Nina Farhi: Leaning on an Annealed Identification: Commentary on Paper by Nina Farhi

In my response to Nina Farhi's paper, I begin my discussion with the concept of a placental space that Farhi develops to represent the psychotic's internal experience of living in a fusion with the Other. Farhi's new concept of an annealed identification provides a useful addition to the psychoanalytic literature to describe the living conditions of a psychotic who is severely entrenched in an unyielding maternal bond. Basing her conceptualizations on Milner's psychotic patient Susan, Farhi also focuses on Milner's discovery that no repressed unconscious existed for her patient Susan. I suggest in my response that Freud's nearly forgotten idea of primal repression and Lacan's idea of maternal jouissance would shed additional light onto the psychotic experience and expand Farhi's notion of an annealed identification with the maternal figure. In addition, I argue for an inclusion of the Third whose presence is so powerfully lacking in the case discussion and in the patient's life.     

‘Beyond the oedipal complex’: Freud and lacan revisited

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore the position that the mother occupies in both Freud's and Lacan's accounts of oedipalization. Both authors' work will be addressed with reference to contemporary feminist critiques of their accounts. The aim will be to query the belief that the mother must be repudiated in order for the child to move into culture. It will be suggested that both Lacan's and Freud's accounts may ironically perpetuate both the ‘interminable’ nature of analysis and a relationship with the maternal in which the mother will continue to haunt, beckon and terrify until some attempt is made at reparation.     

ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETIES

This article discusses some basic problems of the theory of science connected with understanding the psychoanalytic process. The epistemology of psychoanalysis is seen in relation to the specific status of time, space and causality. It is argued that in psychic life, time and space cannot be a priori categories in the Kantian sense because they are constituted in psychic development and in the dynamics of the psyche and can be abolished in psychopathological conditions as well as in the unconscious. Psychic causality is discussed in relation to Freud's concepts of Nachträglichkeit and overdetermination and remarks are made on the necessity to consider the complex nature of psychic causality when doing research.     

Christer Sjödin interviews Jan Stensson

Abstract

The author examines different definitions and applications of the terms “psychic energy” and “libido.” With regard to the “psychic energy” terminology, he shows that its application and usage relate in particular to the perspective of Brenner and not to Freud's definition. He argues that Freud uses the term “psychic energy” as a synonym for “libido,” and not “libido” as a synonym for “psychic energy.” It is demonstrated that in Freud's view, up until 1914, “libido” relates to manifestations of bodily sexual tensions, and subsequently this term applies to the manifestations of sexual energy in the psychic field. The author rejects this change in terminology and also challenges Freud's attempt to use dynamic-economic considerations as an explanatory device for epistemological reasons. Freud's concept of energy is inconsistent with the meaning of energy as defined in the physical sciences, and whereas the metapsychological topographical, dynamic, and structural viewpoints have a solid foundation in the representational world to which the psychoanalytic process affords unique access, this is not true of the economic viewpoint. It is claimed that bodily tensions only exist in the representational world in the form of affects, so that, in the author's opinion, the economic viewpoint should be abandoned in favour of an affective one. In the context of the endeavour to obtain pleasure and avoid unpleasure adduced by Freud, this viewpoint focuses on the relationships between affects and the different elements of the representational world, thereby serving as the subject of metapsychological investigation.     

THE TRAINING ANALYSIS AT A TIME WHEN THEORY IS IN SHORT SUPPLY1

The author discusses the risks confronting the training analysis when original theoretical production is lacking. In his view, little progress has been made since Freud's time in establishing a general science of the psyche based on Freud's interpretive method. What has been transmitted is stated to be not Freud's method of discovery but the knowledge thereby produced, which has been handed down in the form of doctrines, defined as theory presented as psychic fact. Hence analyses tend to apply theories rather than to discover unconsciouses. Some of today's most common interpretational aberrations are described, and the author shows the powerful suggestive effect on patients of using doctrines as metaphors of psychic life. Where such a training analysis is reinforced by a like form of theoretical teaching and supervision, candidates may uncritically assimilate the relevant theory. The author uses his concept of the reality‐providing circuit to show how belief in a doctrine imparted by the training analysis makes that doctrine appear as the ideological basis of psychoanalytic knowledge. He finally notes that, theories being essentially heuristic instruments and not bodies of acquired information, the consequence of the current dearth of theories, which have degenerated into doctrines, is that the training analysis itself has come to constitute the theory of training in many institutes.     

