A case of depression and its relation to a parent’s suicide
John Elliott, MD, FRCPC
The term ‘dynamic unconscious’ refers to a metaphorical space outside waking awareness. This space contains, among other processes and entities, the repressed. ‘Repression’ implies an intentional yet unconscious aspect to this exclusion from awareness. Anna Freud has written about losing and being lost, Winnicott about the dynamics of hiding and being found. Lacan too spoke in various places about concealment, particularly in his seminar on The Purloined Letter. One way of hiding is by the use of an inner retreat. Perhaps the aliveness that Thomas Ogden has written about as a salient aspect of the immediate therapeutic situation is related to these ideas. All of these may have a bearing on growth in therapy. I shall present a case with attention to the interplay of these variables in the therapeutic relation and its relation to changes in the patient.
Dr. John Elliott is a psychiatrist in private practice devoted to the clinical application of psychoanalytic thought in Calgary. He is also a member of the psychodynamic supervisors group in the Department of Psychiatry and on the staff of an assessment and brief psychotherapy unit at the Rockyview Hospital there. He received training in psychiatry and psychoanalysis initially in Toronto, and continues to learn through contacts with the Western Branch of the C.P.S.
Scientific Program Committee: Karin Holland Biggs, James Fabian, Endre Koritar, Karla Maranhao, Donna Paproski, Judith Setton-Markus (Chair), Joseph Steiman, Catherine Young,
3 hours CME credit
