ABSTRACT
Dr. Heineman’s discussion was one of the most illuminating commentaries on my work I have ever encountered. Most important, she answered my question about the location of the “bad” object in my work with Geraldine simply and clearly, by noting how Geraldine was revealing a sense of overwhelming destructiveness in her narrative of her personal history. This narrative, her life itself, was founded on the idea that she had destroyed her mother’s life by being born. Once one recognizes this feeling of destructiveness, a core issue in the therapy is framed: Will Geraldine and I survive her destructiveness, thus providing a chance of reworking this core aspect of her being? In this connection, the question about me, representing her internal object, has to do with my strength, my survivability.
