Common ground: an analytic break and its consequences

This is a clinical report of an analytical process which began under two years ago and in which there was a five-month break at the end of the first year. The break had been discussed in advance, but its effect on the treatment was no less intense on that score. The separation was experienced through feelings of pain with a heavy bodily quality by which she evoked the somatic memories of a heart operation she had when she was a baby. The analytic process seems to be allowing her to symbolize her painful experiences of separation and loss as well as the traumatic effects of her heart surgery.