ABSTRACT
There are times when the initial contact with a patient contains, in condensed form, a great deal of what we will later discover about him. Dostoevsky introduces us to Raskolnikov in just this way: we find him ruminating in his closetlike room. In order to leave the room he must pass his landlady’s kitchen; already there is deep conflict. He is in debt to the landlady and fears meeting her. As he sneaks past her door he feels “a nauseous, cowardly sensation.” He has been lying in the room for at least a month, depressed, talking to himself, eating little, neglecting his appearance, and avoiding people.
