Case Material "Simon"

The Analytic FieldThis paper presents a Jungian psychoanalytic case study of a man, referred to as Simon, who entered analysis in his early forties and was treated weekly for over a decade.One of Simon's first statements about himself was that he was an Oedipal winner.As I sat across from Simon in the initial session, a noticeable somatic heat arose, an indication of an alchemical Rubedo activated from the start.A sustained mutual gaze developed between us that would characterize the work across the years to follow that was charged with a quality of mutual recognition that resisted easy interpretation.In this initial session, our bellies began to produce audible sounds in apparent dialogue and concert with one another-a phenomenon that would recur frequently enough to become a shared, lightly humorous marker of the field's dynamic activity.My internal response in this opening session was multilayered.In addition to the somatic warmth, there arose an unfamiliar sense of uncertainty.There was a fleeting disorientation as we seemed to both be vying for the role of analyst in the room!I also experienced a nascent anxiety and a mild freeze response.The dominant countertransference that I was gradually able to name overtime was that of an erotic and playful transference-a configuration that would require sustained containment, symbolic discipline, and my ongoing personal analytic work to hold. Early Dream MaterialSimon came to analysis not as a patient in crisis, but from genuine intellectual and psychological curiosity.He had spent three years prior to beginning formal analysis writing down his dreams.In the first session, he offered a dream that had emerged just prior to the first appointment: I was entering a sort of university and had an appointment with Dr. Jung.There was a woman at the front desk who greeted me and we went into the All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies.