ABSTRACT
Back in the 1970s I was seeing in psychotherapy a very disturbed young man. He was in his early twenties, experiencing dramatic mood swings and finding it virtually impossible to sustain friendships. He came to a session one day in a highly manic state. A frozen smile on his face, he sat on his chair and kept staring at me, silent. I asked him a question and, taking a deep breath, he started to sing one of the songs of the Beatles. When he stopped, I asked another question and his reply, after a brief pause, was again the lyrics of another Beatles’ song. These were not random choices, since the words he sang expressed precisely the answers he meant to convey. This went on for fifty minutes and when I brought the session to a close, he simply got up and left the room.
