Of (super) Human Bondage: and wrestling with ‘coming unglued’ | November 18, 2017

Of (super) Human Bondage: and wrestling with ‘coming unglued’

Darren Thompson, MD, FRCPC, FIPA

Scientific Meeting | Saturday, November 18, 2017 | Venue: Arbutus Club
2001 Nanton Avenue, Vancouver, B.C.

In Somerset Maughan’s (1915) novel, “Of Human Bondage”, the author described an alienating developmental process in the early life of the protagonist, Philip Carey: “Because he could not join in the games other boys played, their life remained strange to him; he only interested himself from the outside in their doings. There was a barrier between them and him. For long hours he withdraws into his hammock, with “Thousand and One Nights” and many other books, reading, reading passionately. He did not know that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment… He got more and more the queer feeling that his life with all its misery was nothing but a dream.” The reader is told how, as a boy, Philip retreated into his inner world which became exceedingly more appealing to him than his bitter external reality. As an adult, his contempt became directed not just toward external reality, but also toward himself, reflected in the miserable relationship to his heartless and vicious love interest, Mildred.

Similar to the reader of this novel, analysis of patients taking the ‘Mildred route’ in the course of their lives can feel like a helpless witnessing of a fait accompli. In these circumstances, we may look to such areas as our past clinical experience, to theoretical underpinnings, and to collaboration with colleagues to help answer the question of ‘what makes change so difficult?”. While Winnicott (1953) helped to theoretically trace the developmental line of transitional phenomena, in the clinical setting it can sometimes feel like pulling away from some super strong adhesive before real movement can take place. This session will explore how one traumatized patient, who initially felt profoundly stuck, described feeling ‘unglued’ following forward developments. The possibility that ‘coming unglued’ is one of the hallmarks of transitional experiencing will also be examined.

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Darren Thompson, M.D., FRCPC, FIPA, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and a member of the Western Branch of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He has a private practice in Vancouver, and he provides psychiatric consultation for HOME Society in Abbotsford. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, and he teaches and supervises psychiatry residents.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this program/session/event participants will be able to:
1. Explain how an individual could come to invest heavily in internal ‘unreal worlds’ to the exclusion of reality;
2. View transitional phenomena as a necessary aspect of change, and list conditions under which it can be constructively experienced;
3. Consider how an experience of ‘coming unglued’ can be a deterrent toward development, and also possibly an inherent feature of real change.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM COMMITTEE 2018: Karin Holland Biggs, Ph.D., FIPA. (Chair), Celine Brouillette, R. Psych, Elizabeth Wallace, MD, FIPA. For further information please contact: Program Chair: Karin Holland Biggs – khbiggs@telus.net