Remarks on the Case of Pamela

Abstract

This is a discussion of Robert Grossmark's paper: “The Case of Pamela.” It emphasizes the trauma in her early upbringing and uses her own words to describe the severe damage this did to both her physical and her emotional sense of existence. It touches on the crumbling of her ability to trust, the dysregulation of her physical and mental economy, the substitution of false self personnae for the endangered real self, and the inevitable enactments that occur in a treatment of this sort. Though recognizing the remarkable help that this treatment afforded her, it suggests that a further phase of explicit negative transference is being postponed and might be necessary for the full completion of this treatment.