ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the assertiveness and capacity to mourn as evidenced in the process material and relating to the close availability of Dr. Paula Ellman to stay with her patient. Ellman begins her presentation of Margaret with the start of a clinical hour. The chapter provides many examples of Ellman case of her patient's vivid, fantastical portrayals of what is happening within her body. With a more neurotic patient, one would be looking for the derivatives of unconscious fantasy in the process material – in dreams, metaphors, transference. The latter is key, since in her insistence on the catastrophic actions of her body, Margaret refuses to allow understanding to mitigate her experience of pain, or connect it to emotional trauma. Pain is the event and a psychic retreat is returned to again and again. The finding of symbolization in the constant presence of raw pain takes place in the evolution of the transference/countertransference.
