ABSTRACT

Medication reduced Caroline’s anxiety somewhat and again the author resume encouraging her to speak with them. The author fears that her dream represented her wishing to “institutionalize” herself by developing “hospitalism” and becoming like the chronic schizophrenic patients the author knew from their residency in a psychiatric hospital. The next time Caroline comes she slowly passes her chair, picks up her cushion from it and sits on the floor, her back leaning against a wall, her body crouched over while holding onto her cushion for protection. Caroline on entry would chose a certain physical place and posture and then stay in freeze for the whole session. Only her crying created some bodily movement, “giving away” that she was alive. Over the years the author had accepted that this body language was a way of expressing the extent of her anxiety, pain and other unspoken things.