An interruption in unconscious communication in the analytic couple

The authors describe an interruption in communication in the analyses of two patients, which gradually brings the analytic process to a halt/standstill. They propose several hypotheses for understanding this situation. One explanation is mutual identification of primitive superegos in the analytic couple which generates a moralizing effect thereby hindering investigation and discovery. They emphasize the importance of countertransference involvement which partly provokes this particular type of impasse. They also suggest the idea of shared acting out, with complementary participations of analyst and patient. In this way the analytic couple supports a 'bastion' which protects against the risk of breaking the omnipotence of patient and analyst or contributes to this omnipotence. Their shared unconscious phantasy feeds collusion linked to unconscious persecutory guilt. The authors also describe movements to break free from this impasse. The enclave created by the analytic couple is detected and subsequently worked through by way of the patient's contribution of dream material and the analyst's work with her countertransference.     

On the development of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of imagination and its use for interdisciplinary research

In this paper I trace Husserl’s transformation of his notion of phantasy from its strong leanings towards empiricism into a transcendental phenomenology of imagination. Rejecting the view that this account is only more incompatible with contemporary neuroscientific research, I instead claim that the transcendental suspension of naturalistic (or scientific) pretensions precisely enables cooperation between the two distinct realms of phenomenology and science. In particular, a transcendental account of phantasy can disclose the specific accomplishments of imagination without prematurely deciding upon a particular scientific paradigm for its experimental investigation; a decision that is best left to the sciences themselves.You will find a more extensive version of the first sections of this paper in Rudolf Bernet, Donn Welton, Gina Zavota (eds), in press. Husserl: Critical Assessments (5 vol.). London: Routledge.     

患者异常心理致阴茎尿道异物伤诊治体会

分析各种类型阴茎尿道异物伤的治疗原则及治疗方法,并结合病例就非正常酊慰相关心理因素问题进行探讨。回顾性分析11例不同类型阴茎尿道异物伤患者临床资料,其中阴茎异物嵌顿伤7例,尿道异物伤3例,阴茎内异物植入1例。11例均成功取出异物,随访无明显异常。不同类型阴茎尿道异物伤通过选择适当的治疗方法,大多可获得满意的结果。此类阴茎尿道异物伤属非正常自慰行为,患者大多伴有心理障碍,术后需要进行必要的心理疏导。     

The impossible reparation

This article discusses the phantasy of returning to the past and symbiotically merging with the mother, which, in an autistic patient, constituted an attempt of impossible reparation. This mode of reparation resulted in a cycle in which any attempt to repair the inner experience by contact with an external object was destined to be disappointing because of the desire for an infantile connection without separateness. The author reviews the literature on reparation and emphasises recent developments resulting from work with Autism Spectrum Disorder children who are far from the depressive position and who have difficulty bearing separateness. The author recognises an essential positive aspect of reparation independent of the ability to perceive the object as separate and suggests that when working with very primitive emotional states, it seems suitable to use a wider definition for what can be considered essentially a primitive reparative act or a precursor for reparation. Next, the author discusses the significance of a phantasy of impossible reparation in an autistic girl with emphasis on the importance of considering the reparative aspects of this defensive phantasy to enable development. Finally, the author relates to the despair that occurs in both analyst and patient when the phantasy is not transformed.     

Revisiting the crisis in Freud's libido theory and Abraham's concept of the oral‐sadistic phase as a way out of it

The now available unabridged correspondence between Freud and Abraham leads to a re‐evaluation of the significance of Abraham's work. The author proposes the thesis that clinical observations by Karl Abraham of the ambivalence of object relations and the destructive‐sadistic aspects of orality have an important influence on the advancement of psychoanalytical theory. The phantasy problem of the Wolf Man and the question of the pathogenic relevance of early actual, or merely imagined traumata led Freud to doubt the validity of his theory. He attempted repeatedly to solve this problem using libido theory, but failed because of his problematic conception of oral erotics. The pathogenic effect of presymbolic traumatizations cannot be demonstrated scientifically because of the still underdeveloped brain in the early stage of the child's development. Consequently, the important empirical evidence of a scientific neurosis theory could not be provided. A revision of the theory of the instincts thus became necessary. With Abraham's clinical contributions and other pathologic evidence, Freud was, with some reservation, forced to modify his idea of oral erotics by ascribing to it a status of a merely constructed and fictive phase of oral organization. A solution was eventually facilitated via recognition of non‐erotic aggression and destruction, thereby opening libido theory to fundamental revisions. Driven by the desire to develop a scientific theory, Freud initially had, in his first theory of the instincts, assumed a strongly causal‐deterministic view on Psychic Function. His third revision of theory of the instincts, Beyond the Pleasure Principle including the death instinct hypothesis, considered the hermeneutic aspect of psychoanalytic theory, which had previously existed only implicitly in his theory. Further development of the death instinct hypothesis by Melanie Klein and her successors abandoned quantitative‐economic and causal‐deterministic principles, and instead focused on the practical utility of the psychoanalytic theory.     

