The reality of the other: Dreaming of the analyst1

The author discusses the obstacles to symbolization encountered when the analyst appears in the first dream of an analysis: the reality of the other is represented through the seeming recognition of the person of the analyst, who is portrayed in undisguised form. The interpretation of this first dream gives rise to reflections on the meaning of the other’s reality in analysis: precisely this realistic representation indicates that the function of the other in the construction of the psychic world has been abolished. An analogous phenomenon is observed in the countertransference, as the analyst’s mental processes are occluded by an exclusively self‐generated interpretation of the patient’s psychic world. For the analyst too, the reality of the other proves not to play a significant part in the construction of her interpretation. A ‘turning‐point’ dream after five years bears witness to the power of the transforming function performed by the other throughout the analysis, by way of the representation of characters who stand for the necessary presence of a third party in the construction of a personal psychic reality. The author examines the mutual denial of the other’s otherness, as expressed by the vicissitudes of the transference and countertransference between analyst and patient, otherness being experienced as a disturbance of self‐sufficient narcissistic functioning. The paper ends with an analysis of the transformations that took place in the analytic relationship.     

Current developments in the practice of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama in France

The authors present the history of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama and its current developments as practised in France. They put forward the technique, objectives and rules, along with the indications, limits and risks that ensue from the specific nature of this therapeutic approach. Through its technical adjustments, individual psychoanalytic psychodrama provides a therapeutic option that is appropriate to the defences prevalent in many patients that cause classical psychotherapies to fail: massive inhibition, operative functioning far removed from affects or in false self mode; phobias, disavowal or splitting of the internal psychic life and emotions; prevalence of short discharge circuits in acted-out behaviours and bodily or visceral complaints and expressions. Psychodrama utilizes these defences not in order to eliminate them but to 'subvert' them so that they can continue to carry out their protective role, in particular ensuring narcissistic continuity. At the same time, psychodrama relaxes these defences and facilitates a possible filtering through of the repressed material. Through the number of actors and the diffraction of transference that this allows, psychodrama provides a possibility of adjusting the potentially traumatic effect of the encounter with the object and the instigation of the transference in the regressive dimension induced by any psychotherapeutic process.     

The otherness of sexuality: excess

The present essay, the second of a series of three, aims at developing an experience-near account of sexuality by rehabilitating the idea of excess and its place in sexual experience. It is suggested that various types of excess, such as excess of excitation (Freud), the excess of the other (Laplanche), excess beyond symbolization and the excess of the forbidden object of desire (Leviticus; Lacan) work synergistically to constitute the compelling power of sexuality. In addition to these notions, further notions of excess touch on its transformative potential. Such notions address excess that shatters psychic structures and that is actively sought so as to enable new ones to evolve (Bersani). Work is quoted that regards excess as a way of dealing with our lonely, discontinuous being by using the "excessive" cosmic energy circulating through us to achieve continuity against death (Bataille). Two contemporary analytic thinkers are engaged who deal with the object-relational and intersubjective vicissitudes of excess.     

Psychoanalytic psychodrama in France and group elaboration of counter‐transference: Therapeutic operators in play therapy

In France, psychoanalytic psychodrama is mainly envisioned in its individual form – that is, a single patient working with a group of therapists. Its originality consists in bringing together several clinicians within a clinical experience that is shared as a group. This experience is fundamentally different from traditional individual therapies, psychotherapies or group co‐led therapies. Its configuration may be confusing or overwhelming due to the large number of co‐therapists involved in the setting. However, thanks to group elaboration based on the transferential‐countertransferential dynamics induced by the treated patient, this potential ‘cacophony’ can lead to fruitful psychic development embedded in play. This is tied to the co‐therapists' positioning in the transitional space shared with the patient as well as to the patient's subjective appropriation of their initiatives. By reflecting on clinical material taken from actual sessions as well as from the exchanges and elaborations occurring at their margins, this article shows how psychodrama and group come to metabolize the transferential elements, shaping the engagement of participants in the context of improvised play.     