The object beyond objects and the sacred

In both Freud's and Winnicott's thoughts regarding our psychological origin, there is the assumption of a given relationship which precedes all human relations. I refer to Freud's primal father and Winnicott's primary ideal object. I have chosen to call the object of this primordial relation “the object beyond objects” and to reflect on this as the psychological basis for an individual's faith in God. By examining what both these authors have to say concerning the sacred and the individual's way of relating to it, I feel that I am also able to describe maturation processes in the believer's relationship with God.     

Structural Determinist Aspects of Depression in Freud's “Mourning and Melancholia”

This article examines Freud's theory of depression based on his paper “Mourning and Melancholia” from the structural determinist paradigm. The reality of depression lies in the underlying structure of the mind in which Freud's libidinal drives and topographical structure of mind bring forth conflicts in relation to an object. Freud delves into the fundamental causes of depression and points out that loss of object, regression of libido into the ego, and ambivalence cause hidden conflicts, which manifest themselves as depressive symptoms and feelings. William Styron's Darkness Visible is used to illustrate its relevance to the structural determinist aspects of Freud's psychoanalytic theory of depression.     

The Oedipus complex: A confrontation at the central cross‐roads of psychoanalysis

The theory of the Oedipus complex as Freud formulated it rests on the following pillars: the child's characteristic sexual and aggressive impulses concerning the parents, phallic monism, and the castration complex. This paper reviews the context in which Freud discovered the Oedipus complex, as well as Freud's theory. It then examines the proposals of later authors whose general Oedipal theories differ from Freud's in an attempt to point out both their possible correlations and confrontations with Freud. It includes Klein's pre‐genital Oedipal theory, Lacan's structuralist reinterpretation, Bion's reconception of the complex under the knowledge vertex, Green's generalized triangulation theory, Meltzer's notions of the aesthetic object and sexual mental states, and Chasseguet‐Smirgel's archaic Oedipal matrix     

A review of Lacan's seminar on anxiety1

The seminar on anxiety marks a turning point in the development of Lacan's thought from several perspectives. First, Lacan implicitly abandons his theory that the unconscious is structured like a language. He also abandons the endeavour to identify Freud's theory with his own. He develops some original new ideas about anxiety, some of which are of great interest, such as the connection between castration anxiety and narcissism; others, such as his denial of the existence of separation anxiety, are absurd. Lacan's main point of divergence from Freud, his rejection of the inner world, also emerges clearly in this seminar.     

A Meaningful Intercourse: Some Thoughts about Thinking

This article traces the development of ideas about consciousness, symbolisation, thinking and affects in the works of Freud, Bion, Meltzer and Stern. Consciousness is viewed as a special quality of psychic functions and therefore related to the complexity of the world of experience, to its different dimensions as Meltzer describes them. Freud's initial idea about direct and reproductive thinking and a compulsion to associate returns in Bions development of an epistemological instinct and are referred to by Stern as an ongoing, omnipresent milieu of thoughts in which instinctual life takes place. Bion develops Freud's thinking of unpleasure, primary and secondary processes, when he formulates the difference between pain and suffering, which also makes it possible for him to develop Freud's views on symbol formation. Bion's grid describes the relation between different forms of symbols and makes it possible to understand the importance of the reverie of the mother and how a feeling of meaning unfolds, when symbol formation takes place in a process in which the individual is in contact with the underlying structure. These ideas are in its turn developed in another direction by Stern in his theories of a pre-narrative envelope. Freud's ideas about perceptual identity and thought identity as a criteria for the release of motor activity are looked upon as a criteria for truth, which returns in Bion's ideas about the relation between truth and the development of the capacity to think. Meltzer takes up this thread when he claims that truth is beauty and beauty truth.     

