The Psychic Warrior


I think this series shows something of the early experience and an experience of exposure that continues through a therapy of a process of exploration and exposure. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy does involve the uncovering of hidden relationships, though not so concretely that a patient carries their mother around under their overcoat. They may however carry an aspect of that relationship around inside of themselves symbolically which they don’t want to reveal; this is the silent hidden attachment or Keeping Mum.

 

When something is revealed, something that’s been hidden, this may be shaming for the patient.  

 



The psychic warrior by Dr James Johnston  

 

The first slide shows a somewhat remote psychotherapist musing that the patient ‘may be hiding something’. The patient is wearing a large overcoat as if something may well be hidden concretely underneath or within.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
The psychic warrior by Dr James Johnston  

 

The therapist urges the patient, Mr Jones, to reveal what it is that’s hidden. ‘You can’t hide anything from me’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
The Psychic Warrior by Dr James Johnston  

 

The patient is prodded by the therapist in a way that in ordinary practice would be quite unacceptable but for the sake of the cartoon makes the point that the patient is perhaps resistant to revealing what it is that they have hidden and requiring some pressure from the therapist to open up.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
The Psychic Warrior by Dr James Johnston  

 

Finally Mr Jones, the patient, opens his overcoat to reveal his mother upon whom he gazes with loving eyes with hearts popping out from his head towards her. The therapist muses ‘Ah yes, your mother’ as if the patient’s mother is what he had expected to be revealed all along.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Updated: 31 January 2011


© 2011 Royal College of Psychiatrists