ABSTRACT
Silence in the analytic situation is a recurrent and complex clinical phenomenon. Recently J. A. Arlow and M. A. Zeligs have discussed exhaustively the patient’s silence as serving the functions of discharge, defense and communication in the analytic situation. In this chapter, the author tries to show the communicative function of his persistent silence in the analytic situation. He shows that primary function of his silence was to communicate through the transference and the analytic process a very disturbed early childhood relationship to his mother which had brought about identity diffusion at adolescence. The author’s major concern is to detail the reconstruction of the cumulative trauma through the analytic process in the treatment of the patient. He also tries to show that counter-transference was an instrument for perceiving and deciphering the affectivity and archaic object-relationships as they were expressed by the patient through his silent behaviour in the analytic situation.
