Drug Abuse

EXCERPTS FROM AND SUMMARIES OF R16'S HISTORY AND SESSIONS

History Female, 24 years' old, translator, married, no children, parents' health very good.

Question: What are your complaints?

Answer: Since childhood I have felt ill at ease in front of others.   Something makes me keep silent. I feel the need to disappear in order to escape their questions. I'm afraid of the silence which follows my answers to their questions. I'm afraid of my own voice when I am with others. Often when I speak I have the impression that nobody is listening to me. I believe that when somebody speaks he must assert himself and to assert oneself one must have confidence in oneself. I have no confidence in myself. When I open my mouth to say something I have the impression that everything stands still. I stop in the middle of what I'm saying because I can't continue: the effort to complete my words needs thought and thinking is something that I find impossible to do and very painful.

Question: What events in your life do you remember?

Answer: Between the ages of 14 and 16 I discovered freedom; I discovered that there were people without a bourgeois mentality who were willing to accept me and that I could lead a bohemian life. At the same time I became close friends with a classmate of mine. Our friendship has continued till today.

Answers on my existence I can communicate with someone only if I'm sure that he is not going to judge me. I talk to my parents but I don't communicate with them because I know that they judge me. There is a category of people I think very highly of. those who don't have a bourgeois mentality. I know that these people are prepared to accept me but at the same time I feel that they judge me because I belong to another social class. So I don't dare behave freely with them even though I very much want to.

When I was six, I started ballet. When I was 13 I stopped it. Why? I have never been able to understand why. Maybe it was because I had to make an effort. Now I regret it. Why do I love ballet? Perhaps because I'm motivated by an inner need to express myself in some way through my body. In ballet the body vibrates, it is alive, it moves easily, freely, without complexes. The physical exercise involved in ballet tires the person who does it in a pleasant way. After it, you feel your body invigorated because the body gave all it could. Ballet is a means of expressing yourself completely, without words and without intellectual effort.

Apart from ballet, nothing moves me emotionally. Reading and music can occupy me pleasantly but only on a superficial level. The same thing happens with everything else I undertake. I face everything lightly, perhaps so that I won't learn a lot. Having knowledge would oblige me to speak and express my personal opinion, and that would tire me very much. Everything I start I stop in the middle because it soon tires me. Maybe I want to be lazy. Maybe laziness is convenient. If people know that I have knowledge, they will ask me question and judge me, and I don't want anything like that ... I don't want them to listen to me.

I never express my joy freely and without inhibitions because I control my emotions and that makes me suffer. I'd like to express myself more openly, for instance I'd like to jump for joy, but my body stops me.   I'm afraid to express what I feel. Maybe it's because people will look at me and judge me? Maybe because they'll listen to me?

I find it difficult to show tenderness to someone. My father says that I'm insensitive and that I never suffer. Of course my father doesn't realize that I repress my feelings and he doesn't know whether I suffer or not. But why don't I show my feelings? For physical reasons perhaps? My body doesn't belong to me completely. It feels clumsy and sluggish. Maybe that's why I have such a passion for ballet? But even if I begin ballet classes again, I won't feel free enough to make my body vibrate. My feelings block my body. Unfortunately my body is visible. I can't hide it as I hide my feelings. And my awful legs ... short, ugly ... The way I walk and sit isn't feminine enough. When I move my body I think it is ridiculous and that it doesn't represent the person called Natalie; it is foreign to me.

When I enter public places, I don't like to be looked at. I'm not perfect but I want to be the only one who knows that ... I feel that I'm trying to run away from myself. Why? I don't feel proud of myself whenever I shy away from making a determined choice between two or more things ... Why do I go on with my studies at the university when they don't interest me in the least? I don't dare put question to myself because I'm afraid I'll begin to go around in a vicious circle and finally I'll lose even the strength I have to keep up appearances which make me seem like a balanced person to others.

My parents tell me that everything is easy for me, that I'm successful at everything. But what is easy? Nothing is easy. The deeper you go into things the more complicated you realize they are. As for superficial studies, there's nothing easier; appearances keep the surface intact. The essential thing is not to make a choice. Making a choice means being criticized.

Answers on my sex I accept my sex. My sex doesn't disturb me. Until I met my husband I had difficulty communicating with males. When I was with a man I felt that he didn't accept me fully. When I made love I didn't dare express myself or participate in the act by moving my body because I was afraid that my partner would criticize me. I was also afraid that I wasn't sexy. I felt inhibited.

I had never had an orgasm before I met my husband. What factor does orgasm depend on? - on this body that feels heavy and sluggish? I remember one bastard that I had a relationship with. He didn't respect me. He treated me badly. But he made me feel great pleasure when he made love to me, although I didn't reach orgasm. Perhaps I have masochistic tendencies. Maybe for my heavy body to react I have to torture it. Maybe pain excites it. I like to feel that a man is dominating me. After all, aren't sadism and coarseness the ultimate expression of male strength and dominance? Male strength and coarseness excite me sexually; the reverse makes me feel indifferent, apathetic. If I'm not forced I feel bored. To feel pleasure I have to feel submissive. A man who is sure of himself knows how to control me. He speaks openly and he dominates me - like my husband does. Apart from that bastard, the men I knew in the past were clumsy and shy. So they lost all trace of superiority in my eyes and therefore they couldn't give me pleasure. Before I met my husband I was afraid to participate actively in the sexual act. I didn't move my body because I was afraid that I'd look ridiculous and be criticized. I reach orgasm with my husband because I feel that he doesn't judge me.

Answers on my behaviour I often don't understand the motives of my behaviour. I can't understand, for example, why I stop anything in the middle that entails intellectual effort. I want to feel calmness in my everyday life, not the remorse I feel when I can't complete anything serious.

Question: What do you desire most in life?

Answer: My great desires are to satisfy my father and to travel. Question What do you fear most?

Answer: I'm afraid of financial insecurity.

Question: Are any of your dreams repeated in a stereotyped fashion?

Answer: Very often between the ages of two and twelve, and less frequently after that, I had the following nightmare: With agony I see an enormous rock, which in the nightmare I feel is me, rolling down into an endless abyss. As the rock is rolling down it becomes smaller and smaller and my agony becomes unbearable. The moment the rock becomes a small pebble I wake up terrified, sobbing and soaked in perspiration.

Question: What are your feelings for your mother?

