ABSTRACT
Chapter Twelve explores the challenges faced by perseverant individuals who develop in their own solitary emotional worlds, serve as their own ‘toxic containers’, and live with an unrequited sense of longing for connection they don’t know how to achieve. Working with one patient, the author illustrates how the patient’s lack of familiarity with the normal cadence of relatedness—connection, mis- or dis-connection, and repair—had left her confused and conflicted over the “terms of engagement” with her new fiancé. Her difficulty in understanding how other people thought and felt had extended to wondering why they didn’t act in ways she expected. Some perseverant individuals—consciously or unconsciously—gravitate toward relationships that replicate the distance they are accustomed to, choosing partners who allow them to perpetuate their solitary modes of thinking and eating without interruption. Some continue living with a pervasive sense of emptiness and loneliness, even when they are together with others. Chapter Twelve illustrates how the patient’s understanding of relatedness shifted as she began learning to share thoughts and feelings and think together.
