The Conversation - 2

Jaques-Alain Miller

 

[...]Matet encountered Rodolphe at the onset of the patient’s psychosis, during a hospitalization at 48 years old for sleep problems. One reads the text with great pleasure, and Matet maintains a dynamic narrative, almost a suspense, which is tied to the convincingly rigorous construction of the case.

Until that time Rodolphe had led the life of a con- firmed bachelor, an uneventful and rather banal life, and he held a sales job under the wing of a beloved boss. The boss dies, his son replaces him at the head of the company: this is his catastrophe, everything is screwed. So begins a persecution which vaguely recalls “The Horla”: intruders enter his house, objects are misplaced, he is spied upon, he can no lon- ger go out. The first hospitalization, forty days during which he is loath to speak of his delirium, successfully soothes him. But five years later he is hospitalized all over again, this time presenting a mixed clinical picture of auditory hallucinations and accompanying interpretations: his medication is changed, for voices “insult him and drive him mad.” He agrees to become an invalid. During an interview with the patient, Matet observes that he responds, “with caution to his interlocutor’s questions, and takes great care not to say too much. He wants to denounce his aggressors, but to do so would immediately expose him to their intensified blows.” In sum, he no longer has protection from an “outside” that can invade him. A third hospitalization is necessitated by the aggravation of a depressive episode as his delirium wanes.[...]

 

 

 

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