Answer: I have no memories of her from my childhood. Today I feel boundless tenderness for her. I want to protect her. I love her as if she were a little child and not my mother. Until I was 16 I would quarrel with her because she irritated me. Now it's impossible for me to be angry with her. She often doesn't understand me and so I have to explain to her what she doesn't understand, just as I would explain it to a small child. I love her innocence and naivete. To me she is the ideal woman. I love her simplicity. At home she busies herself with everything, even down to the finest details. She does everything perfectly, modestly, without showing off. The opposite of my father. She is always there when I need her. She is emotional and spontaneous, so I joke with her, I kiss her like a small child. I communicate with her emotionally, not intellectually. I would like to identify with her simplicity and spontaneity but I am divided between spontaneity and intellectuality.

Question: What are your feelings for your father?

Answer: I remember nothing of him from my childhood. I admire him. I understand him. I guess his reactions in advance. He irritates me. In general his comments worry me. He doesn't listen to me when I speak to him. He is always in a hurry. He is very sensitive. I resemble him. I don't accept him because I don't accept myself. He wants whatever he does to be noticed and admired. I too like to be complimented for whatever I do: this gives me self-confidence which I often lack. When I was 14 I often went out with him and his friends. I was the young girl whom the adults admired. Older people understand and admire me whereas young people of my age criticize me. I know that I can speak to my father freely but he doesn't understand how I feel and so I cannot communicate with him. I always feel inhibited in his presence; I feel as if I'm playing a role. If I try to tell him something important I feel that, because he's always in a hurry, he is going to cut our conversation short and leave or that he'll change the subject before I've finished what I began. In any case, he never listens to me nor does he take what I say into consideration. Maybe it's because of him that I'm afraid of my own voice? Maybe it's because he has never paid attention to my voice that I'm afraid of others listening to it? The voice expresses intellectual strength which is a male characteristic and which is meant for men's ears.

Question:   What are your feelings about the interpersonal relations of your mother and father?

Answer: The relationship between my father and mother has never preoccupied me particularly.

Question: Do you feel that you have concealed anything? Answer: I have concealed nothing.

Recapitulation of my problems My basic problem is fear of my father's criticism which castrates and destroys me. I have to be absolutely perfect and since I'm not perfect, then I'm unable to satisfy him and consequently I'm stupid.

Session 1 R16: On the table there is a vase and in the vase a pink flower. I look at the flower and feel uneasy. That flower with its blue centre, that strong, bad, cruel blue colour in the centre of the pink flower shocks me. It's unnatural.

Doctor: What do you feel?

R16: The abyss. A hole which draws you into darkness ... Why that blue, that bad blue in such a beautiful flower?

Doctor: What does the blue centre symbolize?

R16: The genital organs of the woman, the vagina, the road which draws you into the night, into something unpleasant ...

Doctor: Is there any relationship between the flower and the phallus? R16: No. The shape of that candle there makes me think of a phallus. Doctor: Have you ever had intense sexual impressions or experiences? R16: Since I was 14 violence has excited me, dirty things, stories about sex between people and animals ... Of course, I didn't dare believe that I could take part in such things even though they excited me. It was allowed for others but not for me ... oth ers, the degenerate, the liberated ... abnormal relations ...

Doctor: Who decides what is normal and what is not? R16: The values adults have taught us.

Doctor: Which adult has influenced you the most?

R16: Whoever wasn't normal ... My father was always saying: "You have to do this and not that." He told me that I shouldn't flirt with boys; I should feel something deep ... If I ever made love with a man I wasn't in love with I felt remorse. I wanted to forget what my father had said - that I had to feel that I was in love - and so I felt like a whore ... Doctor: Do you mean that a woman is a whore if she makes love without feelings?

R16: Yes ... My father taught me that nothing in life should be impulsive: there must be a serious reason for everything that happens ... Suddenly the mirror catches my eye. I can see a black hole in the mirror: the abyss, and around it a halo ...

Doctor: The abyss?

R16: I would always see the abyss in my dreams when I was small and in people's eyes when they looked at me.

Doctor: Are the abyss and the eyes related to each other in any way?

R16: Yes ... I describe something which I now recall vividly. I'm sitting with about ten people around a table in a country house. The discussion begins to take a serious turn. They speak about religion, philosophy, art and suchlike. Suddenly they all fall silent while someone asks me what my opinion is. They all look into my eyes. I feel very upset. I try to look them in the eye but their eyes remind me of the abyss. Those eyes looking at me are the abyss itself. I can't escape the eyes. They judge me implacable and attract me like a magnet. I feel vertigo. I burst out crying and run to my husband's arms. He immediately justifies me in front of our friends saying that such subjects don't interest me. I calm down at once.

Doctor: Could you give a deeper interpretation?

R16: The eyes which judge me want to put me back into the abyss. They want to do me harm. They want to draw me into that hole ... The black hole is changing shape and becoming oval.

Doctor: What do you feel?

R16: Whether that hole is the womb or not, I don't feel it. Doctor: Why?

R16: Because it's an intellectual statement. 29 My eyes settle on another piece of furniture on which there is a big candle. What is that candle doing there all alone? It is so small compared to the abyss! One minute I look at the candle and the next the abyss. I look without understanding. I am in the void. I don't know what's in the black hole. It isn't clear ... The halo around the black contrasts with the black ... The black draws me towards it but with that halo around it I remain on the surface. I'd like to jump into the black. It attracts me like a magnet. It's inescapable. I feel vertigo. I'm going round and round like a stone rolling into the void after an explosion ... I have to go through the opaque coating on the back of the mirror to be able to reach the black hole in the mirror. But the bright halo around the hole is cut. It is the void, nothing but the void. I don't want to think any more.

At this point I hear a noise outside the room like an explosion. Instantly I see an image of a birth. A child emerges from the blood the moment I hear the sharp crack of the dynamite which makes the stones roll down the abyss.

Doctor: Are those stones which are rolling like the child?

R16: I didn't see the child falling ... Now the cold is invading me. My arms are immobilized. I can't breathe easily. I wrap my arms around my body; they warm me up. I want to pee. The doctor asks me if I want to get up and go to the toilet. I can't be bothered to. I feel very warm. It's beautiful. The child that was born was in an egg and not formed.   It didn't want to be born because of the blood.   The blood is the black hole! I'm very hot ... (silence) ... (anxiety) ...

Doctor: What's bothering you?

R 16: The top half of my body is very small but my legs are big and ... Doctor: Do your legs feel heavy?

R 16: Yes, and very big. Doctor: And your arms? R16: Small. My legs are what prevent me from moving because they're heavy. Doctor: They don't want to move?

R16: No. They're not mine! From my head to my waist everything is fine, alive. But I don't feel the lower part of my body.

Doctor: Don't you like your legs? R16: No!

Doctor: Because they're short? Is that the only reason?

