ABSTRACT
Grotstein, following Tustin, has recently described an important category of inner experience in psychotic states as "black hole" or "abyss" phenomena. He cites Tustin's earlier conclusion that this experience is phenomenologically ubiquitous in psychotic states and that it represents the etiological factor of severe maternal deprivation or abandonment. This chapter purposes to communicate the case of a woman who exhibited both the black hole phenomenon and an accompanying religious delusion that she had "God in her pocket," but who responded to an interpretive strategy that emphasized her dissociation and denial of unfulfilled wishes. This chapter provides a case study about a woman named as Carolyn, aged 38, continues to be seen in individual therapy, three times a week. She had begun to feel that her food was being poisoned and as a result had lost 15 pounds which she could ill afford to lose.
