ABSTRACT
It was in the autumn of 1943 that I was rung up by a Mr X, a man of independent means, who was interested in problems to do with mental health. He asked if I would undertake a research analysis with a girl, Susan, aged twenty-three, who was just about to come out of a hospital for functional and nervous diseases. (I will call the hospital N.I.) He told me how his wife had been visiting there and had become interested in this girl and had invited her to come and live with them. Much later, Mr X was to tell me that his wife had become interested in Susan because she was so beautiful – ‘She looked like the Botticelli Venus rising from the waves.’
