ABSTRACT
In the therapeutic relationship, the patient cannot “use” the therapist until he/she has experienced the full force of his/her destructive drive towards the therapist and the therapist has survived and not retaliated. It is this that places the therapist outside the omnipotent control of the patient, and therefore enables the patient to experience “me” and “not-me”. In this chapter, the author uses clinical material to illustrate the stages in this process and to demonstrate the importance of stating the concept from the patient’s point of view, as opposed to that of the therapist. She shows how her interpretation of a patient’s anger when she was in a state of pre-integration was, in fact, a projection of the author's own anger, which arose from the author's experience of feeling attacked by her. The author is principally interested in Winnicott’s conception of the early stage of aggression—that of pre-integration—and a technical difficulty which she encountered when working in this area.
