ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a case anecdote about an amphetamine user who was much taken with David Bowie's song Space Oddity which he said spoke to him about his experience of tripping. He had suffered from amphetamine psychosis, though even when drug free after several weeks in residential treatment he still displayed features of what appeared to be an underlying psychotic condition. His sense of being adrift, like Major Tom in Bowie's song looking down on the earth from outside himself, seemed to seemed to encapsulate the essence of how he got on with other people in general, as if he was indeed in a relational vacuum. Lucy was a prolific writer, a bright and talented artist and musician; she was funny, clever, and tragic in shared proportions. As Bion described, the concentration to annihilation for Lucy in the end outdid her creative life force.