Tradition and Infantile Fantasy in the Shape of Modern Antisemitism

The narrative form is chosen to tell the story of a six-year analysis of a man in his thirties (K), who was given various diagnoses, including schizophrenia, during his many stays in psychiatric hospitals. K grew up in deprivation with a psychotic mother. The writer tries to capture the essence in a psychoanalytic process that takes its starting point in the loss of transparence in the basic psychic tissue and describes this tissue's partial renewal. In addition, the writer would like to convey a basic element in an individual's struggle to become a person. Or how the soul may be saved.     

Hallucinations in the psychotic state: Psychoanalysis and the neurosciences compared

In this contribution, which takes account of important findings in neuroscientific as well as psychoanalytic research, the authors explore the meaning of the deep‐going distortions of psychic functioning occurring in hallucinatory phenomena. Neuroscientific studies have established that hallucinations distort the sense of reality owing to a complex alteration in the balance between top‐down and bottom‐up brain circuits. The present authors postulate that hallucinatory phenomena represent the outcome of a psychotic's distorted use of the mind over an extended period of time. In the hallucinatory state the psychotic part of the personality uses the mind to generate auto‐induced sensations and to achieve a particular sort of regressive pleasure. In these cases, therefore, the mind is not used as an organ of knowledge or as an instrument for fostering relationships with others. The hallucinating psychotic decathects psychic (relational) reality and withdraws into a personal, bodily, and sensory space of his own. The opposing realities are not only external and internal but also psychic and sensory. Visual hallucinations could thus be said to originate from seeing with the ‘eyes’ of the mind, and auditory hallucinations from hearing with the mind's ‘ears’. In these conditions, mental functioning is restricted, cutting out the more mature functions, which are thus no longer able to assign real meaning to the surrounding world and to the subject's psychic experience. The findings of the neurosciences facilitate understanding of how, in the psychotic hallucinatory process, the mind can modify the working of a somatic organ such as the brain.     

Libido und psychische Energie

The authors investigate different definitions of “psychic energy” and “libido” as well as their critique. With regard to “psychic energy” it is shown that the critique relates in particular to the perspective of Brenner and others and not to Freud's definition. They argue that Freud uses the term “psychic energy” as a synonym for “libido” and not “libido” as a synonym for “psychic energy”. It is assumed that until 1914, Freud related “libido” to manifestations of bodily sexual tensions and afterwards to manifestations of sexual energy in the psychic field. The authors reject this change for epistemological reasons as well as Freud's attempt to use dynamic, economic considerations as an explanatory device. Freud's energy concept is inconsistent with the definition of energy in natural sciences, and, whereas the meta-psychological topographical, dynamic and structural viewpoints have a solid foundation in the representational world to which the psychoanalytic process affords unique access, this is not true of the economic viewpoint. It is claimed that bodily tensions exist in the representational world only in the form of affects, so that the economic viewpoint should, in the authors' opinion, be abandoned in favour of an affective one. In the context of the endeavour to obtain pleasure and avoid unpleasure as adduced by Freud, this viewpoint concentrates on the relationships between affects and the different elements of the representational world, thereby serving as the topoi of meta-psychological investigation dimensions.     

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.     

