ABSTRACT
We know now that it is not understanding ascribed from without by a distant voice that cures the broken human spirit. It is the resonating presence of the other, without provocation, allowing and allowed. Reflecting and mirroring like the good mother, the analyst sharing the primordial dawning of experience, at times in soundless rhythms, beyond words. Then, the eventual coming forth of the longings, fears, the furies, the person separate and suffering in the encounter. And then the light of knowing, which grows within, in the mutual presence which enables advance in psychic development. But this journey can be long, at times perilous. The patient resists out of desperate fear and a need for stasis, and then a dreaded mix of powerful feelings to hate and destroy, to love and preserve—and so recoils, a shattered mind. In less serious, but still profound instances, the individual proceeds through life emotionally and interactionally impaired.
