ABSTRACT
jonah, a very talented physician, first came to see me in his early 30s after a particularly distressing quarrel with his wife. We embarked on a four-year analysis during which we learned much about his family of origin, his pain in growing up, and his modes of engaging with both men and women. We were able to sort out, using the transference and his associations, why he needed to be constantly reassured by many woman that he was attractive and sexually interesting and why he fought continuously with men, especially those in authority. These issues are not unique, and, although they bore Jonah’s distinct signature and the contours of the way he and I could play together, there was a quality of the average and the expectable about the first piece of analytic work, which suggested that much still remained to be learned. We ended our first go-around together when Jonah received a significant promotion and elected to move to a distant city. As he and his wife had divorced during this time, and his mother had succumbed to a virulent illness, he felt an itchiness to explore new places and new opportunities. I was left with a feeling of both wishing him well and anticipating his return. He had raised many unanswered questions, and it felt to both of us as though we had completed round one of what might be a multiple-round encounter.
