ABSTRACT
This is a case presentation of a continuing psychoanalysis of a 30-year-old gay man who entered treatment owing to increasing anxiety and depression. Underlying many of his difficulties was his dissociated rage that was enacted inside and outside the treatment. Efforts to resolve this led to an impasse that turned out to be related to his idiosyncratic way of thinking and seeing the world. The patient would use his senses to orient and express himself instead of formulating his thoughts and feelings into words. As the analysis progressed, he became more adept at using words to communicate feelings and thoughts. Also discussed are theoretical themes of the perception of change in psychoanalysis, and the difference between curiosity and interest and its effect on the therapeutic process. The eye – it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where’er they be, Against or with our will. (William Wordsworth, 1798)
