The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

More documents

Recommendations

Info

can be experienced, insight and associations related to the primary objects follow, often accompanied by significant dreams. The patient feels fully alive again until a new depressive phase signals something new. This may be expressed in the following fashion: "I no longer have a feeling of myself. How could it happen that I should lose myself again? I have no connection with what is within me. It is all hopeless.... It will never be any better. Everything is pointless. I am longing for my former sense of being alive." An aggressive outbreak may follow, with reproaches against the analyst, and only after this outbreak will a new link become clear and new vitality be felt. THE STRUGGLE WITH THE INTROJECTS During an analysis, there will also be times of depressive moods even after the patient has started to resist the demands of his introjects. He may, for example, resist their demands for achievement, although he has not yet fully freed himself from them. Then he lands again in the cul-desac of making pointlessly excessive demands upon himself and he will only become aware of this when a depressive mood rises. This, for instance, may find expression in the following way: "The day before yesterday I was so happy, my work went easily. I was able to do more work for the exam than I had planned for the whole week. Then I thought I must take advantage of this good mood and do another chapter in the evening. I worked all evening but without any enthusiasm and the next day I couldn't do any more. I felt like such an idiot, nothing stayed in my head. I didn't want to see anyone either, it felt like the depressions I used to have. Then I 'turned the pages back' and found where it had begun. I had spoiled my pleasure as soon as I made myself do more and more—but why? Then I remembered 52
how my mother used to say: 'You have done that beautifully, now you could surely do this, too. . . .' I got angry and left the books alone. Then, suddenly, I trusted myself to know when I was ready to work again. And, of course, I did, too. But the depression went away sooner—at the point when I realized that I had once again exceeded my limits." The Inner Prison and Analytic Work Everyone probably knows from his own experience about depressive moods; they may be expressed as well as hidden by psychosomatic suffering. It is easy to notice, if we pay attention, that they hit a person almost with regularity— whenever he suppresses an impulse or an unwanted emotion. And then, at once, such depressive moods will stifle all spontaneity. If an adult, for example, cannot experience mourning when he loses somebody dear to him but tries to distract himself from his sadness, or if he suppresses and hides from himself his indignation over an idealized friend's behavior out of fear of losing his friendship, he must reckon with the probability of depression (unless his grandiose defense is constantly at his disposal). When he begins to pay attention to these connections in his analysis, he can benefit from his depression and use it to learn the truth about himself. A child does not yet have this possibility. He cannot yet see through his mechanism of self-deception and, on the other hand, he is far more threatened than an adult by the intensity of his feelings if he does not have a supportive 53
Page 3:
The Drama of the Gifted Child
Page 6 and 7:
A previous version of chapter 1 app
Page 9 and 10:
Vantage Point 1990 Almost ten years
Page 11 and 12:
Although, understandably enough, I
Page 13 and 14:
Preface We live in a culture that e
Page 15 and 16:
of child abuse. Had just one person
Page 17:
ecognizing the absurdity of what th
Page 20 and 21:
ification. On top of all this, the
Page 22 and 23:
them), if one cannot love oneself a
Page 25: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Page 28 and 29: yet, for many people the truth is s
Page 30 and 31: ing, general attitudes, these peopl
Page 32 and 33: • The most appropriate objects fo
Page 34 and 35: that were free of conflict. Usually
Page 36 and 37: would be a denial of the empirical
Page 38 and 39: terest. The parents have found in t
Page 40 and 41: that he killed a child thirty years
Page 42 and 43: there is most acting out. The patie
Page 44 and 45: had not been able to give her child
Page 46 and 47: The Psychoanalyst's Situation It is
Page 48 and 49: e found beyond the deep ambivalence
Page 50 and 51: may be his secret delusion, a secre
Page 52 and 53: tention as our patients usually do,
Page 54 and 55: Chapter 2 Depression and Grandiosit
Page 56 and 57: iotic phase) but also after the gra
Page 58 and 59: conditions), and the child could de
Page 60 and 61: If the child's demands become too g
Page 62 and 63: ceptional capacity for suffering. P
Page 64 and 65: neighborhood. They therefore made s
Page 66 and 67: is not allowed to be what he really
Page 68 and 69: 3. Continuous performance of outsta
Page 70 and 71: an absolutely essential adaptation
Page 72 and 73: eader's letter in which the tragic
Page 74 and 75: neither the grandiose nor the depre
Page 78 and 79: (holding) empathic environment. Win
Page 80 and 81: to formulate connections that the p
Page 82 and 83: strate to the patient that "his hop
Page 84 and 85: that resist this adaptation. In old
Page 86 and 87: Points of Contact with Some Theorie
Page 88 and 89: Chapter 3 The Vicious Circle of Con
Page 90 and 91: finished his ice cream, he gave the
Page 92 and 93: een caught at night outside the loc
Page 94 and 95: children are aware of this situatio
Page 96 and 97: about his own childhood, which he d
Page 98 and 99: ment of their children. What are we
Page 100 and 101: If we want to avoid the unconscious
Page 102 and 103: ference feelings and his own childi
Page 104 and 105: • The hope that with this birth t
Page 106 and 107: self—to show himself to the world
Page 108 and 109: PERPETUATION OF CONTEMPT IN PERVERS
Page 110 and 111: horrified eyes, and this clearly em
Page 112 and 113: pulses, for he does not allow the c
Page 114 and 115: dramas, nor pangs of conscience whe
Page 116 and 117: "the others," classify, group, and
Page 118 and 119: sexual satisfactions, whereas the c
Page 120 and 121: puberty also had to live out his fa
Page 122 and 123: the 21st of January to the 5th of J
Page 124 and 125: through experience, not merely corr
Page 126 and 127:
ecause of their very nature, inacce
Page 128 and 129:
course of analysis it can then be s
Page 130 and 131:
flicts had absolutely no effect, th
Page 132 and 133:
not so clever and quick (for instan
Page 134 and 135:
that their teacher once had and was
Page 136 and 137:
the history of his childhood and th
Page 139 and 140:
Works Cited Abraham, K. 1960 (orig.
Page 141 and 142:
Index abandonment, 10-14, 79 Abraha
show all

The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?