JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN PmHOANALYTIGAli SOCIETY CONTENTS 4 IEGHNIC AL PROBLEMS .'WITH COUPLES' SIMULTANEOUSLY ANALYZED BY THE „ SAME ANALYST . EDMUND. BERGLER ' •" " .'- ON HAMLET K.R.EISSLER CLINICAL: NOTES ON KEEPTOMANIA " "GERDABARAG ;'~ ; : THE PHENOMENA QF 'IDENTITY- OF 'PERCEPTION1 AND THE, PROBLEM'OF NEUROSIS-. RAMANLAL PATEt '• .INDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY—REPORT NEWS AND NOTES / Editor NAGENDRANATH DE NUMBERS 1953 SAMIKSA : JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN-PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY TECHNICAL PROBLEMS WITH COUPLES 1. Samiltsa is published by the Indian Pss'cho-analytical Society SIMULTANEOUSLY ANALYZED BY fpur times a year 2. The subscription price per volume, payable in advance, is THE SAME ANALYST Rupees Sixteen for inland subscribers and Rupees Eighteen for EDMUND BERGLER overseas subscribers. The prices of single" rumbers may be ascertained on application. Subscriptions should be sent to Indian Psycho In recent years there has been frequent discussion of the problem analytical Society—Samiksa, 14 Parsibatan Lane, Calcutta 9, India. of simultaneous analyses" of couples, performed by the same analyst. Some authors (e.g., Mittelmann) have reported favourable results ; N. B. Remittances made by cheque on non-Calcutta Banks <=hould include others are skeptical. annas eight as Bank Commission I believe that one analyst can advantageously perform simul- 3. "AH communications regarding the Tournal should be. taneous analyses of a couple, provided two pre-requisites are fulfilled : addressed to the As^t. Editor, 'SamiW, Indian Psycho-analytical 1. Timing is decisive ; the second analysis should begin a few Society, 14 Parsibagan Lane, Calcutta 9. India. months after the first, so that the mate can see that some 4. The Management regrets their inability to return the manu- initial successes had been achieved by the analysand. scripts of unpublished" articles. 2. Tact and reticence in the use of material must be employed 5. Articles once published in the Journal become the copyright by the analyst. of the Indian Psycho-analytical Society. Permission has to be obtained These two conditions, which seem to me indispensable, need before translating or Teprinting any, contributed article. some elaboration. 6. The Editor reserves the right to accept or reject the whole or portions of contributions and will-not enter into correspondence i I. TIMING OF SECOND ANALYSIS—"MANIPULATION OF TIMING" in this matter. The Editor does not assume any responsibility for the opinions and statements expressed by contributors. I Starting the second analysis a few month after the first has begun 7. A contributor will obtain one copy of the particular issue fas the purpose of confronting the mate with an irrefutable proof of the Journal containing his article free of charge Reprints are> §hat analysis can be efficacious. If one does not adhere to this not supplied free. Cost of reprints without cover for each hundred ^expedient, two resistance on the part of two patients combine into copies or part of it is Rs. 10/- per forma or part of a forma. For pne unmanageable maelstrom. To avoid the cumulative results of reprints with cover the charge is Rs. 10/- extra for each hundred fesistance above and beyond the usual, and which cannot be handled, copies or part of it Contributors should state the number-of reprints aanipulation of timing is recommended. required at the time of submitting the manuscripts. My first experience of this problem was inadvertently provided 1 8 Contributors are requested to submit typed manuscripts in a couple analyzed twenty years ago . A woman suffering from duplicate. pjvere agoraphobia entered analysis. The patient, who did not dare lo out alone, was accompanied, first by her sister, later by her fiance. Printed at the Gupta. Press, 37/7 Beniatola Lane, Calcutta 9 and published ty be would cling to her companion as if in. imminent danger of Mr. A. Datta, Asst Secretary, Indian Psycho-analytical Society Heath. Her fiance was a gloomy person whose attitude towards his ; 1. The case history was published at some length under the title, "Psychoanalysis fa Case of Agoraphobia," Psa Rev 22 : 392-408,1935, Vol. 7, No. 3 ] COUPLES SIMULTANEOUSLY ANALYZED 147 146 EDMUND BERGLER [ SAMIKSA seriously ill with tuberculosis and at times unable to work. She had environment was one of inveterate suspicion. His facial expression a sexual relation with this man for seven years. She described this showed dissatisfaction—half-fury mingled with half-despair. relation as a very close one ; she enjoyed complete orgasm in it. Her From the curriculum vitae of the patient, who was quite pretty, mother, an aggressive hypochondriac, objected to her choice of though colourless and indifferent in appearance, we' note : Her father fiance because of his illness. This made for considerable conflict; died when she was ten years old, but she had been separated 'from as a result she met her fiance outside of her