THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis
247 East 82nd St., between 2nd & 3rd, NY, NY
Saturday, May 1, 2010
10 a.m.
Leslie Max
NPAP
The Use of “Talk Therapy” with an Aphasic Patient
Discussant: Mark Solms, Ph.D.
A case will be presented in which a man who suffered a stroke 10 years ago is undergoing treatment in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. The patient has very limited capacity to use ordinary speech (aphasia) and a right-sided hemiparesis (limited use of the right arm, right leg and right hand). The diagnosis of this condition is Broca’s aphasia. The treatment is continuing into its fourth year. Despite the difficulties inherent to this condition, the treatment is characterized by excellent communication through the use of some ordinary speech, the limited use of writing, and gestures, sounds and body movements which enable the patient to communicate ideas, facts and feelings. These have all contributed to an ongoing therapeutic relationship. Issues of connection, separation and loss have been explored, as have transference and boundary issues in the treatment, together with unconscious material. Despite the obstacles he faced coming in to treatment – and still faces – the patient has maintained and strengthened an already intact ego. There is evidence for this, as we progress, in his manner and actions in the sessions and in his life outside the treatment.
Mark Solms, Ph.D., who has supervised this clinical work, will open the presentation with some introductory remarks on working with neurological patients, and follow the clinical reports with some additional neuropsychoanalytic observations on the material.
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