ABSTRACT
It was clear from the first that this patient had always managed herself by entering into symbiotic relationships in which she took a largely passive position. She had sought psychotherapy because of her husband’s inadequacy in the sadistic role she required of him, and she entered analysis because of similar disappointment in her former therapist. Left to her own devices, she had developed a psychosomatic illness (or perhaps hypochondriasis). A bond similar to those in her previous significant relationships was rapidly established within the analytic transference. With the achievement of adaptive equilibrium, a multiplicity of disavowed grandiose fantasies became apparent.
