Animal Killer by Volkan Vamik D.;

Author:Volkan, Vamik D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

CHAPTER FIVE

“Empty sleep”, therapeutic regression, and “crucial juncture” experiences

Peter experienced sleepy feelings on the couch when he heard that his mother was ill and would be taken to a hospital. After he realised that aging Gregory could no longer remain the model of a strong hunter and he heard that Congress was discussing cuts in the defence budget, Peter had his first episode of actually sleeping on the couch. If defence cuts were approved, the company with which Peter was associated would sell fewer weapons. Changing world politics after the end of the Cold War, like the aging Gregory, would not support his place as “number one.” He said, “It is about time to give up our defences,” and promptly fell asleep. Most likely he was referring to the United States’ military defences, but the analyst understood Peter’s words as a surrender of narcissistic defences as well. The analyst was tempted to intrude and wake Peter up, but he remained silent. After fifteen minutes, when the end of the session arrived, he made noises to awaken his patient, who, showing no surprise, took his leave.

Peter’s episodes of sleeping on the psychoanalytic couch continued. Sometimes he would sleep for ten to twenty minutes and at other times he would be completely lost to sleep for nearly the duration of his psychoanalytic session, breathing deeply and even snoring. Such sleeping episodes, short and long ones, became rather routine in the third year of his treatment. During the first months of his falling asleep on the couch the patient declared that while he was sleeping he was “empty” and named his initial sleeping episodes “empty sleep”. During these months he could not describe any images or dreams upon awakening. The analyst, with my approval, did not interfere with Peter’s new “habit”, except by raising curiosity about it at appropriate times.

A few years before Dr. Pine observed Peter’s “empty sleep”, Steven Levy wrote about how feelings of emptiness are common complaints among patients seeking psychoanalytic treatment, especially among patients with borderline, narcissistic, and depressive pathology. He stated that at times feelings of emptiness come to dominate the patient’s “self-experience and lead to difficulties in the process of treatment” (Levy, 1984, p. 387). He also explained that emptiness as a mental state differs from patient to patient, regarding how it feels, as well as in regards to its particular dynamic meaning. I can add that a patient may experience emptiness differently at different times and this emptiness may have different meanings at different times. I will illustrate how the meaning of Peter’s experience of his “empty sleep” changed as his analysis proceeded during the third year of his treatment and eventually evolved to represent his therapeutic regression in the service of progression.

Emptiness is a subjective mental state characterised by a sense of impoverishment of inner feelings, fantasies, and wishes, as well as by a lack of response to external stimuli. Convictions, enthusiasm, and relatedness to others all seem lost and are replaced by feelings of deadness, boredom, and superficiality.

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