Page - 217 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 217 him. When his mother wanted him to give up the job, he made it clear to her that he wished to keep it: she had her work and he wanted his. Mark was now better able to fend for himself and had more self -confidence. But in therapy, there was no development: he was trapped by a cruel part of himself that often did not allow him to attend a session or cooperate. Although I often seemed to constitute a crutch for him, something hindered him from using his analysis in order to understand or change something. Although his fear had diminished, it was clear that we could not continue in this way. I had to seize the initiative, try to help him find out what he wanted. It was important not to answer his expectations that I become irritated with him and dismiss him, but rather that he take the responsibility for leaving. It was also important to make him under- stand that he had reached a limit, and I had to allow him to become active. In the autumn of our final year, I began to address the subject of ending therapy. In one session, when he had arrived five minutes late after skipping the previous three sessions altogether, I let two minutes go by and then confronted him with how I saw him threatening his analysis from various angles: he had not come the previous week, he kept the bill to himself for a protracted period, and he brought the insurance form too late. In this way, I continued, he was making me irritated and frustrated. He groaned, but quickly regained composure and adopted a stiff countenance. When he felt my words to be an attack on him, he became fearful. It was impossible not to respond to his provocative behavior. He elicited a reaction from me that corresponded to a massive projective identification. He compelled the external object (analyst) to behave like his inner object and thus created enor- mous pressure on the analyst (see Feldman 1999, 2000). Since he expected me to berate or attack him, I thought it important to grant him time with me before I said something, even when only five minutes of time remained. I wanted to allow him time to arrive emotionally. I also needed time to gain clarity regarding the feelings he elicited in me. Sometimes he treated me as if I were a machine without feelings. Only when I described what he was doing with me could he notice this behavior. When he recognized that he had hurt me, he seemed to understand that I was a person, separate from him. His capacity for thought was stimulated by my reflections on his feelings; this had enabled him to develop from the childlike cognitive level to a differentiated level of thinking, as demonstrated in his essays for school. But he would not agree with me that he enjoyed analysis and that it vexed him that somebody (I) had become so important to him. I had various ideas as to what this behavior might conceal. Was he unable to appreciate our sessions? Was he envious of the way I was able to help him? Or did he think if he spoke it would be humiliating, since he would then name his problems? Inevitably, he elicited more and more irritation and frustration in me by compelling me to wait for him. When I told him I would have to take the initiative on thinking about end- ing the therapy and that it depended on him whether he could use the ses- sions profitably – in order to start speaking – he was shocked. He attempted