A FORMER PATIENT'S MOVIE (abstract)

I don't believe in the dictum, “once a patient, always a patient”. Freud himself said that at the end of a (successful) analysis, archaic transferences have essentially been analyzed and worked through, and what remains should be a warm, cordial relationship. From what I have seen, this human relationship rarely continues after termination, and one cannot help but wonder why. I have made it my practice to keep in touch with as many former patients as possible, especially those who value my ongoing interest in their lives. This way I get followup data which I use to learn more about the long range effect of psychoanalysis. And personally, I enjoy a friendship with a talkative, open and creative person.

As a result of the above philosophy, I received a videocassette in the mail in the summer of 1998, with a note from a former patient, who had become a film-maker while in analysis with me. He had been a young man who had been depressed, withdrawn and emotionally paralyzed. During the course of his therapy, which was psychoanalytically-informed group and individual for four years, he overcame his self-protective defenses and became more outgoing. He began to date women and decided to go to college to be a film-maker.

He got married and moved to Hollywood, made contacts, got financial backing and has already made several highly popular and successful films. He is still happily married and now has two lovely children. His movies often express significant and powerful emotional themes. The latest film, the one he sent me, is about serious psychopathology, based on a book by Gene Stone called “Little Girl Fly Away”. In the story a married woman becomes highly disturbed and requires hospitalization. Enter a sensitive, empathic and psychoanalytically oriented therapist and the last forty minutes of this ninety minute film is about the essence of uncovering or insight psychotherapy.

The qualities the therapist in the movie displayed were all those we routinely recommend. These include specialized knowledge and techniques, being empathic, supportive, non-judgmental and non-directive. The patient in the movie was very sick and the therapy very difficult, and yet it turned out successfully, because the therapist was depicted as skillful, caring and persistent, while relentlessly encouraging the patient to uncover memories of her painful past. In the film the patient was clearly demonstrating a powerful resistance, which anyone naturally generates to avoid extreme psychic pain.

I commented very favorably to him on the movie, which was shown nationally on CBS in the fall of 1998, and asked him if his therapy with me helped him to choose this story and make the movie as powerful and touching as he did. Although our joint analytic work ended over ten years ago, he said he often thought of me and our work together during the making of the movie, as well as the choice of subject. That is why he wanted to share the movie with me. I had the privilege of pre-viewing it as a video without commercials. The name of the movie is "Little Girl Fly Away."

The presentation will include the ninety minute video to show the connection between his therapy and the movie, and also the emergence of creativity in the years after the analysis. Dr Milton Berger will be the discussant and the time remaining will be open for audience discussion.