The Risk of the Revelatory State

Patients enter states that in their spontaneity and deep interiority have qualities of the revelatory. I propose we recognize such a state as a clinical event: The person is in a state of intense internal receiving of self. We might think of it as a state of internal communication happening as the person speaks. The person feels real to herself. Her relation to her mind in this revelatory moment is easily intruded on-even by ventures of play. When the state is gone, it is gone. I single out this clinical moment from moments that are cocreated and happening within an analytic third. I argue that in the revelatory moment, a patient builds capacities to be present for pain, desire-for raw experiences ordinarily difficult to access. The state makes a strict demand on the analyst. I see it as a moment of object usage-that is, it is a moment of risk with the analyst. This moment challenges and deepens our understanding of Winnicott's usage formulation.