ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents a case study of a profoundly traumatised, high-functioning young woman over about a six-month period of time, named Christine. Christine had once aspired to become a concert violinist but had abruptly stopped playing at about age eleven after a devastatingly traumatic experience. During the small segment of an extensive and complex treatment, the author have tried to illustrate that during one crucial junction, instead of interpreting an underlying instinctual wish, he opted for an intervention that was a form of containment. The analyst's capacity to tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, psychic pain, helplessness, guilt and, at times, frank worry about the patient's welfare without giving up or giving out seem essential to the process. Thus, it appeared that for the patient to know about and reconcile the divided and disowned aspects of herself, it was necessary for the analyst to be able to take them all into his own mind first and not be destroyed.