R16: They're not sexy! They don't move. They're male legs. From the waist up I feel fine; everything is small and charming, just the opposite to my legs which are huge. I feel like a satyr-Pan cut in two. Exactly like a charming little Pan.

Doctor: Is Pan a male?

R16: I can't see his genital organs. He is an effeminate man, small and cute. Doctor: A female Pan then?

R16: A woman with small legs. No, he's a man with the head of a woman. His hair is curly. He looks like the ancient Greek statues which are big with very small genital organs. Pan has a small penis. I can see his head ... It's the head of my father as a child when his mother dressed him as a girl. As soon as I see my father's head I immediately feel the void.

Doctor: Why?

R16: I've identified with my father and with Pan. Pan was my father, a man with a small genital organ and simultaneously a woman. I must point out that my father's mother wanted him to be a girl. When he was born she began to dress him in girl's clothes and gave him a girl's hairstyle.

Suddenly I see the Manneken-pis3 0 with its small genital organs and all the statues with my father's head when he was a child. From photographs I've seen of him I resembled him very much when I was small: the same curly hair and the same colouring. I can see him now as a statue standing there and peeing like a fountain. That statue is pissing on the world, mocking and dominating it. His dominance is expressed by the act of peeing with his little penis. Now I see a mermaid with large breasts. She also is cut in two, like Pan.

Doctor: What are her legs like?

R16: Like a fish. She doesn't have legs. We must definitely give her legs. Pan's legs! But they're small.

Doctor: So, she cannot walk?

R16: No, she'll crush them. She is very heavy and Pan is so small. Doctor: Will she also crush his genital organs?

R16: Yes! Everything! She's now motionless on the ground up to the waist ... Suddenly I feel cramps in the legs and spasms. A power is pulling me backwards so that the genital area is projected forward. All of a sudden my legs begin to live. I can feel them growing longer ... They're just as I'd like them to be - slim, beautiful ... I look like a figure in a Picasso painting and where my genital organs are there is a hole. So what genital organs do I have?

Doctor: Are you afraid of the idea of having genital organs or of the idea of showing them?

R16: I'm afraid of the idea of showing them ... I get into the foetal position. I'm fine. My body and legs form a whole. I only want to pee and something is bothering me there where my genital organs are. I want to cut it off because it projects out of the egg, the cocoon.

Doctor: Who imposes this sexual organ on you?

R16: I don't know ... but if I pee through a male genital organ I'll govern and dominate like the Manneken-pis who looks like my father. My father imposes it on me because I identify with him. I'm not sure ... about the interpretation I just gave you because it's intellectual ... The spasms begin again the moment I see the mermaid cut in two and motionless ... Now I feel I'm cut in three: the head which is the intellect, the torso which is sensual and in complete harmony with myself, the legs which are dead.

Doctor: Is that how you are, then, and is that how others see you?

R16: Yes, their eyes cut me into three pieces. They judge me and throw me into the blackness where I am in three pieces ... The spasms continue to rack my body ... My legs grow longer and as soon as they become alive I feel the warmth again, the serenity, the calmness and unity of my body. Then I feel heavy, very heavy like that stone mermaid who has been put there.

Doctor: What does the mermaid represent?

R16: At the moment she represents me - heavy like a stone and imposing. I exist even without legs. Pan and the mermaid have the same characteristics: they're both cut in two. Pan is a male and represents my father but my father emasculated, thus my father who looks like me. So I identify with him. I'm also the heavy mermaid without legs who wants to crush my father and the small genital organ - mine or his, I don't know yet. That organ prevents me from feeling well and whole but as soon as I crush it I feel calm because I have found my unity again. However, my legs which would allow me to move and live are missing because those legs don't exist if I don't accept the small male genital organ. But I don't accept it and as soon as it appears I put a hole at this spot (see drawing) and I make it disappear.

Session 2 R16: My head feels very heavy. It's being pulled to the left. I feel cramped and I can't move it. Nevertheless, I feel at ease in this position. As if I'm in a mould. It's the first time I've felt that my head and body form a whole. I'm like a stone statue. I'm not thinking. I'm not moving.

Doctor: Are you afraid?

R16: No. My body is becoming hard. I have muscles everywhere and I am immobilized, like the people of Pompei who became petrified in a single moment while they were in motion. I'm floating in the void and I have the impression that I'm gliding. My arms, back and legs are raised. My breasts are projected forward while my arms are held backwards.

Suddenly I feel I am all muscley again. I have no breasts. I'm as flat as a board. My hands are pressing on my breasts and crushing them, with great force they're making them disappear. I don't have breasts any more.

Doctor: Why don't you have breasts any more?

R 16: 1 destroyed them. Doctor: By yourself: R16: No, it's a power, but I don't know if that power is me ... (silence) ... The doctor leaves the room for half an hour. I remain lying down without any feeling of fear or terror. When he returns he asks me if I am resisting. It's true that I am and that irritates me.

Doctor: Let's go back to the point where you felt you had no breasts and your head was immobilized. What's the emotional element? Why did you say that it wasn't like the first time?

R16: Because everything is stuck together, not in pieces. Doctor: What's the symbolism of this?

R16: This time (in contrast to the last Session) everything is united and forms a whole. My legs are alive.

Suddenly I raise my arms - or rather my arms rise automatically - because the blanket, which feels like a cocoon, is bothering me. I mention a certain ballet where the male dancer thrashes about in a white sheet.   I feel I want to be rid of something enveloping which is sticking to me, particularly to my arms. My legs are somewhere warm, well protected.   I throw off the blanket till the waist to reveal my chest.   My arms are extended as if I'm waiting for something.   I don't speak.   I'm waiting.   But what's going on? I'm a motionless dancer who became immobilized as soon as he came out of the cocoon.

Doctor: Is he out of the cocoon completely?

R16: Not completely ... His legs have remained inside. The arms and head resemble a receptacle which is waiting to receive ...

Doctor: In this motionless position are you waiting for something?

R16: Yes, but for what I don't know. A sun looks down on me and shines its light on me ... This motionless position, in which the muscles look very powerful, is a male position which gradually changes into a charming female position. My arms open wide to expose it.

Doctor: Where are you?

R16: I'm learning to move. My body is moving slowly. My arms rise so that I may get out of the cocoon, like a bird which is learning to fly and which falls again. I don't have the strength to get out of the cocoon.

Doctor: Do you want to get out? R16: No.

Doctor: Is that why you don't have the strength? R16: I want to look out but I don't want to get out. Doctor: Why?

R16: I'm fine. I want the sun to look down at me but I don't want to get out. Doctor: If you get out, what will happen?

