ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a brief account of a borderline patient, Annie, who could only make limited use of interpretation. Annie used words—mine as well as hers—to distance and confuse, and she communicated mainly through projective identification or intrusive identification. The chapter describes a process of incarnation, involving both the patient and the growing transference-relationship. This process had different aspects, including ego-development, psyche–soma integration and relatedness to the world within and without. The chapter draws different developmental theories to bring these aspects into view and provide some explanation for clinical phenomena. Annie's conscious values, at the beginning of therapy, were all superhuman ones, centering around a rigidly detached spirituality. The synthetic aspect of the deer dream—the deer symbolizing soul—provided an all important counterbalance to Annie's spiritualization of life. The symbolic aspect of the dream both motivated and facilitated her process of becoming human, which was at the heart of the work.
