ABSTRACT
“Difficult” is a fitting adjective for the identities that this book describes, in the sense, too, that the author's own experience with these patients has often felt like a taxing, hindrance-ridden journey, if only for the resistances on both sides of the analytic couple, which are always at work both during analysis and in writing about it. Every time a feature of identity gains consistency, this always entails a work of separation. This is always painful for the therapist as well, whether she has loved or hated the aspects of the self contained in the patient and with which she can now identify. However, the therapeutic relationship is, at the very least, nourished by an incipient transference that acts as a compass for guiding the earliest chaotic steps, which can be thought about only when the encounter takes place.
