ABSTRACT
A middle-aged woman, I call her Anja, entered my office with her ten-year-old daughter, her only child. She wanted to start psychoanalysis proposed by her internist because of the high blood pressure she had had for many years and for which she had been medicated. Five years before she had also had an abortion because of it. She related her symptoms, which she had managed to keep secret from everyone, even her own family. She was not able to walk alone in the city, nor to use the bus or to go to any public places, such as theatres. That is why her daughter was waiting for her in the waiting room, although the child did not know the real reason for this. Moving around alone Anja felt dizzy, her neck became stiff, her eyes painful, and she could not see. She was afraid of losing consciousness. She did not dare to swim, although she had loved swimming. In her workplace she could walk only through the underground corridor to another building. The symptoms were very severe and they threatened her ability to work. She had consulted a psychiatrist and got drugs which didn’t help. The only symptom which her husband and parents knew about was her high blood pressure and it was, she told them, the reason for the treatment. For economic reasons Anja wanted to start twice a week psychotherapy, the intensity of psychoanalysis was incomprehensible and scary to her.
