Appearance of a hypochondriac “cyst” in the course of an analysis

Abstract

In this paper are analyzed underlying fantasies linked to a femenine phallic castration complex, in relation with primitive hypochondriac introjections. This paper deals with a patient who has difficulties in conceiving, and has no clinical
hypochondriac manifestations. During her analysis the aggressive character of her introyective processes were revealed; for this reason the objects introyected have destroyed patterns. During the course of her analysis, the fantasy of having a “monster” inside appears, with catastrophic fear of internal and world destruction. The permeability of the inside and the outside, is represented as having a “thing with a hole” inside, which will be transformed into the fantasy of a “sack”. As a defense to destruction, she assumes aggression herself, with confusion of the original sources, oral, anal-oral-urethral, muscular sadism, etc. When she fails become
pregnant, two new defenses appear: to have a penis and to be empty, as opposed to being full of bad contents, represented by her dead internalized parents. The confused nucleus of needed but semidestroyed contents, is inside an encasing: “the sack”. She cannot become pregnant because instead of a uterus she has a sack where babies cannot live. Later on, she associates the sack with a “dermoid cyst”: the hypocondriac cyst. The authors presume that this is a very frequent phenomena