 minute paper)

In this case, I would like to describe a two years psychotherapy treatment with a paranoid schizophrenic adult patient, who was hospitalized for 45 years in the hospital. Despite being much older than me (38 years), she... [ view full abstract ]

In this case, I would like to describe a two years psychotherapy treatment with a paranoid schizophrenic adult patient, who was hospitalized for 45 years in the hospital. Despite being much older than me (38 years), she raised in front of me her infantile needs in different ways, via the psychotic transference.

The Treatment required the use of verbal and nonverbal means and in some cases even concrete means (providing food).

I would like to demonstrate how via the therapeutic relation movement occurred from the autistic-  contiguous pole and the paranoid-schizoid pole – towards the depressed pole (Ogden), e.g. my movement as a therapist in the potential space between being a subjective and objective object for her, my survival of her attacks and the contains / contained relations in the therapeutic relation.

After describing the treatment ( also by quoting short viniettes) , I will refer to the following main topics: Thoughts regarding my response for her request for food, being tossed from merging to distancing during our relationship, the attacks of the patient and their meanings, and the thoretical aspects of the described treatment, relying on the theories of Searles, Boyer,Volcan, Segal, Bion, Ogden, Sechehaye, Winnicott, Little and Bollas. Via this, I would like to strengthen Ogden's statement that three modes of generating experience always exist for a person (the autistic- contiguous, the paranoid-schizoid, and the depressed), and there is always an aspect of the patient, who is capable of creating a symbolic sense of the interventions that the analyst is making. It appears that even in the most difficult situations it is possible via the therapeutic relationship, to resume the movement between these three modes of generating experience, a movement from which the human experience revives and the ability to contain expands.