The Influence of Joseph Sandler's Work on Contemporary Psychoanalysis

This overview stresses Joseph Sandler's integration of classical ego psychology with contemporary object relations theory. As part of this integration, Sandler clarified the origins and internal structure of the superego as a consequence and development of the representational world. The representational world, in turn, derives from the internalization of significant self- and object representations in the context of affect activation as fundamental motivational factors. Sandler described the transformation of internalized object relations into an unconscious template, expressed in repetitive behavior patterns, and the reactivation of its constituent object relations in the transference. In differentiating the present and past unconscious in the transference, Sandler described the role responsiveness of the analyst in the psychoanalytic situation as a specific countertransference reaction that facilitates the analysis of the object relationships activated in the transference. Sandler also explored the relationship between affects and drives and the neuropsychological capacities represented by affective and cognitive developments that jointly determine the structural characteristics of the mental apparatus.     

Dancing With the Unconscious: The Art of Psychoanalysis

This article examines psychoanalytic work as an art and uses the metaphor of dance between two unconscious minds to describe the rich creativity of mental life. Free association, transference/countertransference, and dreamwork are each discussed for their creative dimensions and their coupling in the cure. A compelling session with dream analysis of a transsexual patient is presented verbatim (along with the author's inner thoughts) to illustrate the art of dance that takes place between analyst and analysand.     

Emotional Memory,Metaphor, and Meaning

Advances in neuroscience make it possible to view the construction of meaning as a biological property. Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology in which emotion and memory form a seamless unified system is seen as an attempt to establish psychoanalysis as a neurobiology of meaning. In the unconscious construction of meaning, metaphor plays a salient role; metaphor is the currency of mind. I have suggested that metaphor functions unconsciously as a pattern detector and thus plays a dominant role in the organizing and categorizing of emotional memory. Consideration of the evolution of the limbic system enables us to make a functional distinction between unconscious emotional memory and conscious feelings. These observations should lead to a revision of our current psychoanalytic theory of affects.     

Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience in Dialogue: Commentary on Paper by Arnold H. Modell

Arnold H. Modell has been engaged in an ongoing effort to advance psychoanalysis as well as to integrate psychoanalytic theory and relevant domains of science, particularly neuroscience, with psychoanalytic practice. He has been articulating a biology and construction of meaning and the role of metaphor as he attempts to understand the relationship between mind and brain. Modell strives to understanding how “matter becomes imagination,” as well as the relationship between the first-person psychological unconscious and the third-person neurophysiological unconscious. The latter, according to Modell, is interpreted by a personal “autobiographical self” and given meaning. This discussion of Modell's theories will include historical and contemporary attempts to understand how “matter becomes imagination.” Although there is a growing neuroscience research base for articulating the reverse, i. e., “how imagination becomes matter,” the present author will focus on the project Modell h as placed before himself and his audience. The role of consciousness in the brain-mind interface, mirror neuron systems and intersubjectivity will be discussed. Clinically, the role of trauma's effects on memory and metaphor as well as the defensive functions of non-relatedness and counter-dependency will be examined within the wider context of the very rich and subjectively meaningful journey of matter becoming imagination.     

Fire at the theatre: (Un)reality of/in the transference and interpretation1

Only in Bion's extended idea of ‘waking dream thought’ is the oneiric paradigm of the cure (already an obvious Freudian principle) completely applicable. The author's basic hypothesis is that, by adopting this paradigm thoroughly, one can combine the radical antirealism which is expressed in the postulate by which all the patient's communications are transference‐connected (here meaning ‘false connection’‐i.e. as projection/displacement of elements of the patient's inner psychic world) with the ‘reality’ of the transference, that is to say with the conviction that the facts of the analysis are co‐determined by the patient‐analyst dyad and actually rooted in how they interact. The Freudian metaphor of the fi re at the theatre is reintroduced here to suggest the crisis of the therapist's internal setting and capacity for reverie, which occurs when the irreducible ambiguity of the transference is resolved defensively, either in the patient's external reality or in his unconscious fantasy constellation. The author gives three clinical examples. The fi rst shows some of the not necessarily negative effects of this temporary crisis. The other two vignettes show a way of listening to the traumatic events of the patient's life from a perspective (that of the ‘analytic fi eld’) which is thought to be potentially the most transformative and vital to the analytical relationship.     