R16: I remain silent for a little and then I feel that if I get out of the cocoon, it will no longer protect me. I'll be able to move.

Doctor: What dangers are there outside the cocoon?

R16: I won't be able to wait like this any more. I'll be seen. I'll have to move. Doctor: And what will happen if you move?

R16: When I move I feel tense. When I move outside the cocoon, everything is as hard as a rock while inside the cocoon everything is charming. If I move I have to make a great effort because I feel all muscley again ... (silence) ...

Doctor: What do you feel now?

R16: I feel well. My left arm and my head are very small. But my right arm is enormous and it's beating the other one severely, as if it wants to make something disappear.

Doctor: Does the enormous arm want to make the small one disappear? R 16: Yes.

Doctor: Why?

R16: It's so strong and the other so weak ... Doctor: Does the strong arm belong to you? R 16: Yes, but I like the small one better. Doctor: Does the small arm disturb you? Is this why you want to make it disappear? R16: And yet the little arm and the head go well together ... Perhaps the strong arm is crushing something else ... Suddenly I realize that it is crushing one of the fingers of my left hand. This finger grows and softens and becomes a small genital organ, Pan's organ. I'm crushing it to make it disappear.

Doctor: What sex is the statue.

R16: Male ... I feel calm. The little penis is in my fist. I took it from the statue. Doctor: Are you satisfied now that you've crushed it?

R 16: Yes.

Doctor: What do you feel?

R 16: I'm supple and graceful. I'm floating on water. It's very pleasant. Doctor: Do you know where you are?

R16: On a boat which is rocking rhythmically. I'm making the rocking movement with my hands ...

Doctor: Why are you still moving your hands like that?

R16: They're both becoming very small. But this time the left arm is strong and is resisting the right arm. Now they're both very small and the left one is being racked with spasms. Tension and spasms. My head feels as if it's tied to my ear. A power is sucking me in to make me disappear.

Doctor: Are you afraid?

R 16: Yes ... I'll be engulfed ...

Doctor: Do you know this power which is sucking you into it?

R16: It's a black hole. It's always the same black hole. It's sucking me in and I'm becoming smaller and smaller. The smaller I become, the more it sucks me into it ... I let myself be sucked in by the power and violent spasms begin ...

Doctor: Have you let yourself be sucked in by the hole? R16: Yes. My back hurts. I feel hot and afraid. Doctor: Are you in pain within this hole? Are you in pain because of the darkness perhaps? What is it?

R16: I don't know. Maybe it's the womb but ... that thought is purely intellectual. I don't know ... The feeling of calmness returns and I am surrounded by water. My breasts are burning. I feel that I'm tearing them off and peeling their skin off. Doctor: Do they disturb you?

R 16: Spasms rack me. I don't speak at all. Doctor: Why are the spasms becoming stronger? R 16: The spasms stop when I have no breasts. Doctor:   Return back to the spasms.   What causes them and what is the power that makes you feel awful about your breasts?

R16: When I no longer have breasts, my legs pull me backwards, just like when I feel that I have a small male genital organ. Now I'm okay. There are no more spasms. Doctor: Can you go deeper?

R16: I have a small male genital organ and no breasts. I feel calm. Doctor: How is this mechanism produced?

R16: That's how they want me! It's an external force. But how can we say that this is the womb?

Doctor: Answer your question.

R16: Because it's calm and agitated at the same time, like in the womb. At this point the spasms begin again. I feel that the aim of this force is to make me male! As soon as I become all muscles, I become as flat as a board again. My head is cramped and tied to my ear. They're compelling me to remain flat without breasts. They're pulling my ear as if they want to punish me. It's my father who is pulling my ear. "You'll stay right here," he tells me. The more he pulls my ear the more muscley I feel while at the same time I have torn off my breasts. My head is pinned down...

R16's realizations after Session 2: I feel that I am divided into two: female chest (breasts) and male genital organ, symbolized by the right arm and left arm respectively. One of my two halves wants to destroy the other. Lack of unity. Aim: to make the small male genital organ disappear. I want to achieve this either with my strong right arm or with my heavy female chest. When I wait like a receptacle in the refuge of my cocoon, I want to show myself to the sun as a charming woman. I'm afraid to leave the cocoon because outside it I am punished, while inside it I am protected and I can retain my female sex. So then, moving and speaking means being male in the eyes of the world. My obsession that I am being looked at stems from this lack of sex identity. People look at me and realize that I'm not what I should be.

Session 3 R16: Looking up at the rosette in the centre of the ceiling I'm transported emotionally to my mother's room in Paris ... There is a similar rosette there. After walking through all the rooms of the house I see the rosette stained with a black spot which is moving. That spot is like the black hole of the first Session. Gradually the rosette disappears and its place is taken by the black spot which becomes a black hole between two buttocks which is shitting on me. It's the backside of a giant sitting on a toilet. The black hole stops shitting and starts sucking me into it. It resembles the open mouth of a shark. It's waiting for me but I'm not going to throw myself into it ... One minute the black hole is sucking me in and the next it is rejecting me, spitting me out ...

Suddenly a shadow appears in the black hole. A foetus. I hide my head under my armpit. Then the foetus disappears and a huge crab appears. I want to make my head disappear by hiding it under my body so that I can protect myself. Spasms begin. I don't want to look at the ceiling any more. I take the foetal position and try to find somewhere to hide my head which has become very heavy. I try to look at the hole once more but the crab has disappeared ... (prolonged silence) ...

Doctor: What's happening?

R16: I don't know. I want to hide from the crab and from you! Doctor: Am I like a crab?

R16: What did you say? I feel someone pulling me by the ear again. My head is wedged in somewhere. I want to hide. I have the impression that someone wants to scold me.

Doctor: Who?

R16: I don't know, but I'm hiding my head like a small child who is being scolded. I want to protect myself.

Doctor: From whom?

R16: From the questions you're asking me ... I put my head under my armpit. My armpit presses hard against my neck and ear. I feel I'm growing smaller. When you are small they shouldn't hit you because your innocence is something to be respected. Doctor: Why are you pressing on you ear?

R16:   I don't know.   Go away!   I want to stay like this.   I start rocking as if I'm in a rocking cradle. The rocking movement increases.

Doctor: Who is rocking you?

R 16: I can't explain. But I feel calm ... I'm becoming very small now and I have water in my mouth. It's not so pleasant. My body is liquefying ... My back hurts.

Doctor: And what about the water in your mouth?

R 16: It's not there any more and anyway it was my saliva. Doctor: Are you in the uterus?

R16: No!!

Doctor: Why are you moving your lips?

