Mortimer was referred to me for group because of a strong life long aversion to relationships despite an equally strong desire to have one.  He  is a very depressed, middle-aged man with low self- esteem and diminished libido. As a child, he suffered the pain and humiliation of being emasculated by his mother and an older sister, two aggressive, bossy, and castrating man killers.  His father gave up his own ‘balls’ to these two women in order to be taken care himself.  He  sacrificed his son  in order to protect himself from their control. And yet, Mortimer loved and needed his family; there was a strong libidinal attachment to them, a sure sign of underlying emotional health. Despite the enormous emotional damage of childhood, Mortimer had a vibrant will to live but  in order to survive this toxic family environment, he learned to play dead.  He killed himself off emotionally in order to survive in this crazy household.  In the world, he presents himself as a “schmiel”, the guy who gets sand kicked in the face by the bully on the beach.  In group, he comes across as a timid and self-deprecating man/child. This is his way of warding off aggression at the cost of turning that aggression back onto himself. Who will attack him if he attacks himself first?—a Pyrrhic victory for sure. After several months of quiet reflective listening to him  he developed an attachment to the group and to me. The group likes him.  He is a bright, articulate man who is insightful in seeing other peoples’ interpersonal dynamics. I support his brilliant insights about others but always encourage to abide by the group contract which is;” say how you feel toward the others and why you feel that way before offering your insights”.  More pointedly,  I have encouraged his small steps in verbalizing angry feelings toward me. It is my belief that his depression is, in part, due anger turned against himself. As much as he hated his family, he loved them too.  To protect them from his murderous feelings he turned those feelings inwardly.  My goal is to have him re-direct those feelings outward, onto to me. It is my assumption that in doing so, the psychic energy he uses to keep these feelings in check will be freed to be used more constructively in his life outside of the group. I use a number of techniques to draw out the anger. I wait until we have a strong positive working alliance and that he has developed a secure enough attachment to me that he feels safe to direct the anger outward and not turn it back on himself, as he has done for so much of his life. One technique is called mirroring.  For example, when he tells me in front of the group that he feels suicidal, I mirror him and declare that I too am suicidal, that I have failed him as his therapist and don’t deserve to live because he is not making progress. At first, he protests and protects me; he says that it is he who has failed and not me. We enter this insane argument of who is more of a failure.  We play losers’ checkers until he gets exasperated with me and tells me to shut up. I consider this a step forward; the aggression is directed outward and not back on himself. Over the course of a year in group, he has developed a nascent sense of his masculinity.  He has met a woman on the outside that he loves from afar. When she tells him that she has a boyfriend, he becomes despondent.  In group, he talks about his despair and how he uses food to comfort himself.  In an eating binge to drown his sorrow, he tells the group that he  has eaten 13 bagels with cream cheese.  The group is alarmed; they offer him all kinds of concrete suggestions to get him to stop.  Mortimer tells us that his psychiatrist has told him that the eating binge is a sublimation of his frustrated sexual feelings. I think to myself;” That may be true but any interpretation of his behavior is of no use to him. In fact, he understands that the unspoken message of the interpretation as a subtle attack. He experiences it as a narcissistic injury ” Another technique that I use to draw the aggression is to focuse on minutiae.  So I ask him;” What kind of bagels were they? Were they sesame, onion, salted? Did you toast them?  Why no jelly with the cream cheese?  ”  Mortimer retorts angrily: “ That is an obnoxious question”.  The group loudly concurs and comes to his defense.  Inwardly, I smile –Mission accomplished. I know that I’m on the right track because he didn’t deprecate himself, instead he told me off. Good for him!