ABSTRACT

The patient I wish to describe (Mr E) presents a rather unusual pathology, which leads to considerable technical difficulties. I have come to the conclusion that in infancy my patient underwent a psychic catastrophe and he has survived it psychically by building a delusional system. Any breach of this defence system threatens my patient with a repetition of the catastrophic situation. This situation of a delusional system as an attempt at recovery following a catastrophic situation up to a point bears out Freud’s theory that a delusional system is an attempt at restitution of a destroyed world following a psychic catastrophe (Freud, 1911b, 1924a, 1924b). The nature of the catastrophic situation which I think is at the core of my patient’s personality is, however, different from Freud’s hypothesis of decathexis, and the dynamics of the delusional system have characteristics not covered by Freud’s description.