R16: They've become stuck together. I feel sticky everywhere now ... my eyes, my mouth.

Doctor: What are your emotions at the moment?

R16:   I feel very well but just a little squashed.   As if something is pressing on me ... My arm rises and covers my ear, blocks it. I want to block my ear so as not to hear something that shouldn't be heard ... a secret. Then I become immobilized. My legs are stuck to the couch. I am in great pain.

Doctor: What is the secret you don't want to hear?

R16: I feel terrible. With each moment that passes I feel worse. I'm standing on the edge of the abyss ... Suddenly my face feels as if it's being squashed in. I burst out crying ... I don't want to learn what the secret is ...

The Session ends and I know that I resisted. I resisted because I felt afraid. Perhaps I also resisted because of the presence of the doctor whom I associate directly with my father. What is clear is that the black hole contains something very unpleasant.

R16's realizations after Session 3: False conviction in everyday life: I think I'm invulnerable and insensitive, I smile, I am strong. My true nature: vulnerable. But as it's my mother's and father's wish that I be a boy, I become hard and strong. When I come into the world as a fragile little girl, I'm afraid that I'll be punished and so I become hard (shy, uncommunicative). I live only as half a person. As soon as I leave my mother's uterus, I protect myself in my shell.

Symbolism of the eyes: When people are waiting to hear my opinion, their eyes turn towards me. They expect an intellectual, intelligent opinion - a man's opinion - and they stare at me. Terrified, I find myself in the black hole where I'm just a fragile and unhappy little girl. It is those eyes which throw me back into the black hole where there's nothing but despair. Thus I'm unable to speak and I start to cry. My shell no longer protects me.

The stone statue of the first Session: The statue is myself immobilized. When I come into the world, my sex is revealed as being female. I'm there, I exist but I'm inhibited, immobilized because I'm a woman: as a woman I'm afraid to move.

Session 4 R16: And again I see a spider whose legs are drawing me towards it like tentacles. Its black body looks like a mouth which is opening. The black attracts and rejects me, like the womb where I feel well and at the same time partly rejected. The spider symbolizes disgust ...

My inertia in everyday life is a defence. But the more I defend myself the more I'm encrusted with something that I hate. This defence doesn't help me. It's like a crystal ball in which I'm locked up. I'm afraid of everything and my fear neutralizes all desire for activity and adventure ... (silence) ...

Doctor: Try to remember when this defence began.

R16:    I'm not sure if I'd really like to change my system of defence.   There are days when I accept myself. Other times I become disgusted with myself. When I look into myself, I find myself deep inside the black hole where I'm not at all pleased to be.   I feel disgusted when I realize that what I show to the world is the opposite of what I really feel ... (crying) ...

Doctor: Why are you crying?

R16: I don't need false smiles to save face in front of a world that I hate. Doctor: Why do you always have to save face?

R16: Because my mother and father believe that I'm fantastic and that I succeed in whatever I do ... How mistaken they are ... I want to cry now ... When you cry it feels warm ... Now my tears are making me cold.

Doctor: What is causing all this?

R16: Despair takes hold of me when I face myself ... despair because I don't feel well in my skin ...

(Suddenly) I'm in the womb. I can hear breathing, heavy and oppressive - my mother's. It's the first time that I've felt I'm in the womb. I can feel only one lot of breathing and it's hers. I live through her, attached to her through the belly and the heart, my mouth open without swallowing. This is a soundless world. At the same time something is pulling my legs backwards. Here where I am is a soundless room where that strong breathing alone reigns. I remain silent and motionless for a long time listening to her breathing.

My buttocks are becoming muscley and I feel I have a penis. I am a man making love. The lower part of my belly hurts. I'm holding an enormous penis in my hand and I'm masturbating. Someone is looking under the blanket at what I'm doing. That's how my mother wants me to be in the womb, with a sexual organ like that ...

I'm waking up after a long nightmare. I'm rediscovering the world. I'm being reborn. I am on a beach, calm and sweet and fragile. The spasms have stopped. I am alone.   I feel just fine.   I don't need anybody, not even my mother.    I let myself be rocked by anyone who wants to rock me. No one can harm me. No one dares to harm me because I am fragile. I adore this state. Only my mother could destroy me with her strong breathing. In the eyes of the world I am sweet, yet I feel hard and extremely muscley. I can see female dancers everywhere; a ballet that is gentle and white.

R 16's realizations after Session 4:   Crying makes me return to a state I experienced in my intra-uterine life because my crying is provoked by the terrible tribulation I suffered in the womb. My feeling awful in my skin, the disgust I feel for myself - these are things I felt in the womb because my mother wanted me to be a boy when I was really a girl. Thus, to protect the frail little girl that I am, I construct a shell around myself in everyday life, a shell of inhibition and rigidity. The shell protects me from my mother who wants me to be strong and muscley. And though I am a woman, I have to present myself as a man who is sure of himself. I try to play the game she demands of me, otherwise I'll make her angry and she'll punish me.

My husband is the first person who gave me both the perfect security, tenderness and warmth of the womb as well as rejection - when he desires another woman. When he. rejects me, my insecurity makes me face myself and then I loathe myself: this in turn reactivates the awful state I felt in the womb. Thus, my husband engenders these two contradictory states in me and returns me to the womb. He is, then, the first man who helped me reach orgasm. I achieve orgasm in one position - the one that helps me feel that a penis is projecting from the genital area, like in the womb.

Session 5 (The Father) R16: If you don't have your father's blessing, you can

do nothing.   You need his blessing for matters serious and trifling.   If he says "yes", then you can do anything. If not, then your mind doesn't work properly. I need his approval to relieve my mind. Although he has never refused me anything, yet I anxiously await his judgement. I want to see him as a bad person who will scold me and deny me what I ask for. I know he understands me but I want to see him as bad and hard; I get pleasure out of debasing him - debasing Father, the paternal figure who is above all else. Why shouldn't he be toppled from his pedestal? Why should he always be the one to dominate and not others? My father is up high and why haven't others the right to be in his place?

Doctor: Do you want to be in his place?

R 16: Yes. Why shouldn't I be able to look down at others from up there? It must be beautiful up there. He glides around and sees everything and we, we are below awaiting his judgement in terror. Why should we always be waiting for his orders? Why are there only men 'up there'? - Christ, God. Why are there never any women? I speak of "women" but it's I who would like to be up there with him, at his side.

