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Abstract

In this paper I describe a time-limited piece of work that I undertook as a trainee with a mother whose child had died. The client had developed serious ulcerative colitis and was referred to counselling because she was refusing an operation to treat it. I have conceptualised her illness as the embodiment of her experience of disintegration in grief. As a trainee, I found working in the transference difficult in this case, as though I was betraying the client in some way. The client’s failure to make herself better both from her disease and from mourning her daughter made her continue to feel like a victim. Understanding this as transference and drawing on relational psychoanalytic theory was key to being able to work with her and to begin to make links.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Psychodynamic Practice on 27 February 2013, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14753634.2013.772441
Publisher Keywords:	Maternal mourning; ulcerative colitis; relational model; supervision; suicide.
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RG Gynecology and obstetrics
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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