Having to do short-term therapy I don't have the luxury to wait for the "transference neurosis." I also don't have the temperament for that style in some ways.
Anyway, to follow certain words back to important moments of the past that have affect seems like it should be the epitome of the psychoanalytic process.
So, a patient begins to get into her disgust with the world and how people are rude, riddled with guilt for their obligations to help others, and how the air and trees would soon be used up so that people would starve. She outlined the mad max ontology of the part-ego (formerly the auto-erotic) in which everyone would suffer but a class of super-elite rich. As much as I wanted to question her so she would develop the phantasy and give me more insight, I knew I had to make use of the bridge.
I ask her to complete the sentence. "A time I felt obligated to help someone was..." She repeated the beginning and then added "... was when I stayed in Montana and didn't come back for my sister". Her younger sister was sexually abused while she was trying to reconnect with her father and she was really emotional as she recounted her "selfishness".
There are so many pieces of ourselves and others in all the idiosyncratic ideas and imaginative productions of people.
Once one starts to get the ears to hear it, there are so many places to leave the ego narrative and enter into something vital and pulsing.
Also, I realized that "I statements is already a term that exists for couples therapy. So maybe something like 'self statements' is better for this...
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