ABSTRACT
What struck me most from the very beginning of my work with S. were the intense, uncomfortable feelings he seemed to trigger in me. This reaction started even before I met him. He rang me to arrange an appointment. He was friendly and chatty and went into all sorts of details about practical issues. I felt overwhelmed by the flood of speech coming my way, which seemed to have no self-containment. I also felt that there was something inappropriately seductive in his friendliness and this irritated me. I had to make quite an effort not to be curt and openly hostile. As I put the phone down I felt drained and confused. Why did I feel so emotionally entangled? Thinking of my first reaction later on, I thought that the trickster psychology was already at work.
