I particularly
remember one of my early cases, A, a middle-aged man who was severely depressed
with suicidal ideation after his wife left him suddenly. Although this event occurred
5 years previous to my fist meeting with A for the analysis, and A was on a
full-time job in the medical area, he stated that his life is never the same and
he was “just living”, without any hope or purposes in his life. He is driving
daily, but he never wore a seat belt and drove recklessly, which he meant as his
own way of passively attempting to kill himself. A’s wish to live practically disappeared
after he was forced by his ex-wife to sign the divorce paper, and for him, the
reason for his pessimistic view is obvious. If a woman who swore to God never
to leave her husband and stay together until “death do them part”, but decided
to abandon him for another man without any explanation, what else could he
believe. However, A was also puzzled by his own rather extreme response to this
abandonment, as he had some experiences of separation and abandoning and being abandoned
with his ex-partners. A was at a loss why this divorce meant something totally
unexpected and meant such a harsh blow to him.
In the process of 6 years of
analytic process, he slowly gained his wish to continue to live. He began wearing
his seat belt while driving. In the analysis his severally devalued sense of
self is understood and processed, which was rooted deeply in his relationship
with his mother. His ex-wife reminded him of some aspects of his mother, at
least on an unconscious level. When he got married, he felt that he is allowed to
develop some fantasy of reunification with his mother, or even that of a return
to the womb. When he began his work with me, the length of the analysis for 3~5
years appeared to him as almost an indefinite period. Four years into the
analytic process, he found a partner that he believed that he can restart his
life again. That period coincided with our discussion of our termination within
a year or two. In a sense, his seeking a new relationship might have been his
own way of dealing with another potential blow to his life.
