ABSTRACT
Emily was in her mid-thirties, and worked at a housing association some ten miles from my consulting room. She had come for analysis, she said, because she felt that although her colleagues saw her as a very competent and helpful person, she believed this was only thanks to a huge effort on her part that kept them unaware of how frightened she felt, and how needy she was. She told me she had been in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend, and it had been very reassuring to have him around, but he had become restless in the last few years and this had increased Emily’s anxieties. She looked wan, struggled to speak, and seemed at a loss.