Unconscious fantasy (or phantasy) as clinical concept

A clinical phenomenology of the concept ‘unconscious fantasy’ attempts to describe it from a ‘bottom‐up’ perspective, that is, from the immediate experience of the analyst working in session. Articles of psychoanalytic authors from different persuasions are reviewed, which taken as a whole would shed some light on how the concept of unconscious fantasy takes shape in the analyst's mind during the session with the patient. A clinical phenomenology in three steps is described. Each step is illustrated by clinical material. Current controversies around the concept of unconscious fantasy (or phantasy) are still trapped in the discussion about if and how they are really unconscious. The strategy to describe from a ‘bottom‐up’ perspective the process of how the analyst's mind embraces the idea that an emerging phenomenon in the relationship with the patient can be defined as ‘unconscious fantasy’, allows us to elude the question as to whether or not we believe that unconscious fantasies exist at all, since we are neither required to assert or deny such a prior existence in order to describe the process of elaboration which, in the end, does formulate a fantasy as fantasy.     

Finding unconscious phantasy in the session: Recognizing form

The concept of unconscious phantasy has played – and still does play – a central role in psychoanalytic thinking. The author discusses the various forms by which unconscious phantasies manifest themselves in the analytic session as they are lived out and enacted in the transference relationship. This paper also aims at expanding the kleinian theory of symbol formation by exploring the impact that emotional aspects connected to early “raw’, “pre‐symbolic’ phantasies have in the analysis and how their corporeal elements interlock with the signifying process. The author follows the expressive forms of primitive unconscious phantasies as they appear in a psychoanalytic session and proposes that the emotional effect that can be experienced in the communication between patient and analyst depends in great measure on “semiotic’ aspects linked to primitive phantasies that are felt and lived out in embodied ways. Rather than a move from unconscious phantasies that typify symbolic equations to those showing proper symbolization, these can coexist and simultaneously find their way to what is communicated to the analyst. As early phantasies bear an intimate connection to the body and to unprocessed emotions when they are projected into the analyst they can produce a powerful resonance, sometimes also experienced in a physical way and forming an integral part of the analyst's counter‐transference.     

A Contemporary View of Some of Joseph Sandler's Key Concepts

Three of Sandler's seminal papers—“The Background of Safety” (1960a), “The Concept of the Representational World” (1962), and “Countertransference and Role Responsiveness” (1976)—are scrutinized and discussed to explore the evolution of his thinking over some 40 years. His early insistence on the importance of feeling states and intrapsychic mechanisms and processes, especially those relating to internal objects and internal object relationships, are emphasized as well as the interactions and complementary relationship between theoretical formulations and clinical findings, as exemplified in his research activities in the Index Department of the Anna Freud Centre in London and in his paper on countertransference and role responsiveness. Interrelationships with other concepts, both clinical and theoretical, show up in Sandler's work as well as that of other eminent authors up to the present time, and similarities in conceptualizations are highlighted. Sandler's continuous efforts to clarify psychoanalytic concepts and to integrate differing psychoanalytic conceptualizations and models are illustrated by references to and quotations from the salient papers.     

Who is who in dissociation?: A plea for psychodynamics in a time of trauma1

Contemporary theories of dissociation and trauma for the most part have evolved outside of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic writings have also been regarded as being in opposition to trauma‐based notions of human psychopathology. The specific psychoanalytic contribution—the emphasis on unconscious conflict and meaning—is for the most part excluded from the discourse on dissociation, often resulting in a mechanic conceptualisation of trauma. In this paper, based on clinical material, the author argues in favour of including conflict, unconscious intention and personal meaning in understanding the kind of dissociation we see in cases of multiple personality pathology. Textual analysis of letters written to the analyst illustrates how events of abuse are defensively elaborated. The author demonstrates that patterns of affect regulation and dominant object–relational strategies can be captured through analysis of the discourse structure. She focuses on how an organised character pattern, revealed mainly through narrative style and the analyst's countertransference, serves protective purposes as well as wishfulfillment. She argues that dissociation in the form of multiple personalities may imply an active, strategic agent.     