ON BECOMING ABLE TO PLAY: INDIVIDUAL CHILD PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHODRAMA AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SYMBOLIZATION

In this paper, the authors analyze the relevance and transformative potential of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama in the treatment of children with severe impairments in symbolization. Central features of this modality, including promoting the representation of early traumatic experiences, are presented and discussed. Specific features include double‐envelope containment of the co‐therapists’ group and play leader, consequent diffraction of the transference‐determining portrayal, gradual integration, and initial figuration of coexisting split‐off fragments. Drawing on in‐depth clinical material, the authors show how psychodrama tempers the potentially traumatic effects of the encounter with the object, allowing these patients to access the transitional area of play.     

A comparison of psychoanalytic and psychodramatic theory from a psychodramatist's perspective

A comparison of Freud's and Moreno's theories with regard to their implications for psychodrama therapy. Basic differences in the theories are discussed with special regard to therapist role, transference and tele, insight and catharsis, the time concept, the body, and developmental psychology. Other topics treated are concepts of drive or energy, psychic structure and role theory, psychic determinism contra the doctrine of spontaneity-creativity and differences between an intrapsychic and an interpersonal approach. An outline of the relationship of psychodrama and its philosophy and practice to other schools of psychotherapy is given.     

Reflections on trauma,symbolization and psychic pain in a case of neurosis and a case of psychosis

This paper seeks to advance some considerations on trauma, historical reality, its symbolization and the psychic pain generated by the investigation of unconscious processes in psychoanalytic treatment. These themes will be explored by demonstrating the differences arising between traumatic experiences and their expression in phantasy, as they occurred in a case of neurosis and another of psychosis. In each case, the differences in the features of the symbolization and the processes of working through shall also be taken into consideration. Particular attention shall be paid to the specific difficulties encountered by the analyst in the interpretative treatment of the trauma resulting from the amount of psychic pain induced in the patient, which at times proves to be an insurmountable barrier and a destructive distortion of the process.     

?Symbolisierung�� als intersubjektive und intrapsychische Dynamik

Igor A. Caruso (1914?C1981), one of the founders of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) in 1962, began to discuss questions of the interplay of biological, social and evolutional realities and intrapsychic development in the early 1950s with the early Vienna Circle of Depth Psychology. Caruso understood that the specific human ability to transcend the overdetermined biological constitution into a development of consciousness, care and self-awareness is basic for the need and lifelong activity of intersubjective relationship. Sexual and survival drives as the biological basis contain their own transformation as cultural potency within the subject-object relationship. Each act of relationship to things and living objects creates a new reality which is a meaningful symbol for both parts of the relationship in their own individual reality. This new, third, reality gains full effectiveness for both actors as ??symbolic realism?? and initiates the ongoing development. In this understanding psychic development is a process of changing interactive creation and effectiveness, following biological drive dynamics as well as its inherent future transformations by attachment. Symbolization is therefore the main intrapsychic and intersubjective activity of development of object-awareness and self-awareness. Caruso emphasized the meaning of symbol and symbolization as an act of relationship to and within the world and consequently understood psychoanalytical theories as well as a changing symbolization of relationship.     

Between Symbol and Antisymbol - The Meaning of Trauma Reconsidered

Within psychoanalysis, it has usually been assumed that what makes an external event traumatic is the personal meaning of the event for that individual, i.e. how it resonates within his/her internal world and in relation to the infantile conflict. Such an assumption, which implies that a trauma operates as a symbol, is compared with the contrasting view that a trauma rather destroys the capacity of symbolization, and discussed in relation to the psyche-soma issue. It is finally maintained that psychic trauma forces upon the victim a vast and difficult transformation, in relation to which the body can be used as an antisymbolic device to resist mental change.     

From neurotic guilt to existential guilt as grief: the road to interiority, agency, and compassion through mourning. part I

This study proposes through a case illustration that psychoanalytic patients who can process both aggression and loss through a mourning process are able to free themselves from pathological self attack when the object relations work of attachment, psychic holding, and separation transpires. In the case of Helen discussed here, transformation through a “developmental mourning process” results in the evolution of powerful psychological capacities for interiority, self agency, and interpersonal compassion. This developmental mourning process is endowed with the assimilation and psychic fantasy symbolization of aggression.Susan Kavaler-Adler, Ph.D., ABPP, is Founder and Executive Director, Training Analyst, Faculty Member, and Supervisor at the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York.     