Now I can see Christ on the cupola of a Spanish church. It's my father's image, with arms outstretched, waiting. Just two words from him and others not only work for him but they have accidents as well.31 Now my foot is beginning to make involuntary movements. That means that something is bothering me emotionally. I've caught my husband's tic. That man up there gets on my nerves. What's he waiting for? - that we submit to him? My foot is still making those movements, as if it wants to tell me something. It's hard to see my father as Christ. Christ should be someone imposing, with a great beard and white hair, whereas one would say that my father is like a little boy who jokes and acts the clown, someone who is on my level. My father in Christ's place makes me laugh. And I am submissive to this Christ!? I say yes and accept it. I'm afraid of that gentleman up there who sees everything and yet, when he comes down to my level, I adore him. He's small and funny.

Suddenly, the ceramic Christ crumbles. All the little pieces are falling ... (to the doctor) I adore you, seeing you sitting there in your armchair. I adore my father. He's not that enormous blue and gold Christ. He has never reproached me and he is prepared to give me everything. Yet I always expect him to say no, I always expect him to reproach me. How is that possible? And what terrible fear I felt that Christ would fall down on top of me and crush me. Yet Christ is falling down in pieces because I'm the one who stuck him up there on the cupola ... and all those little pieces become my little father. Is it really me who stuck them up there? How can anyone be so stupid? It's so funny. (laughter) ...

Now I can see my father with his long neck and huge ears joking and playing the camel as he often does. (laughter) ... How strange I am to have stuck him up there, like Michaelangelo. What an artist! What a job!   It's immense.   Oh, he's falling.

Doctor: Why is he falling?

R16: Because I stuck him up there. In reality he is never like that. He never really oppresses me or makes me afraid. I wanted him to be like that.

Doctor: Why?

R16: Because it's his role to scold his children, to be the master, my mother's husband ... However, at home he has never shown signs of dominating my mother, nor of being the master. Out of revenge I exaggerated his role and made him worse than what he really is. The image of Christ is becoming smaller and less important. At last I'm destroying the image I'd made of my father! I'm not afraid of him any more. I'm trying to imagine him as a small child. I see a photograph of him at his mother's house. I'm having lunch at her house as we used to do every Tuesday ... My foot is making those movements again. Why do I see my grandmother so clearly? Is it because my father adored her?

Doctor: Do you think he loved her more than you?

R16: My father has never shown his feelings except for that day when his mother died and I saw how much he loved her. He has never let his feeling for me show. I saw him as hard and cold. He goes through the house like a whirlwind and there's no time to speak to him. I remember that he slapped me only once, on my 14th birthday. I felt ashamed and humiliated. It's the only time I can remember him expressing himself to me. Since then I've been in fear of his anger and on the basis of that slap I constructed that hard monster. My foot has stopped moving. I like this Session ...

Doctor: Ah yes, it is good.

R16: Who'd ever imagine that I could 'think' with my feet? (laughter) ... Suddenly I see a monkey with big ears which is looking at me like my father does with his big ears. My father has huge ears. Maybe that's why I adore my husband.

At this point I burst out laughing and tell the doctor that I love my husband because he has big ears. Apart from that, though, he has nothing in common with my father. My father is blond and my husband is dark. Father is short while my husband is tall. My husband has a difficult character ... but so has my father. They're both very similar in character. Did I really try to find the opposite of my father in my husband? Not any more because now my father isn't what I thought he was. I like it when my husband plays the little boy because he reminds me of my father. But I don't like it when he scolds me because he frightens me and then I just do stupidities. I have to tell him that because I'm old enough now to do everything by myself.

Doctor: Will you continue to be affected by your husband's remarks?

R16: Oh no. Now I know that the gentleman up there (pointing to the ceiling) won't scold me. I'm waiting for my foot to 'speak' because it's started moving again. Something is going to come, I can feel it. I always felt hard during the Sessions, like a ball of muscles or stone. In that way, I was defending myself against that enormous Christ, my father. All my life I was afraid that I'd be punished and so I became hard to be prepared for any blow. If I am hard, he is going to hurt himself too. That shell defended me. My mother and father created that shell ...

Doctor: What's the cause of your fear? R16: That he'll scold me.

Doctor: For what other reasons could you be punished?

R16: For any reason, from the most insignificant to the most important. I'm afraid of my father's judgement. When I went out with boys I expected him to approve, but he appeared displeased. Waiting for his approval, I stopped all activity. Everything. Everything had to be under his control, particularly the matter of the boys I went out with. I was afraid to go out with boys even though he'd given me the right to go out whenever I liked and with whomever I liked. I could never feel free. At home I feel like an iceberg. I don't tell him what I'm doing, what I'm thinking. I can't express myself in front of him because I'm afraid of him. People I've met outside the home and who happen to come home don't recognize me. They find me shy and cold. At home I feel like a caterpillar which doesn't move, which says "yes, yes" and cannot talk to them ... (silence) ... One day, when I was abroad, I met an uncle of mine, my father's brother, and we had a long talk about my father. This encounter made me feel very emotional and close to my father. (crying) ... I'd like to feel like that more often. The only time I feel close to him is when I cry or when we joke together. It's the only way we can express ourselves when we're together. I could never communicate with him even though that is what we both wanted ... And I waited 24 whole years to understand. How stupid! How silly life is! To put that person up there for 24 years and not speak to him. It's idiotic. There's not a trace of the terrifying father in him. I'd like to take the plane and go to Paris. I love the whole world today - my father and who else? My mother. Yes, my mother. She's so small and gentle and she never says anything. She's a saint. I identify with her completely.

Doctor: Why?

R16: So that my father will be good tome and because I love him. As the father has the mother, the little daughter identifies with her mother and becomes just like her. But when I'm at home I'm untidy and not like her at all, just the opposite, and I'm aggressive towards her. Yet when I'm away from her, I identify with her and become her. I do whatever my mother does: I put my husband's things in order just as she does my father's.

What is Christ doing up there? He's always alone, whereas he should be with my mother. Why don't I see my mother? Because I made her disappear because I don't want to see her at his side! We always forget the woman! Men have had complexes for centuries and they don't want the woman at their side ... Only the king rules, the father, Christ.

Doctor: Yes, we've kept a tight grip on our position.

R16: Yes, nothing will overthrow you. Suddenly I want to hit the doctor but I can't. (to the doctor) You're so sweet, sitting there in your armchair drinking Coca Cola. I don't see you as the great and impressive doctor any more!

Doctor: All is fiction, my dear.

R16: Oh! You're wearing a bow-tie and acting the impressive doctor. But you can't fool me any more. The image has crumbled and fallen. Really, how could I have been so afraid?

Doctor: Explain why.

R16: The Almighty, the one who has complete power over his little girl.   He judges everything in advance. He anticipates everything.

