Abstract
When one falls victim to a chronic disease in youth, one shoulders a double burden : one must learn to live with one's illness while searching for oneself, a universal quest of the young. Any problem in the developmental process the patient happens to have tends to manifest itself after he or she falls ill. As clinical material, I have taken up the psychonalytic psychotherapy of a male patient in his 20s, suffering from a kidney disease. He lost his father after developing the disease without resolving his Oedipus complex and seeked treatment, since he felt himself to be in a depressive state. He was also still haunted by a traumatic experience of Oedipal overtones that happened in junior high school. I did give interpretations from time to time, but mainly listened to what he had to say and considered the underlying emotions in his account. Through the treatment, the patient carried out mourning work for his father, integrated his past traumatic experience, and searched for a way to live his own life despite his illness. Listening, in the psychoanalytic sense, means that the therapist not only notes what is said but also pays heed to what is not voiced, considering the unconscious and background emotions. It is also important to keep a loose map(in this case a genetic point of view) in mind as a framework of psychoanalytic understanding.
