The Operation 手术 The most significant single childhood event occurred when he was almost five years old. It had been discovered previously that he had a patent ductus arteriosus. This congenital anomaly became the focus for mother's obsessive doubts and guilt feelings and apparently served to intensify her anxieties and her obsessively overprotective mothering. The condition was treated as a shameful secret, a blot on the family and a mark against mother. Visits to the doctor were shrouded in secrecy and concealment; mother would go to elaborate efforts to conceal the fact of the ailment from relatives and friends. The reasons for the anxiety and concealment were kept from Jimmy, and, of course, his fantasies as to what was going on flourished. Finally the decision was made to operate and Jimmy was taken to the hospital. The operation came as a bolt from the blue for Jimmy. He had not expected it; in the parents' typical style they had avoided the subject and concealed it from him. Being taken to the hospital came upon him as a sudden, unexpected, terrifying, and traumatic event. It was an unprovoked and undeserved attack, and coming at the height of his Oedipal involvement, it gained all the overtones of a castration attack and a punishment for forbidden Oedipal wishes. 他童年时期最重大的一件事发生在他快五岁的时候。之前发现他患有动脉导管未闭。这一先天性异常成了母亲强迫性疑虑和罪恶感的焦点，显然也加剧了她的焦虑和她那强迫性的过分保护的育儿方式。这种情况被视为一个可耻的秘密，是家庭的污点，也是母亲的耻辱。去看医生的事被笼罩在秘密和隐瞒之中；母亲会费尽心思向亲戚朋友隐瞒他的病情。吉米并不知道焦虑和隐瞒的原因，当然，他对于到底发生了什么事充满了各种幻想。最终，决定进行手术，吉米被送到了医院。手术对吉米来说犹如晴天霹雳。他根本没料到会这样；父母一如既往地回避这个话题，对他隐瞒了实情。被送到医院对他来说是一件突然、意外、可怕且创伤性的事件。这是一次无缘无故且不应得的打击，而且发生在他俄狄浦斯情结最为强烈的时候，因此这件事被赋予了阉割攻击的意味，仿佛是对他禁忌的俄狄浦斯愿望的惩罚。 The operation provided an important focus for Jimmy's furtherd development. He recalls his amazement at the huge scar that stretched across his chest. He expected it to fall apart any moment. He felt himself to be weak and defective, vulnerable, marked for life as impotent and worthless. These fantasies were reinforced by the fact that the family moved during his period in the hospital, and Jimmy came home to a new house and a new neighborhood. He felt that the change was because of the family's shame and need to conceal his defectiveness. The whole circumstance of the operation and its reverberations served to intensify his dependence and clinging to his mother. He became in her eyes and in his own the defective and weak child, who had to be taken care of and protected, who had to be given special consideration and who could not tolerate being subjected to the normal give-and-take of competition and effort in the harsh world. Effectively, Jimmy and his mother entered into a collusion to keep him a weak, defective, castrated, and impotent little boy. 这次手术成为了吉米进一步发展的一个重要焦点。他回忆起自己看到胸前那道巨大的疤痕时的惊讶，感觉它随时都可能裂开。他觉得自己虚弱、有缺陷，脆弱不堪，一生都将被标记为无能和毫无价值。在他住院期间，家里搬了家，吉米出院后回到了一个新房子和一个新社区，这一事实更加深了他的这种幻想。他觉得这次搬家是因为家人感到羞耻，需要掩盖他的缺陷。手术的整体情况及其后续影响加剧了他对母亲的依赖和依恋。在母亲和他自己眼中，他成了一个有缺陷、虚弱的孩子，需要被照顾和保护，需要得到特别的关照，无法忍受这个残酷世界中正常的竞争和努力所带来的得失。事实上，吉米和他的母亲达成了一种共谋，让他保持一个虚弱、有缺陷、被阉割、无能的小男孩形象。 The situation surrounding the operation was complicated by the fact that in the year preceding it Jimmy's mother developed a hyperthyroid goiter with exophthalmos. This condition must have contributed to her own level of anxiety and to her hyperactivity. In Jimmy's recollections, she became like a "mad woman." Since Jimmy's own congenital condition was discovered when he was just about two-and-a-half years old, it is quite likely that some of the symptoms associated with mother's hyperthyroidism grew apace with the anxiety over his condition. Jimmy could not avoid connecting his heart defect with his mother's illness, and drawing the deeper conclusion that somehow he was the defective child who had severely and permanently damaged his mother in being born. 手术前后的情况因为一件事而变得更加复杂：在手术前一年，吉米的母亲患上了伴有突眼的甲状腺功能亢进性甲状腺肿。这一病症无疑加重了她的焦虑情绪，并使她变得极度活跃。在吉米的记忆中，母亲就像一个“疯女人”。由于吉米自己的先天性疾病是在他两岁半左右时发现的，因此很可能，母亲甲状腺功能亢进的一些症状是随着对他病情的焦虑而一同迅速出现的。吉米不可避免地会将自己的心脏缺陷与母亲的疾病联系起来，并得出更深的结论：某种程度上，他是一个有缺陷的孩子，他的出生严重且永久地损害了母亲。