ABSTRACT
Patients beginning analysis are generally more interested in relief from pain than in facilitating the kind of creative mental growth. However, their assumptions about the analytic process often reflect primitive defenses that unconsciously obstruct a working relationship with the analyst, as well as with their own minds. Early traumas of disappointing objects give rise to twin responses of hatred and idealization of the object, a confused object internalized as a rigid superego that obstructs contact with real objects. Religious rituals, the Holy Eucharist for instance, can devolve into primitive beliefs in incorporation and reification of Christ as an external God, in contrast to the Gnostic view of Christ as a symbol for metaphysical truths, a search for one's own essential "godliness" through mental and spiritual growth. The healthy mind is characterized by change, dynamic fluctuations, and patterns of sensations, emotions, and thoughts.
