ABSTRACT
One of the main underlying questions in this short story is what happens to our feelings when, for whatever reason, we find it really hard to own up to something. Of course, psychoanalysis, and more specifically Kleinian theory, has established a clinical term for this phenomenon, ‘projective identification’. When certain feelings are unpalatable for the patient, the therapist may experience them as their own irrational thoughts and/or bodily reactions. In a more relational and intersubjective understanding of the therapy process, though, one could say that therapist and patient connect through their wounds, in this case, the disavowal of love and attachment towards a mother figure, who is experienced instead as persecutory. This short story is also about the importance of our early affectionate bonds, the loss of which is invariably difficult to mourn without allowing oneself to be open to one’s helplessness.
