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Cooper, P - Depression & Unitive Experience, (2002) 89 Psychoanalytic Review 413 PDF
Cooper, P - Depression & Unitive Experience, (2002) 89 Psychoanalytic Review 413 PDF
Paul C. Cooper
objects and sadistic impulses into the infant. This issue will be
explored here.
This article elaborates one idiosyncratic permutation of pro-
jective/introjective cycles initiated by the object. This formula-
tion sheds light on a specific spectrum of depressive symptoms
accompanied by a specific, consistent, and tenacious transfer-
ence/countertransference dynamic. The latter can best be de-
scribed as “object pervasion” and manifests in analysis in what I
refer to as “pervasive object transference.” Object pervasion has
been discussed tangentially elsewhere in a different context. In
that communication, I wrote, regarding a blurring of boundaries
between an analysand and myself:
enced as the pervasive object. The space and time of the therapy
session can also become manifestations of this dreaded and all-
engulfing object.
The notion of object pervasion derives from clinical expe-
rience with psychotically depressed patients in the light of psy-
choanalytic and Buddhist principles. Specifically, the Kleinian
understanding of projective identification and the Buddhist un-
derstanding of the “identity of the relative and the absolute” (Su-
zuki, 1999, p. 28) shed light on this particular variation of unitive
experiencing.
PSYCHOANALYTIC CONSIDERATIONS
move her bowels after each session. Among the many symbolic
meanings for Delia’s behavior that emerged during analysis, the
one most significant to this discussion centered on her feeling
that she could give birth to a self in the womb/room provided
by analysis. However, fetus, through shifts in perspective, be-
comes feces, something poisonous and dangerous that must be
removed before it destroys the good object (analyst, office,
womb). Or, as an act of aggression, in support of an emerging
self, Delia could plant what is toxic in my insides (plumbing).
In terms of structural theory, the subject becomes, under
adverse conditions, all superego, constituted solely of introjected
bad objects and object fragments. The latter, at the extreme, par-
asitically colonize, exploit, and denude the subject’s (host’s) in-
ner landscape. The subject becomes an unwitting host for what
is split off and/or disavowed in the object. Sara, who will be
discussed in detail later, becomes a host, for example, for her
mother’s aggressive and sadistic colonization of her psychic
space, in which case the “I-sense” is crushed, immobilized, or
never developed. The remnants or vestiges of self live in a psy-
chic “ghetto,” which is reflected in the external world in such
ways as self-isolation, starvation (food, social contacts, emotions),
substandard living conditions, and a neurologically impaired
body/mind.
Does Sara see her mother as all bad exclusively because of
excessive projection of her sadism? Does Klein ignore the depen-
dently arising2 possibility that some mothers are “bad”? Such
mothers might be stuck in an early primitive state. Mother has
“scooped-out” Sara’s insides to make room for herself, a womb/
room that gets activated during sessions when Sara asserts: “I
want to climb inside of you, be inside of you where I will be safe
from harm.” On the other hand, her expressions might reflect
cries or pleas from a self desperately attempting to be born. She
desires a safe environment to incubate and be born from.
Such individuals are unable to freely and spontaneously use
the space/time of the session creatively. The room (womb) and
time (gestation period) remain empty. They become locked in
paranoid-schizoid organization—oscillations derailed—living in
fragments reflected in disjointed speech, stuttering, dispersed
into infinities of time and space, reflected in silence. Thus the
PERVASION OF THE OBJECT 419
SARA’S JOURNEY
Sara entered treatment at the age of twenty-eight with com-
plaints of depression and acute anxiety precipitated by the sud-
den and unexpected loss of her job. However, as she described
it, “I have been feeling depressed most of my life.” Sara stutters
and has received speech therapy for her condition. The inci-
dence and intensity of her stuttering have decreased significantly
and eventually stopped since the start of treatment. She typically
speaks in an emotionally flat, almost mechanical voice that be-
comes inaudible at times. The initial phase of Sara’s analysis,
which at the time of this writing is in its fourteenth year, was
characterized by an almost exclusive emphasis on her self-states.
She initiated this dynamic by an ongoing query: “Am I stupid,
lazy, worthless?” The unrelenting and abusive tenor of her con-
tinuous queries functioned as an initial expression of object per-
vasion that at the time escaped my understanding. However, as
the analysis deepened, this particular style of relatedness, the ac-
companying locus of attention, and the associated affect states
reflected specific familial interaction patterns that eventually
emerged in the treatment. That is, her stated self-perceptions,
both real and unrealistic, served as an outline for the narrow
parameters that would ensure a minimal object tie, despite the
inadequacy and toxic nature of the connection. The price of re-
latedness left her feeling suspended on what she described as “a
thin tightrope,” ever anxious of failing and falling.
Sara, now forty-two, recently completed her undergraduate
degree. Her education was delayed by serious neurological im-
pairments that compromise her ability to function in academic,
work, and social environments. She suffers from a variety of
impairments and has been diagnosed as learning disabled. Her
disabilities appear in the form of short-term memory deficits,
visual-motor integration delays, distractibility, and perseverative
behavior and thought. She is somewhat clumsy in her move-
ments, tends toward extremes, and becomes highly anxious and
PERVASION OF THE OBJECT 423
Spiritual Dimensions
Sara is the only member of her present extended family to
follow an orthodox Jewish tradition. Spiritual practice and reli-
gious involvement provide an external structure in the absence
of a cohesively developed internal psychic structure. This struc-
ture also functions in part as a defense against anxiety-provoking
affect states that seriously threaten Sara’s fragile sense of being.
However, she finds herself stuck in an extremely brittle archaic
position that severely limits her functioning in virtually every
area of her life.
