ABSTRACT
M.M.R. Khan regarded boredom as a form of character defence, an attempt at petrifying mental space that strives to nullify any effort to make something happen, out of fear of a catastrophe or a regression which the patient deems to be irreparable and from which he fears he might never recover. Boredom can emanate from the analysand's massive evacuation of irritability, grievance, and meticulously recited, undigested, unsymbolized stories of his external life, apparently making it very difficult for the analyst to explore the transference or the patient's internal world. The author suggests that the experience of boredom in analysis may signify an encounter with a hidden, encapsulated part of the psyche, an area of bidimensional experience. The experience of boredom thus emanates from the patient's adhesive identification, 'sticking' to the analyst who, in contagion with the patient, experiences a sense of nothingness, mindlessness.