Considerations for a Psychology of Experience: Heinz Werner's Contribution

It is proposed that three themes in Heinz Werner's psychology provide directions for a contemporary psychology of experience. The first theme is the nature of developing mind. Werner's view of the mind as incorporating nonlogical modes of thought is contrasted with the hyper-rational views that dominate contemporary psychology. The second theme is Werner's model of the gradual differentiation and integration of spheres of experience. The model can be elaborated with minimal universalist assumptions, thus providing ways of conceptualizing cultural and individual differences as well as changes within a person's life. The third theme is the theory of symbolization that Werner developed in collaboration with Bernard Kaplan. Integrating the theory of symbolization with the spheres of experience model, it is seen how internal and external acts of symbolization enter into the formation and internal differentiation of spheres.     

Psychosomatic breast and alexithymic breast: A Bionian psychosomatic perspective

The author develops the concept of ‘psychosomatic breast’ in both clinical and theoretical terms, a concept developed by Bion (1962b) to account for a breast in charge of primary symbolization and of the psychosomatic integration of the infant's raw physiological, emotional and sensory experiences. As such, the psychosomatic breast is a prototype, a core in the mother endowed with the capacity for reverie insofar as the transformative function of the latter not only pertains to the primary symbolization of emotional life, but also to its secondary symbolization. The author contends that a primal failure in the transformation of such raw emotional and sensory experiences through the reverie of primary objects results in the incorporation of an ‘alexithymic breast’ – a kind of obstructive object that has become impervious to communication via projective identification and has been internalized as a source of psychic and physical breakdown. This early deficiency in parental reverie is experienced by the infant as a primitive disaster that establishes a point of fixation, a fault line in psychosomatic organization which the individual is likely to regress to, at a later stage, by developing physical illness. The author illustrates the dynamics and the economy of the conflict between psychosomatic and alexithymic breasts thanks to fragments from the analysis of a woman who developed cancer in the course of her psychoanalysis and was eventually cured.     

The Symbolic Object

Abstract

The term “symbolic object” is introduced as a way to understand the moments between analyst and patient where “something” new and dynamic emerges within the dyadic relationship. The symbolic object is the bridge between the idealized, all-good object and symbolization proper. The intrapsychic atmosphere between self and object representations is in a relatively non-conflicted state during this process. By reformulating the Nirvana principle and the principle of constancy as ways in which the organism economically strives for the most organized and homoeostatic state possible, the infant or adult can be seen to be searching for the position of lowest unpleasure possible. This is the optimum balance between the libidinal and aggressive forces in the self and object representational field. These moments of “truce” between often highly conflicted phantasies usher in a more refined use of projective identification as a form of intrapsychic/interpersonal communication. This is a particular atmosphere from which both parties, within the projective/introjective, back-and-forth dyadic world, can begin to co-create and rediscover assorted amalgams of self and object functioning. This newly awakened psychic entity is the symbolic object. This outgrowth of something fresh to the dyadic orbit is a mutative moment that propels the relationship into a different direction. Within the pairing of minds, a novel and mutual understanding is produced. Both parties share this new symbolic object and each is shaped by it.     

Mr. A's creative adventure: reflections on drives and psychic conflict

The author discusses psychic conflict in the context of Freudian drive theory and its relationship to primal fantasies and repression. Freud's metaphor of the "Mystic Writing Pad" is reviewed, with particular attention to psychotic perception, especially the lack of ability to differentiate between self and object. Psychoanalytic psychodrama is proposed as an effective treatment modality in such cases, and an illustrative clinical example is presented.     

A skin for the imaginal

This paper focuses on the development of internal space, the evolution of psychological boundaries and the capacity for symbolization as they first arise during infancy. The concept of the psychic skin as an early form of psychological boundary is presented. The development of the psychic skin, or psychological container, is necessary for imaginal processes to function for the purpose of psychological growth and development. Infant observation material utilizing the Tavistock model and analytical material from an adolescent analysis is presented to help elucidate the theoretical concepts.     

Hidden Mission of the Psyche in Abuse and Addiction

Traumatic experiences can become the central mental content in our psychic structure and can deeply mark all our later perceptions and experiences of our surroundings. We can claim something similar also for addictions of all kinds. In this article, we will demonstrate that recurring traumatic experiences and abuse as well as addiction represent a hidden mission of psyche for resolution and a great cry of longing for salvation.     

