ABSTRACT
As a matter to day-to-day practice, the author proposes that observation and intuition act together similarly to the model of “binocular view” as an approximation of Bion’s concept of the contact barrier and the interplay of conscious and unconscious. In the same way as the somatic and psychic binomial, there is no way of separating observation and intuition. We need to listen to our patients, “blinding” ourselves to have a chance to grasp a piece of information that may become relevant illuminating a selected fact: over time we may identify some pattern that emerges from this myriad of information gathered, a constant conjunction. Once the pattern is detected, the investigation proceeds: what leads the patient to repeat this pattern? What moves him and is not visible? What is his pain? The analyst’s psychoanalytic theories and the patient’s own discourse can produce a barrier against direct contact, observation, the experience of the real thing, a glimpse of the patient’s real suffering.
