THE VERBAL SQUIGGLE GAME IN TREATING THE SERIOUSLY DISTURBED PATIENT

The psychoanalytic treatment of the seriously disturbed patient depend s on working through the countertransference. If the analyst regresses without debilitating anxiety to early levels of psychic development, as does the analysand while reliving his or her early traumatic psychi c development, both analyst and analysand may be able to enter states of reverie simultaneously and to communicate with one another in a typ e of verbal squiggle game. In this variant of Winnicott's written squi ggle game, each may easily communicate with the other with which shift s from the autistic-contiguous, paranoid-schizoid, and depressive posi tions. During such unusual periods of exquisite understanding, very ea rly pathological experiences can be relived, understood, and repaired.