Permeability and Demarcation in the Psychoanalytic Process Functions of the Contact‐Barrier1

Introjection, identifi cation and projection are concepts that designate processes in which something is being put into or taken out of something else. These processes presuppose the overcoming of some form of separation between two entities. The permeability or impermeability of a fi ctive boundary between the representations of subject and object set the emotional tone of their coexistence. There are moments of complete diffusion, in which subject and object can no longer be differentiated, and moments of autistic enclosure in which the individual can no longer be reached at all. Permeability and demarcation result from the processing of stimuli carried out by the ‘contact‐barrier’, as an ego function. Stimuli of internal, libidinal or aggressive origin, as well as ‘im‐pressions’ of external origin, are classifi ed and processed with the aid of various kinds of factors arising from coagulated object‐relational experiences. Whereas for Freud the contact‐barrier regulates the quantity of energy and founds a topographical structure, Bion understands the contact‐barrier as a psychic function that simultaneously regulates boundary demarcation and making contact. In the psychoanalytic process, the contact‐barrier created by patient and analyst regulates the events in the transference and countertransference. An awareness of the struggle for contact and demarcation at the dynamic boundary representations that are constantly being recreated by both partners in the analytic process may be helpful in our clinical work. The author presents an examination of the ways in which patient and analyst make contact and demarcate the boundaries, which provides a better understanding of the dynamics of transference processes. He demonstrates this in relation to clinical material.     

The development of identification in Freudian theory

Once identification achieved its status as a specific psychoanalytic concept it followed a process of reconceptualization that emerged from the different clinical and theoretical contexts in which Freud approached and explained the phenomenon. In tracing the unfolding of the theory of identification throughout Freud's works, we have accounted for the following steps: First, in his correspondence with Fliess, Freud announced topics that would subsequently be theoretically processed. Second, in the first topography, identification was explored in the contexts of hysteria and dreams, and elaborated through reference to two psychic scenes with their respective modes of psychic functioning. Third, in the period of transition to the second topography identification was defined as a substitute for an object relationship and as a preliminary stage of object choice. Interlocked with the concept of narcissism, it produced a reconceptualization of the ego that led to the second topography. Finally, the tripartite model proposed in the second topography manifests the consolidation of the structuring function of identification, since the psychic structure is therein conceived of as resulting from the vicissitudes of object relationships.     

Towards a theory of the integration of the Other in representation

In this article, the author tries to uncover the elements of a theoretical model which would take into account the psychic transformations necessary to facilitate the emergence of representation. Toward this end, he firstly relies on Jung's notion of the archetype and Freud's idea of hallucinatory wish fulfilment, which he reconsiders in the light of the writings of Fordham (de-integration and re-integration of the primary self), and of Jean Laplanche (primary seduction), and linking it to the model based on chaos theory as developed in physics. He thus concludes that under the influence of primary seduction, the archetype is able to become a veritable, strange psychic attractor, enabling the determining factor of the instinctual axis of the archetype to open up to the possibility of symbolization, a necessary underlying feature for the occurrence of subjectivity. He ends his argument with a brief clinical vignette which illustrates the effect of openness to the psychic unknown constituted by primary seduction in the transference.     

20 Years is not long enough1

The author presents some Latin American sociopolitical vicissitudes exemplifi ed by Argentina, where she lives and where she trained and practices as a psychoanalyst. The exposition is based on the impact that her experience with two patients, Ana and Juana, had on her, and is presented in the form of clinical vignettes. The author refl ects clinically and technically on the transference and countertransference and on the ways in which self–analysis enabled her to distinguish between the countertransference related to the patient and that related to the psychoanalyst. Finally, the author discusses the traumatic effects of ‘the human condition’, ‘social violence’ and ‘Evil’, referring specifi cally to the ‘repetitive trauma’ individuals experience under the globalization of terror and to the use of mechanisms of disavowal that result in serious splitting. The author confronts the reader with totalitarian terror as something that attacks and destroys the main constitutive characteristic of human beings, namely, their ability to think, remarking that H. Arendt is the one who speaks about ‘radical evil’ as ‘the banality of Evil’. The author addresses the question of whether by tempering aggression and organizing levels of symbolization ‘words’ might prevent the emergence of ‘pure jouissance’ and be more powerful and signifi cant than violence, overriding it.