home. This relationship, him since her seventh year, when her parents divorced each other., which was one of great self-sacrifice on the patient's part (she nursed She described him as an amiable man, though at. first she could recall.: the- sick man), continued to be good until the man was cured of his only one episode concerning him-that of being taken to his funerali tuberculosis. The patient then abandoned him suddenly. According but not crying. Later she recalled events and details, and these, to her rationalization, she had realized, as time went on, that her combined with what her mother had told her of him, gave the: mother had been right in urging her to give him up because of his following picture : Her father had been industrious and disinclined! illness. to drink until he was about fifty (the patient was then five or six);'.; One would expect the patient, having broken off her first His character then changed abruptly ; he took to drink, became very; ; engagement because of her fiance's tuberculous condition, to be more noisy at home, and started exhibiting himself when drunk. Once, careful in her choice of a second fiance. By a curious 'chance', while drunk, he stripped himself naked before the children. This, however, her second betrothed (the- man who accompanied her to her after twenty-five years of married life, served his wife as a signal to analytic appointments, and who will be described shortly) also suffered leave him, and she did so, taking the children with her. The man from a severe case of tuberculosis. died three years later. In the interim, he married again, and saw his . The patient's first symptoms of agoraphobia appeared during children only a few times. Evidently in order to wipe out the father's the last months of her relationship with her first fiance. She began influence, the patient's mother sent her to a convent school to have the second relationship in a period when her symptoms were becoming 'good morals' instilled in her. According to the patient, her year stronger, and even after the first sexual contact felt that he was not in the convent was the unhappiest of her life. She lived' in a constant- 'the right man' for her. In her version, all tenderness was lacking, state of fear, hardly daring to go to the toilet. Probably to prevent and he was needlessly and pathologically jealous of her. His' jealousy the children from masturbating, the nuns had told them the devilf was peculiar. On the one hand he tortured her with accusations of lurked there. The child's desperate pleas persuaded the mother! faithlessness ; on the other hand he demanded that she be unfaithful to remove her from the convent. Some connection with the convent! to him in the realm of fantasy. He was able to have sexual intercourse was maintained, however ; the child took sewing lessons there. ! 'only under the following conditions : She must describe to him, The patient described the further outward developments^ of heri during intercourse, her intercourse with other men. Since the patient life as colourless. She was good at her studies. At the time she| could oblige with only one other man, her partner had to be contented entered analysis, she had been employed for twelve years by a large i with stories of imaginary love affairs. He made her describe in a very concern. At work, she was regarded as a person who did not permit ^realistic manner just how other men conducted themselves during herself to be imposed on, and who often came into conflict with her j intercourse, what they said, how they reacted, etc. If she refused to superiors, especially her immediate boss, whom she despised. i:do so, the man was impotent or was unable to reach ejaculation during The patient could not recall her childhood, and claimed that Scoitus. He also demanded that she use 'popular designations'— her first memories dated from her eighth year. She denied childhood;! fjthat is, obscene words—in telling these stories. The patient was masturbation, but remembered masturbating in puberty, though ^indignant at these request. Her agoraphobia was setting in more could not recall the fantasies that had accompanied masturbation,' festrongly and her sexual desires were diminishing, so that intercourse At twenty, she met a man considerably older than herself; he 148 EDMUND BERGLER CSAMIKSA Vol. 1, No. 3 ] COUPLES SIMULTANEOUSLY ANALYZED i49 between the pair became infrequent, and was accompanied by more man, can be explained : for her, illness of the man was a necessary and more antipathy on her part. condition for every sexual relationship, because in her childhood her It is impossible to give all the details of the patient's analysis unconscious oedipus wishes had been permitted only when accom- in this paper ; see original publication. Nor is it feasible to enumerate panied by the inner excuse, "I am taking care of my drunken (sick) the complicated reasons for her agoraphobia ; in the original report* father." The patient left her first fiance, not inspite of, but because thirteen determinants are worked out.