PsychBytes

A publication of the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis

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First Love*

Paula J. Hamm LPC
Member, Washington Center for Psychoanalysis
February 2015 | Volume 2 | Issue 2

Emotions matter. Pretending that emotions do not exist creates dissonant background music that, eventually, cannot be drowned out by pleasurable distractions.

Such was the case of the forlorn man who came to my office with a sensual dream. Entering the room he went to the couch and lay down. “I had a dream last night that I have to tell you about.”

Beatle music was playing on the stereo: “Would you believe in a love at first sight? Yes, I am certain that it happens all the time.” My hands embracing her face, we looked into each other’s eyes as if this were the last time together, or perhaps the first. Skin, breath and hair seemed to be crystallizing into the words, “I’ll never stop loving you” as I began pulling her mouth to mine.

“I woke before the kiss. Gazing out the window watching the gentle swaying of the trees in the wind, my mind drifted in and out of the dream. It felt so real leaving me breathless with my heart pounding. Tears filled my eyes blurring my vision of the trees through the open window.”

Dreaming evoked what had been unspoken. “I rejected a beautiful woman in my youth. Now I am haunted by her loving memory.” Following his emotional footprints together, we began to navigate through his youthful emotions with traces of yet an even earlier love, mother.

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Shortcut

I live in the city and often walk to my preferred destinations. Sometimes my walks include shortcuts when going to familiar places. One common shortcut was an alley which contained rats.

While the rats were disturbing and seemingly everywhere, I continued using my shortcut.  At some point an intervention occurred – poison.  I began to experience the mixed blessing of dying rats instead of living rats.  While I hesitated to look at the dead and decaying rats, they were in my path and I couldn’t ignore them.  In time, the living rats disappeared. But at the end of my alley shortcut, “my inner rats” remained alive in the office of my psychoanalyst.

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