ABSTRACT
D. W. Winnicott viewed mistakes by the therapist as an unconscious response to the patient’s own unconscious need for the point of original failure to materialize in the therapy. For some, the distress or anger aroused by the therapist’s failure becomes a growing point. A young woman training as a a drama therapist was given a placement at a geriatric day centre. Cordelia soon learned that her struggles to form and run an ongoing group, as well as her hours of thoughtful planning, were a sheer waste of time. While for the clients, there was neither time past nor time future, for Cordelia, the therapist, it was an initiation into the nature of the therapeutic challenge of maintaining continuity, and, when that fails, when there is nothing, of holding on to her clients with no continuity at all.
