ABSTRACT
Charles Turk brings his extensive knowledge and experience with regard to a distinctive Lacanian approach to the conceptualization and treatment of psychosis as seen through the lens of an extensive case study. Citing the following interchange, which arose in the context of a query a patient put to him: “I’ve been through so many unsuccessful treatments—don’t you think professionals might want to learn about what worked for me?” It was in this spirit that psychoanalyst and analysand decided to look back together over the course of her treatment. The patient had arrived in his consulting room in a state of psychic disorganization and had been given several diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia to borderline personality disorder to multiple personality disorder. During 30 years of arduous work, she succeeded in consolidating a stable position. In exploring this, the therapeutic dyad took up two dimensions of the treatment—one from that of the psychoanalytic perspective, the other from that of the patient’s experience. The first engages the problem of the psychoanalyst’s fear, the other attempts to identify what was transformative in the patient’s struggle to emerge from terror to gratifying engagement with others. Thus, this chapter is composed of a description of the clinical course—centering upon calculations of what constituted risks to both parties.
