ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of Tony. Tony’s earliest memory was of a beer-garden in a country pub. He was playing on the swings with his sister while their mother and father drank, smoked, laughed, and talked to other people. He could remember sensations: the suffocating smell of tobacco on his mother’s winter coat, his father’s rather loud voice calling to a friend across the tables, his sister’s graceful and dignified movements on the swing, his own fear of swings. Tony spent only three days in hospital, detained under the Mental Health Act; electroshock treatment had been strongly recommended, but his mother took him home after he begged her to support him in refusing treatment. Tony presented many characteristics found in schizophrenic patients. For example, his catatonic posture at the beginning of the analysis was dominated by the classically described hyperconsciousness of such patients, which makes all forms of introspection painfully focused.