Bi‐ocularity,the functioning mind of the psychoanalyst

With the use of clinical material the author discusses the importance of a ‘bi‐ocular’ mode of attentiveness, one pole of which rests on the psychic process of reverie and the other on ‘analysing’. This is necessary to foster the development of a psychic space in which experiences which were ‘in the shadow’ or unrepresented, can come to the fore and be given shape first pictorially and later ideationally. This requires staying with and fostering the ambiguity of the different times and spaces without collapsing them into the clear, logical and explanatory. It requires the psychoanalyst to make space for that which is ‘other’, other than just apparently here and now, and other than just ‘you and me’, while maintaining the analytic ‘fire’ in a situation in which there is ‘no model in real life’, a place maximally geared to that which is not apparent.     

Unconscious phantasy as a structural principle and organizer of mental life: The evolution of a concept from Freud to Klein and some of her successors

Starting with Freud's discovery of unconscious phantasy as a means of accessing his patients’ internal world, the author discusses the evolution of the concept in the work of Melanie Klein and some of her successors. Whereas Freud sees phantasy as a wish fulfilling imagination, dominated by primary process functioning and kept apart from reality testing, Klein understands phantasies as a structural function and organizer of mental life. From their very beginnings they involve object relations and gradually evolve from primitive body‐near experiences to images and symbolic representations. With her concept of projective identification in particular, Klein anticipates the communicative function of unconscious phantasies. They are at the basis of processes of symbolization, but may also be put into the service of complex defensive operations. The author traces the further evolution of the concept from the contributions of S. Isaacs, the theories of thinking proposed by W.R. Bion and R. Money‐Kyrle, Hanna Segal's ideas on symbolization and reparation all the way to the latest approaches by R. Britton, J. Steiner and others, including the understanding of transference and counter‐transference as a ‘total situation’. Points of contact with Freud are to be found particularly in connection with his concept of ‘primal phantasies’. In the author's view, the idea of the transmission and communicative potential of unconscious phantasies enabled these authors to overcome the solipsistic origins of drive theory in favour of a notion in which unconscious phantasies both set down the coordinates of the inner world and form and reflect the matrix of inter‐subjective relations.     

Leonardo's phantasy and the importance of Freud's slip: The role of the analyst's phantasies in applied psychoanalysis and in the analytic relation

In his paper on Leonardo, Freud made a slip. Referring to the bird which, according to one of Leonardo's memories, tossed its tail into the painter's mouth many times when he was a child, Freud replaced 'kite' with 'vulture'. It is widely accepted that this slip doesn't signifi cantly damage the whole of Freud's constructions on the paper, nevertheless, the part of his considerations relating to the meaning of 'vulture' should be discounted. In the author's view, this part of the Leonardo paper is necessary. Thanks to the slip Freud was able to reach a comprehension which otherwise would have been unattainable. Interpretation based on the vulture made possible the confi guration of a mother as 'daughter of the wind', as was the case not only with Leonardo's mother but also with Freud's. Interpretation of Leonardo's phantasy was achieved through Freud's unconscious identifi cation with Leonardo and the slip adequately interpreted becomes the evidence of this. Through identifi cation, Freud succeeded in making sense of Leonardo's memory but also in realising an indirect virile possession of his own 'winged' mother. Freud's position as interpreting subject in his paper on Leonardo also has more general value: the analyst's knowledge about the 'other' has a very important basis in the indirect expression of his unconscious wishes within the fi eld of sense. The author uses clinical material in order to show how the analyst's phantasies play an important role in analytical interpretive work.     

From Masturbation to Homosexuality: A Case of Displaced Moral Disapproval

I argue that the decline in moral disapproval of masturbation in the American religious culture over the last half-century is directly responsible for increased moral disapproval of homosexuality. Moral disapproval previously directed toward masturbators is being redirected instead toward homosexuals. Since masturbation has been practiced by the overwhelming majority of individuals who self-identify with the American religious culture, while homosexual acts have been engaged in by a significantly smaller number of individuals who self-identify with this culture, the displacement of moral disapproval from masturbatory behavior to homosexual behavior leads to the stigmatization of those who engage in homosexual behavior, and an attitude of moral superiority and personal condescension inevitably follows. Nineteenth and twentieth century writings on the perils and evils of masturbation are cited in support of this argument.     

When does a dream begin to ‘have meaning’? Linguistic constraints and significant moments in the construction of the meaning of a dream

The paper investigates the origin of the meaning of dreams starting with a discussion of psychotic dreams. The author distinguishes the dream as dream from the remembered and the narrated. A two-step dream phenomenology is proposed that both acknowledges the objectivity of the dream and traces the origin of its meaning to its translation into language. Following a review of recent neurobiological theories of dreaming, the paper focuses on certain aspects of the psychoanalytical understanding of the dream phenomenon and in particular on the interpretation of dreams from the perspective of intersubjectivity and phantasy.