ABSTRACT
Through experience, one knows that they will have to come to several painful impasses during the work, one does not understand enough about the nature of these impasses to trust they will be overcome. Because of this, one goes into a new project with a mixture of excitement and fear. This chapter examines what actually happens inside one's head, or in one's mind, at these critical points. It deals this problem from two different vantage points: the emergence of feelings of discomfort, irritability, and helplessness, reminiscent of similar feelings experienced during infancy; and the experience of a sense of loss accompanied by depression. Why are we so fearful of reliving infantile needs and fears? The denial of psychic pain increases the paralysing effect of the impasses; it increases confusion, the fear of not having talent, the sense of unreality or falsehood of the self as we present it to others, and the constant fear of being found out.
