BRIEF REPORT - Murder! (She Said!)

Abstract

Occasionally using psychodramatic methods, I had been counseling Sue, a 32-year-old single woman, in individual therapy for about 45 sessions over an eighteen-month period. She had been complaining in recent sessions about her boyfriend Ted who, she discovered, had a regular girlfriend. Ted, however, had led Sue to believe that she was his "one and only." In this session, Sue informed me in a calm voice that she felt so angry and hurt that she intended to kill Ted. During the entire treatment period, Sue had shown neither severe psychopathology nor any homicidal tendencies, so I initially did not take her seriously. My attitude changed
dramatically when she described in detail a precise, well-thought-out plan for accomplishing her wish.