A patient suffers from an auto-immune problem and has been regularly for months. I was impressed with the way she had some splitting with her husband's mother who was seen as a horrible figure while her husband was idealized and would "fight off" her mother and her mother's partner for her. I asked her to associate to fighter and she said boxer. I asked her to imagine her body was a boxer fighting another boxer representing her virus or disease and to tell me how she'd describe her body. She said her body was "a sissy, a scared little girl". I asked her to use these as I-statement and whether that described how she interacted with anyone. She said her mother-in-law and we went on to talk about the situations this arises in...
The body, the house when a patient spends a lot of time in it (or happens to bring it up enough), the possessions that the patient is hard on or cherishes... all of these contain little pieces of relationships with others if they are examined, associated to, described, and the self-other unit is explored in relation to a human relationship.
When working with many patients who don't have dreams, it becomes apparent that their life is often dream-like.
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