The Unconsciously Constructed Virtual Other

Neuroscience has confirmed Freud's assertion of the primacy of unconscious process in relation to conscious experience. However, unconscious process, for many neuroscientists, is viewed as something that is devoid of meaning. This paper suggests that there are different levels of unconscious process. This conceptualization of unconscious process may help to reconcile the psychoanalytic assumption of a meaningful unconscious with the conception that unconscious process is a meaningless code, a belief held by most neuroscientists. To effect this reconciliation we must return to Freud's earlier theory of unconscious process as described in his Interpretation of Dreams. A dream-like unconscious process, employing metaphor, unconsciously organizes our affective experiences while we are awake.     

Erotized transference reconsidered: expanding the countertransference dimension

A reconsideration of the erotized transference from a contemporary perspective has been presented utilizing detailed case material provided by Stoller. The main thesis is that this type of transference, traditionally conceived as a product of a particular kind of patient often felt to be borderline, is better understood as arising in a specific intersubjective context involving both participants in the psychoanalytic situation. The focus is on the intricate interaction of analyst and patient, recognizing that either may serve as a selfobject for the other. This view assumes a more expanded countertransference role than recognized in the earlier literature. The psychoanalytic situation can be erotized by either or both participants. A corollary thesis is that the details of a patient's fantasy should also be viewed as codetermined and that imbedded within it might be the patient's subjective experience of the psychoanalytic interaction. Alluded to peripherally is that the erotized transference in the interaction between male analyst and female patient is, in part, a manifestation of traditional roles assumed in situations involving a male authority figure in close engagement with a female who perceives herself as relatively powerless. This issue has recently received considerable attention from writers who have addressed themselves to the important gender issues in psychoanalysis.     

Incognito or not? the patient's subjective experience of the analyst's private life

This paper examines the meaning for the patient of the analyst's personal life and personality which are ostensibly banished from the consulting room. The therapist has a not‐always‐so‐secret “secret life”; that the patient is supposed to “not know”; about. Yet, more or less unconscious perceptions, impressions, and fantasies about extratherapeutic aspects of the analyst are omnipresent and significantly color the psychoanalytic enterprise.

Moreover the analyst as a person generally plays a critical and underacknowledged role in the patient's experience of the endeavor. Constructing multiple overlapping images of the analyst and of the analytic relationship, the patient discovers himself or herself in the matrix of these relationships with various images of the analytic other. The analysand is motivated to make sense of the analyst as wholly as possible, the better to place into context the analyst's interventions. The patient's resulting view of the analyst's subjective experience acts as a lens that filters and subtly alters the meaning of the analyst's communications.

I illustrate these points by relating my work with a patient whose dreams uncannily picked up on a (consciously) unknown aspect of my private life—my having a handicapped son. The treatment thereafter centered on the patient's identification with my child (as someone “disabled") and on the meaning of her having dreamt something so personal about her therapist.     

WARMED BY THE FIRES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS OR BURNED TO A CRISP

In this paper I talk about the relationship or link between unconscious and conscious material. When the link is optimal we are warmed by the fires of the unconscious so that what we say and do has meaning—it is alive. When the link between conscious and unconscious is too close we are in danger of being burned to a crisp. The present is the past and the world of consensual reality pales in comparison to the emotionally charged unconscious fantasy pressing for discharge. An extended case vignette is used to illustrate the links between past and present as they unfold in a patient’s life and between analyst and patient.     

