Dreifuss E, Meerwein F
Z Psychosom Med Psychoanal. 1984;30(3):282-91.
Patients suffering from leukemia or from severe terminal cancer have possibly been impaired with regard to their ego functions even before any manifestation of their disease had occurred. With the outbreak of their illness they often experience an additional imperilment of their ego loundaries. By introjection of the art therapist (or the physician) whom the patients frequently perceive as their double they are able to make an attempt at reconstructing an intact image of themselves and thus to restore intact ego functions. The double, on the one hand, becomes a source of help and, on the other, an exponent of the patient's own nonexistence because he continuously represents the non-ego as well. Pictures painted by leukemia patients in the course of an art psychotherapy illustrate this phenomenon. The confrontation with the double, exhibited in these pictures, allows the working-through of the relationship between the patient and the therapist which is always ambiguous. Thus the coping with grief, to a certain degree at least, becomes possible.
患有白血病或晚期重症癌症的患者，甚至在疾病出现任何症状之前，其自我功能可能就已受到损害。随着疾病的爆发，他们常常会经历自我边界的进一步威胁。通过将艺术治疗师（或医生）内投射，患者常常将其视为自己的分身，他们能够尝试重建完整的自我形象，从而恢复完整的自我功能。这个分身一方面成为帮助的来源，另一方面也是患者自身不存在的象征，因为他也不断代表着非自我。白血病患者在艺术心理治疗过程中所画的画说明了这一现象。在这些画中展现出与分身的对峙，使得患者与治疗师之间总是模糊不清的关系得以梳理清楚。因此，至少在一定程度上，应对悲伤成为可能。