Doctor: How does he know everything?

R16: In fact he knows nothing! He just has some experience and he thinks he knows everything ... I feel contractions in the genital area. That irritates me. I can see a red circle like lips making sucking movements, like the movements my vagina makes. This disgusting red circle is my genital organs. I can feel them disappearing because I don't want them. My legs and the lower part of my torso are becoming very muscley. I'm becoming a man with my husband's body. I have muscles and I'm making love to a woman in the red circle. The red circle is me, but who is the man? My father? And yet, that's not his body. It's my husband's body. It's my husband who symbolizes my father and he's making love to me. And I am the red circle and that man simultaneously. Now my husband's body is disappearing and my father's body, without muscles, is taking its place. So I had identified with my father and, to camouflage my feelings for him, I put my husband in his place. It's cruel ... youth and old age ... Of course my father would have been muscley in his youth ...

R16's realizations after Session 5: The doctor symbolizes my father. I'm ashamed of my unfaithfulness to my father and so I hide myself. I'm afraid that if he knew I was betraying him, he'd punish me. So I want to betray him with his blessing. By hiding I feel guilty. This guilt feeling towards my father made me fear him all my life. I was always in fear of being punished by him. In my mind I made him nastier because basically I wanted him to punish me for my sexual desires for him. Being afraid of his punishment I hardened myself and became withdrawn to avoid him making any surprise attack, when in reality he didn't want to do me any harm. To have a clear conscience about betraying him I imagined him as nasty so that I could more easily betray him. I could not possibly admit to myself that I adored him because I didn't have the right to desire him sexually. The only man I've reached orgasm with is my husband which is the exact opposite to my father from the physical point of view. All my other male friends looked like my father and that's why they inhibited me. Their physical resemblance to my father prevented me from feeling free and from reaching orgasm. They were my father's doubles. Every single one of them was my father. The forbidden fruit. My husband's dissimilarity to my father allows me to forget the father figure during orgasm.

It is now two months after the 5th Session and I still find it difficult to concentrate. I feel empty. Nothing interests me. No strong feelings. But in the womb as well, I feel neither absolutely well not absolutely awful. Nothing affects me, nothing enthuses me. I feel that in a way I'm identifying with my mother who, when she tries to speak about politics, economics or other such serious matters, makes me feel badly for her. Not being the intellectual type, she cannot cope with such discussions.

Session 6   R16: Since the Session began I've been feeling very weak. My legs start to move: bit by bit they open as if I'm doing ballet. They're being held open so that my knees touch the ground. I feel a fresh breeze caressing my belly and genital organs, just like when I'm naked on the sea shore. Nevertheless, my legs feel heavy. I realize that all this is related to sex and so I instantly feel the need to hide in the darkness so that the doctor won't see me. I feel I'm going to be dismembered. My thighs are being stretched. The lower part of my belly is contracting as if it wants to be free of something. I'm as hard as a rock, as tense as a bow. Suddenly I relax. I have the impression that a woman who has just given birth would feel similar relaxation ... (silence) ...

Doctor: What do you want to get rid of?

R16: I don't know. My genital organs, my belly, my behind. All the lower part of my body is hard just like in previous Sessions where I felt I was cut in two. The lower part of my body is muscley and yet I don't feel that I have genital organs. What am I waiting for with my legs open? The man who'll fall out of the sky? My father I had. My husband I have. What then? What am I waiting for pinned down like this? To be seen? I'm looking up at the sky so as not to look at you (meaning the doctor).

Doctor: Why?

R16: From up there comes the light, the sun, power. Doctor: By looking up at the sky, what are you trying to do?

R16: I'm putting you up there in Christ's place and so you're less impressive. It's less personal. Down here beside me you can see me with my legs open and I feel ashamed. I'm naked before everyone. I'm exposed, particularly my genital organs, and that bothers me. So I put you up there. I'm pinned down and exposed ... Now my body is contracting a little, just like when I make love. The little spasms stop. My body is being enveloped ... I don't feel my body any more. I don't feel anything ... (silence) ... I can see a stork on the ceiling - the emblem of new-born babies.   The spasms have stopped. I can't feel my body at all.

A fresh breeze is enveloping my body. Only my head has remained outside all this. It's very clear. I'm in the womb. I understand why I resisted in the first Sessions. It's because my head was not in and I didn't want to accept that I was in the womb. Now, by connecting thoughts and emotions, I can definitely say that I am. But why are my legs open in the womb? I can't explain why, but I feel that I've asked the right question.

Doctor: Well, what does having your legs open in the womb symbolize? R 16: I'm offering myself or waiting for something?

Doctor: For sexual contact? R 16: Yes.

Doctor: For what reason? To stay in the uterus and continue your intra-uterine life? R16: All of a sudden I smile at the revelatory question. I feel a pleasant liquid around me. If the aim is to return, then I'm waiting for a man so that I can return. The min ute I say this, I feel fantastically well. At last I understand. Your question was en lightening. The moment I realized that I return to the womb through sex, I felt very relaxed, I felt waves bathing and purifying me. The intellectual has become emotional. I feel wonderful. The temperature is just right.   When you give yourself, you feel you're enveloped in waves of bliss. The little stream, the water which gives you purity after love-making. You asked me fantastic questions. Return: I understand what it is. When I make love I return to the womb which accepts me. I feel so well. My body doesn't cause me problems. It's as if it doesn't exist. I have nothing more to say ... Doctor: And when you leave this state what difficulties do you face?

R16: In this state I'm calm, serene. I don't want to do anything. Why should I do anything? Why should I read? When I don't do anything I feel wonderful. When I pick up a book to read, the first ten minutes are okay even though I don't follow what I'm reading. If I continue reading, I get depressed because my subjective state when reading and the bliss of the womb clash.

If I could make love all day long I'd be happy, I'd return and live continuously in calmness. That's why the sole object in my life is the man I love. With him I can reach the calmness, the fantastic nirvana of the womb.   I don't need anything else. And yet, I must do something else in life because the man I love is not with me every single moment. I'd like to remain forever in this wonderful state somewhere between dream and reality. But I see the world around me. Everybody does something while I do nothing. This state of doing nothing is bliss, it's the return. After orgasm I feel this inactivity, but it is an inactivity full of life. I want to run free, to love, to smile. Yes, nothing else. Nothing intellectual. Nothing else interests me. But when I see that this state doesn't last, I feel depressed ... (silence) ...

Doctor: What else makes you feel depressed in everyday life?