Careful scrutiny of the way an individual approaches spiri-
tual practices in general and identification of specific aspects of
a tradition that the individual becomes involved with can help
clarify both adaptive and defensive uses of the particular tradi-
tion for the individual. For instance, Sara involved herself in a
rigidly defined (more so by Sara than by any dogma, creed, or
teacher) orthodoxy in the Jewish tradition. Her rabbi would fre-
quently admonish Sara to “lighten up” when she would seek his
advice. She consciously understood her belief and accompanying
practices as an attempt to get closer to her unavailable father.
She also became aware of her identification with an idealized
image of her maternal grandmother, whom she viewed as “hold-
ing the family together.” In this sense, religious observances
could hold Sara together. Her grandmother, now deceased, was
a person who, in Sara’s words, “always remained strong in her
PERVASION OF THE OBJECT 425
The analyst thus becomes another critical mother with the po-
tential to further destroy emerging I-sense emanations through
interpretations and other communications that might feel like
hostile, destructive invasions to the patient.
During the third year of treatment, Sara related a tale from
the family history. She was a low-weight baby. Because Sara dis-
played very little appetite, the family doctor recommended a
rigid feeding schedule. This included a 2:00 a.m. feeding. Her
mother deeply resented this chore. Furthermore, Sara typically
refused this nocturnal feeding. Her refusal fueled her mother’s
anger and resentment. She would storm out of the room, leaving
Sara awake and alone in the dark. “If mother was not going to
do the job right,” Sara queried, “why didn’t she just let me
sleep?” In the present, Sara would frequently experience terror
at the close of our sessions and would have trouble leaving. She
would also leave multiple messages on my answering machine in
the middle of the night. In this context, it was as if Sara would,
on the one hand, be abruptly awakened from her sleep during
the session by me (intrusive mother) and then suddenly be left
to face the world alone. On the other hand, not unlike her intru-
sive mother, she would wake me up in the middle of the night
(session), feed me a toxic formula of rage and helplessness, and
then depart.
Through our discussions, it soon became clear that Sara en-
gaged exclusively in those aspects of her spiritual practice that
would enable her to rationalize retreats and to maintain a safe
distance from her mother and others whom she would imagine
to be critical, judgmental, intrusive, or abusive. Her withdrawal
would not, however, release her from the internal mother. Self-
destructive processes would ensue. For example, she would rely
on traditional customs to maintain a sense of control with men.
On the one hand, she could safely keep a man out of her apart-
ment and ward off any emerging sexual impulses. On the other
hand, she could push an interested man away with sudden de-
mands for the customary short courtship and a commitment for
marriage. This dynamic would manifest during sessions in fluctu-
ations between extreme withdrawals and intrusions that would
leave me feeling either pushed away or running for cover. These
extreme self-state experiences re-create microscopically Sara’s
428 PAUL C. COOPER
Neurological Impairments
Sara’s need for an external structure to support the growth
of a self is further complicated by the reality of severe neurologi-
cal impairments. Although obvious even to the casual observer,
Sara’s problems were actively denied by both of her parents into
her adult life. This active and overt denial continues in the pres-
ent and takes the form of constant criticisms, pressures, de-
mands, threats, and intrusions. On some level, the parents seem
to have begun to accept Sara’s difficulties and recently arranged
for an apartment for her. However, they prefer to view Sara as
“lazy, stupid, and exploitative.” In fact, this denial is so ingrained
that when Sara sought remedial help as a young adult and had
been formally diagnosed as learning disabled by two indepen-
dent diagnosticians, her parents refused to accept the evalua-
tion. Since then, Sara has chosen to limit contact with her family.
She has qualified for Social Security benefits for the disabled.
She was accepted into a special college program for disabled stu-
dents and has since graduated. While in attendance, she became
a highly successful tutor of reading and statistics. However, her
identification with her mother’s unrelenting criticism became so
deeply embedded in her character that at times she continued
PERVASION OF THE OBJECT 431
Pushing Edges
I became aware of and began to question an emerging and
consuming intense desire to change Sara. But I decided to let
her be. Could she be exactly who she is in my presence indepen-
dently of any activity or lack of any activity (Cooper, 2000)? As
Winnicott (1971) asserts, “Doing and being done to. But first
being” (p. 85). Sara began putting me to the test by pressing
the edges of my offered acceptance. Depression intensified. She
started cutting classes, avoiding the synagogue, skipping prayer
practice, and pressuring me for telephone sessions. She spent
her days lying in bed or playing electronic games on her com-
puter. Her anxiety and guilt intensified. She feared being dis-
missed by me: I would shun her, not unlike her mother. She
expected me to become impatient and criticize her for “being
lazy and stupid.” Instead, I expressed an interest in the com-
puter games that were occupying her attention. She backed off
on herself a bit and said that the games were probably therapeu-
tic with regard to visual–motor training and eye–hand coordina-
432 PAUL C. COOPER
rage builds up. Rage, best managed in the treatment, spills out
to various service providers. At one point, Sara almost gets ar-
rested. Not unlike my container, the security of her subsidized
residency is jeopardized. Sara becomes filled with anxiety. She
can vent her rage at these various service providers, but not at
me. She will drown me and lose me in the process. She will
drown. Her affective life is shut down in an effort to maintain
her connection to me (Atwood & Stolorow, 1984).
NOTES
1. For a detailed theoretical and clinical discussion of the ramifications and
manifestations of psychic deadness, see Eigen (1996).
2. “Dependent arising” from the Buddhist perspective refers to the contextual
nature of self experience.
3. See “Clouds into Rain” (Cooper, 2001) for a detailed discussion of the con-
tainer and contained in relation to spiritual practice.
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PERVASION OF THE OBJECT 439