ABSTRACT
The case reported here aims to highlight the work undertaken over several years to help the patient move from a very serious condition of non-being to a level of affective and cognitive development that had initially seemed impossible. The acute crisis of disintegration and the state of persecutory ideation came unexplainably while the young woman was in a club and suddenly felt she could not distinguish live people from dead ones.
After some years, she had another acute crisis following treatment for acne that had brought on intense reddening of the skin. This crisis was characterized by the fear of identity loss and dissolution of the skin as a bodily container.
The lengthy psychoanalytic therapy led to an affective attachment between patient and analyst through which new feelings were born, leading to the patient’s ability to reflect, making connections between pre-conceptions and conceptions in a welcoming, attentive and affective climate that supported Irene in becoming a person.
