Building on the foundation of the analyst’s dream, this writing traces a process of containment as it came into being. This containment is felt as a discovery between analyst and patient of mental space within which thoughts can be born and mind(s) develop. WR Bion’s ideas about states of being in which there seems to be no thinking mind present and Jose Bleger’s work on the use of the psychoanalytic frame, scaffold this paper about a treatment in which the analyst found a way to “be with” the patient primarily through dream and a receptivity to the patient’s sensory communications. Eventually, there grows a capacity to witness, to bear and to think about the murderous forces which exist in the field of this treatment, forces that consistently threaten to destroy attempts at containment and at one point are expressed by the patient’s serious suicide attempt.
Deborah Sherman, BC-DMT, LMHC is a certified Psychoanalyst and Dance-Movement Therapist. She currently supervises at IPSS and ICP and is on faculty at IPSS, ICP and NIP. Deborah is the Director of IPSS’ 1 Year and Advanced 1 Year Intensive Psychotherapy Programs and maintains a private practice in Psychoanalysis and Dance/Movement Therapy in New York City.
James Ogilvie, PhD is a graduate of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is a co-founder and faculty of the Contemplative Studies Project of New York. James maintains a private practice in Manhattan where he also leads an on-going Bion study group.
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