OM PROJEKTIV IDENTIFIKATION; FEM PSYKOANALYTIKER TILLÄMPAR BEGREPPET UTIFRÅN OLIKA PERSPEKTIV

Understanding another person's mind is based on a shared frame of reference that derives from primary identification. In a psychotic disorder, this metaphorical configuration becomes damaged, leaving the ego in a state of extreme helplessness. To safeguard at least a minimum of psychic survival in this situation, the helpless ego resorts to a delusion that will form a surrogate frame of reference, which is no longer linked to primary identification, but to autoerotic excitations and self-induced affect states. The treatment of a psychotic patient should aim at the recovery of the original frame of reference based on primary identification and represented by the analyst in the analytic setting. The shared understanding of the patient's extreme helplessness paves the way for the unfolding of object directional needs and wishes in the therapeutic relationship and for their gradual internalisation into a more solid psychic structure.     

GRADIVA: FREUD,FETISHISM, AND POMPEIAN FANTASY

This paper is a critical reconsideration of Freud's analysis (1907) of Wilhelm Jensen's novella Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantasy (1903). Freud's interest was aroused by the parallels between Jensen's presentation of dreams and Freud's model of dream formation just published in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud also acclaims Jensen's presentation of the formation and “cure” of his protagonist's delusion about a marble bas‐relief of a woman walking. This paper argues for the centrality of the phenomenon of fetishism, briefly considered but excluded from Freud's analysis. The fantasy of Gradiva as “the necessary conditions for loving” (Freud 1910, pp. 165–166) is also a key thesis of the essay, which makes use of the newly translated Freud–Jensen correspondence contained in this article's Appendix.     

Psychological Time in Later Life: Implications for Counseling

Psychological time consists of cognitive constructs, images, and symbolic representations. It has different dimensions such as the experience of time, time perspective, attitudes and beliefs toward time, and the individual's behavior relating to time. Psychological time undergoes changes throughout the life span and is an integral part of the psychological developmental processes. In later life, it may be particularly dissonant with environmental rhythms and require re‐integration of the individual's past, present, and future. This article suggests several guidelines for counseling practice that address the many facets of psychological time in later life and their implications for the mental health and well‐being of older people.     

Precipitation anxiety

Therapy with autistic and psychotic children led the author to introduce the concept of precipitation anxiety. Freud's first theory of the instincts was expressed in the dynamics of conflict, but his subsequent development of life and death instincts is better understood in terms of a gradient of energy between two extremities of the same axis. Object relations result from a caesura (Bion) which creates a gradient of psychic energy experienced initially as a precipice which, if left unregulated, generates intolerable anxiety. Satisfactory emotional encounters with the mind of the object bring about the necessary adjustments to the slope of the gradient. Autistic mechanisms may block off precipitation anxiety, but they also prevent mental growth. Both the dynamics of conflict and the dynamics of the gradient are vital for psychic development, but the very existence of the former is contingent on successful negotiation of the energy gradient (working through). After illustrating his thesis with clinical material drawn from a group therapeutic setting, the author discusses points of convergence and divergence with two other fundamental notions: the aesthetic conflict (Meltzer) and premature psychic birth (Tustin). The proposed model furthers our understanding of the therapeutic process and stresses the importance of the containing object in the transference situation.     

From Melancholia to Meaning How to Live the Past in the Present

Freud's theory of melancholia has lately experienced a renaissance among those interested in the creative potentialities of the psyche. In this essay, I consider the ways in which melancholia can contribute to the actualization of these potentialities by preparing the ground in which inspiration can later take root. I also outline the circumstances in which the melancholy subject's refusal to abandon its lost objects represents an entirely valid response to loss. At the same time, I propose that if the subject is to develop an affirmative and imaginatively supple relationship to its psychic history, it must in the end move from melancholia to meaning production. Insofar as melancholia signals the psyche's inability or stubborn unwillingness to move forward, its powers by necessity remain dormant until the subject is able to exchange its sadness for the versatile meaning-making capacities of the signifier. I moreover argue that it is only when the subject is able to transcend its melancholia enough to begin to desire new objects that it can develop loving and responsible relationships with others—that it can begin to welcome others in their own terms rather than reducing them to its own narcissistic image.