September 10, 2001

Abstract

This essay chronicles the impact of a patient's suicide on the therapist, reflecting on the initial trauma, the therapist's repeated attempts to deal with the loss, and her ultimate physical collapse. Time off from work began the healing of her physical symptoms, and the spontaneous writing and immediate sharing of her raw and unformulated feelings with a writing group she had just joined, began the process of grieving which, until this point, had only been known physically. Working and re-working this essay kept her safely, but affectively connected to the loss and gave her experiential understanding of the adaptive function of somatization, leading finally to the acceptance of the limitations of both patient and therapist.