ABSTRACT
Maria, a young woman in her thirties, suffered from severe panic attacks and various skin problems. During the first months of her four-session-a-week analysis she looked very rigid, bent almost at a right angle when she was lying on the couch. One day, after a comment of mine, I felt that a space for communication had opened between us. She was silent, however, and her anxiety seemed almost palpable. I asked her what was on her mind. She replied in a serious tone “The trouble is that it is not only on my mind.” When I asked for some clarification, Maria said “When you stopped speaking I felt oddly relaxed and I was comfortable lying on the couch …” Then, sounding frightened all at once, “ … but I come here to think!” I actually felt Maria’s
fear of coming into contact with her sensations, which arose in relation to what I sensed was a possible transformation of her internal disposition from her former intellectualizing impermeability. I imagined that this was her way of telling me how unsuitable she considered her relaxation to be, and that she was frightened of overstepping professional boundaries. Thus I sought to comment in a way that would foster the new experience of herself that Maria was having, as regards contact with her physical sensations. So I replied “You seem to be frightened now because your body is participating. Instead, you might view it as part of your experience and make a distinction between ‘sensual’ and ‘sexual.’ ” Maria immediately seemed calmer.