Narrative Writing and Soulful Metaphors Commentary on Paper by Barbara Pizer

The author posits that Pizer's use of both narrative and lyrical style is not typical in psychoanalysis, whose scholarly tradition tends to favor a denser, more academic style of writing. The ways in which psychoanalysts read these two forms of writing are mirrors of one another. Both kinds of reading are forms of discipline; both forms of writing are necessary in psychoanalysis. The author also writes that Pizer's “nonanalytic third” does not have to be a “good” thing like a poem; it can be almost anything important to the analyst. The nonanalytic third is a soulful metaphor that can be used to create alternatives to rigid experience. Because rigidity in psychoanalytic relatedness is usually the result of problematic unconscious involvements between analyst and patient, the nonanalytic third can be significant in the negotiation of enactments.     

A Picture Book of Internal Events: The Colours of Rage and Love

The views on countertransference in psychoanalytic theory and practice have undergone a change within the last fifty years. From being considered an impediment to analysis, countertransference is today looked upon as an important potential for a tentative understanding of what is unconsciously communicated from the analysand to the analyst. This implies that the analyst is susceptible to the unconscious interaction in the transference and the countertransference, and that he/she becomes conscious as quickly as possible of what is taking place. This applies especially to erotic feelings which are often intensified in analyses with patients with a serious psychopathology, as well as in analyses with patients in regressive phases where projective identification is the dominant factor used as a defence and a communication. Opinions differ as regards the question of how to deal with such a situation, especially whether it is right to be candid about the analyst's countertransference feelings towards the analysand, something most would caution against. In an example from an analysis, the analyst describes how he was influenced by an unconscious erotic countertransference. After three years of therapy with a patient with a serious psychopathology, he developed ?motherly” feelings, which he interpreted as reflecting a child's longing for closeness and physical contact. The result was that a few times, he ?forgot” to indicate the end of the session, which was then prolonged, and also that he embraced her on several occasions before she left the session. One year later, he had intense sexual fantasies and dreams about the analysand, which he experienced as both enticing and alarming, and as an impediment to the analysis. He soon became aware of the element of projective identification in the interaction, and by interpreting the analysand's unconscious communication, he regained his ability to maintain an analytic attitude and clear boundaries.     

MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE: LEVELS OF TRANSFERENCE INTERPRETATION3

The author argues that there are distinctly different kinds of transference interpretation, each of which might be valid in particular circumstances in analysis, but which contain and imply different understandings of what is meant by a ‘transference interpretation’. She suggests that transference interpretations may be at any one of four different levels, and she describes these levels as ranging from interpretations that point to links between current events in the analysis and events from the patient's history, through interpretations that link events in the patient's external life to the patient's often unconscious phantasies about the analyst and the analysis, to interpretations that focus on the use of the analyst and the analytic situation to enact unconscious phantasy configurations, sometimes pulling the analyst into the enactment. Material from four consecutive sessions of an analysis is presented to illustrate how all levels of transference interpretation may be part of a lively and meaningful analysis, but how the level of interpretation may change as the level of understanding deepens within a session and from one session to the next.     

Synchronicity as A Basis of Analytic Attitude

My aim is to describe Jung's approach to the experience of the chaotic, which could equally be termed the irrational, the non-ego, the unordered or prima materia , and to extract from this a clinical approach to the analytic patient which, in Jung's own writings, is often more implicit than explicit. My interest in this enquiry arises from the clinical experience of the unconscious in the form of transference/ countertransference, involving relentless pressure on both analyst and analysand to attempt to impute meaning and order. I examine Jung's work 'Synchronicity: an acausal connecting principle' and extrapolate from it what I think to be its unique contribution to hermeneutics - the ontologically-based concept of a psychoid understanding of meaning and pattern. In the second part of the paper, I discuss the application to analytic work of Jung's hermeneutic approach. I look at how analysts relate to meaning in terms of their relationship to theory. I illustrate this by comparing two short psychoanalytic papers on aggression, an instinct which is often seen as engendering splitting and which tends therefore to promote the dissociations which Jung was trying to address in 'Synchronicity'. I then illustrate with clinical material how Jungian analysts might relate to meaning in their approach to the patient. Together, these form the basis of what is commonly called 'analytic attitude', which I see as the basis for a distinctively Jungian identity for analytic practice.