ABSTRACT
Two consecutive new severe crises brought Sophie’s analysis to yet another predicament. Taken together, both these crises made it disappointingly clear that her privileged way of “… sending everybody to hell still is to shit them out and flush them down the drain.” Anal sadism seemed therefore anxiously resorted to as an infantile response to trying experiences. The analyst too may at times be tried beyond his powers. Indeed, “when all the [patient’s, in a dire condition] hopes for being able to live a life that is not a torment are invested in the analysis” things touch an odd point. Material related to Sophie’s experience of being identified with the placenta now emerged. This material was related to some of her recent toilet habits, as well as to the way she seems to make use of the telephone. “This” – Meltzer remarked about much of the material of this supervision session – “is all material in which she is the placenta.”
NB: Two years later.