R16: The difference between the intra-uterine world and the outside world. The former is bliss, the latter pure anxiety. The outside world makes me feel remorse for not studying, for doing nothing. I feel stupid doing nothing all day long. I feel stupid in front of my husband who is intellectual. However, my intellectual husband wants me

to be stupid like his mother - that's what he says. His ideal woman is one who is stupid and beautiful. I also identify with my mother who's not exactly an intellectual genius. Here there's a double identification so that I can be near my father and husband. So then what can poor Natalie do in the midst of all this pressure? To be with my father I identify with my mother, and to be with my husband I identify with his ideal woman. To hell with everything. I'll open a brothel. I'll open my legs and wait, and send my books to Timbuktoo. To hell with everyone. (laughter) ...

Doctor: Does the external environment cause your depression or do you feel that the depression comes from within you?

R16: I feel guilty towards my husband because of my low intellectual level. And yet I'm just exactly what he wanted. That's what he wanted, that's what he got. I feel guilty towards my father because I haven't reached the intellectual level he wanted me to reach. But my father also loves stupid women. It seems that a whore can't also be an intellectual. But something isn't clear here. If I identify with my mother, who's not the intellectual type, I should be very happy. But I've always dreamed of being both beautiful and intellectual. I've always admired beautiful women who have succeeded professionally.   I feel incapable of doing well in a profession.   I feel like a very weak woman. My ideal has always been to combine the feminine with the masculine, beauty with intelligence. But the female element prevailed and that's why I'm stupid and weak.

Doctor: Did you inherit the female element from your female ancestors or is it something that was cultivated in you through education?

R16: I inherited it. I always admire girlfriends of mine who are very pale, very blond, almost transparent. If you pushed them, they'd break like crystal. On my father's desk there is a photograph of me where I am blond, ethereal-looking - for him the ideal beauty. When I feel so fragile and I think of the outside world, I'm afraid that if anyone touches me, he'll do me harm ... (silence) ...

Doctor: If your father, mother and husband didn't oblige you to study, what would you do?

R16: My father wants me to be intellectual and cultivated. I'm his ideal. He considers me intelligent and this is where my remorse towards him begins. ;I also feel remorse when my husband comes home and sees that I've done nothing all day. It's the same remorse I feel in front of my father. His daughter should combine beauty with intellectuality ... (silence) ...

The doctor leaves the room. I think: What causes my depression? I don't want to cry again for no reason. I have to clear up this situation once and for all. What puts me into this state? Guilt. Although my father wants me to be intellectual, I do nothing and so I feel guilty. I'd like to live up to his expectations but I don't, and this tortures me. When I don't think, I don't feel depressed. I occupy myself with trifles and never feel guilty then. Nevertheless, an empty day makes me feel afraid; I don't want to be in a situation where I do nothing. When my father and husband ask me what I'm going to do for the day I tell them that I'm going to meet So-and-So, trying to convince them of the importance of this appointment. What do they expect? - that I'm going to make great intellectual achievements? But since I don't feel like it how can I do it? I feel very guilty towards them. I have to live up to the expectations of my father who adores me. I must do something; for instance read a book and discuss it with him. All these things are so contradictory.

When I try to speak to people on intellectual matters, no one listens to me, not even my husband. For them I am just a woman. So how can I get myself out of this state of affairs? I have to get out of it because it causes me such tension.   But I don't want to force myself. Well?

An empty day makes me feel afraid. Afraid of what? Of facing myself? No. Then what? I'm afraid of being punished by my father. If he knew that I did nothing, he wouldn't be at all pleased. That's why I do whatever comes along. My father asks me: "What are you going to do today?" and in the evening: "What did you do today?" I tell him that I had a discussion with 'C' ... I did this and that ... Never mind. It was just fantastic today because we did absolutely nothing. (laughter) ...

I'm back in the womb again. Water envelops me. I feel fine, fine, fine ... ,It's difficult to speak ... I live through her belly. Everything is painless, my skin as well ... If only everything in life could be painless, painless, painless ... What bliss ...

The doctor returns. Instantly I feel I'm out of the womb. The doctor's presence removes me from the womb. The doctor symbolizes my father who rejects me ... (to the doctor) My father wants me to be intellectual ...

Doctor: Why does your father want you to be intellectual?

R16: Perhaps so that he can be closer to me. But I can't communicate with him intellectually because I'm not intelligent. How can I be intelligent if I'm not a boy? Only males are intelligent. The womb wants me to be a boy but I'm a girl, so it's impossible for me to be intelligent. But even if I do speak intelligently, nobody listens to me; not my father, not my husband, no man. I'm a "woman", therefore I'm stupid. In the womb I feel the bliss of doing nothing. Doing nothing means making no intellectual effort. Intellectual effort annihilates bliss. When people ask me my opinion on intellectual matters, their eyes turn upon me. Their eyes throw me into the womb. Their eyes become the womb which wants me to be a boy. Their eyes make me a boy when they ask me my opinion. But I'm a girl, I have no opinions. So what opinion can I give them? ... (silence) ...

The doctor leaves the room again. The jeans I'm wearing feel too tight. I unzip them. I tell myself that as soon as the doctor returns I'll zip them up again. Why? Is it because I'm afraid of arousing my father sexually? I don't want my father to discover that I desire him sexually. Of course, intellectuality would be a way of communicating with my father. Yes, there are two ways of communicating with my father: intellectually and sensually. However, these two ways cannot coexist. And something else: both are unattainable. To be intellectual, I would have to be a boy. As for sensuality, I know very well that sex with my father is forbidden. The doctor returns and I tell him all my realizations.

Doctor: Follow your thoughts as they come.

R16: For me, ballet is love-making: the legs open, supple, calm, water, warmth, the feeling after making love, the fragile woman who reaches orgasm. Here I am truly a woman, completely non-intellectual. I feel so well and I want to sleep ...

 

29 Doctor's note: R 16 has heard about intra-uterine life from friends of hers and the thought occurs to her that the abyss she sees might symbolize the womb. Because the neuronal process which results in this thought occurs exclusively on an intellectual level (in the frontal poles, for example), it has no emotional impact on her. If the limbic neurons had also participated in this process, then R16 would have reacted emotionally as well.

30 R 16's note: A statue-cum-fountain in Brussels of a small boy urinating water.

31 R 16's note: The day before the 5th Session, I asked my husband to take our car to the garage for repairs as I had run into something. He told me that he would take it the next day and forbade me to take it myself. I, however, was anxious to see it repaired so that my father wouldn't realize that it had been damaged. (He scolds me severely whenever I have an accident.) I ignored my husband and took the car. I tried to be careful. Result: I ran into a motorcycle. (My husband castrates me like my father does.)

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