精神分析治疗的基础是建立一个独特空间,一个有限而无形、探索意义和动机的空间。病人说出心中所想,但精神分析师不会以日常生活的某种具体方式回应,而是建立一个独特的本体论领域空间。这个空间没有禁忌,任何话都可以说。Winnicott用一个贴切的词语“潜在空间”来描述。精神分析需要这个独特的空间,但有些病人无法忍受这样的空间,因为感到空虚和孤独。他们想要突破与分析师之间的边界,因为他们体验到的客体接触之间的空间不是潜在空间,而是一种空（void）。他们渴望一种没有边界的联结,消除他们和分析师之间的空间。这种欲望意味着破坏分析赖以存在的空间。这种令人困惑的临床情景给分析师和被分析者制造了独特的技术困难。对那些不能分离的病人,唯一重要的关系恰恰会抹去分析空间。文章描述了一种分析方法,并用一个临床案例展示这个治疗方法,解开这一困境。

Psychoanalytic therapy is predicated on the establishment of a unique space, a bounded formlessness that is open for the exploration of meaning and motivation. The patient says what is on his mind and the fact that the analyst does not respond in the concrete manner of daily life establishes the space as a unique ontological realm in which anything can be said and nothing is off limits. In a Winnicott’s felicitous phrase, this is described as a “potential space.” The psychoanalytic process requires this unique space, but some patients cannot tolerate such a space because it feels empty and lonely to them. They seek the breakdown of the boundary between themselves and the analyst, so they experience the space between object contacts not as a potential space, but as a void. They desire a connection without boundaries and an obliteration of the space between themselves and the analyst. This desire means the destruction of the very space on which the analysis rests. This perplexing clinical situation creates unique technical problems for the analyst and the analysand. For the patients who cannot separate, the only relationship that matters to them would erase the analytic space. This paper delineates an analytic approach and a clinical illustration is used for showing the therapeutic approach designed to unlock this dilemma.