ABSTRACT
Irene Cairo's very interesting clinical material gives us the opportunity to explore different ways of looking at and thinking about unconscious phantasies and the role they play in the analytic encounter. As Grotstein proposed, virtually everything that is mental can be thought of as related to unconscious phantasy. Freud and Klein had a different conceptualization of unconscious phantasy. For Klein, phantasy is a basic mental activity present in a rudimentary way from birth onwards and even though it can also be used defensively, it is synonymous with unconscious thought. Psychoanalysis aims at understanding the unconscious phantasies and concomitant anxieties that underline our patients' picture of both their internal and external objects as they are relived in the transference relationship. Babette's stammering almost disappeared in the course of the analysis and this is proof that the analysis reached the different levels of phantasy and enabled a more coherent and integrated ego, which must have helped Babette to find her own language.
