Isakower-like experience on the couch: a contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding of regressive ego phenomena |
| |
Authors: | A D Richards |
| |
Abstract: | Since Isakower's original contribution of 1938, Isakower phenomena have been viewed as primitive experiences involving maternal breast, womb, and face imagery. This clinical report harks back to the less well-known hypothesis with which Isakower concluded his paper: he suggested that these perceptual experiences are related to childhood oedipal masturbatory fantasies at the time of going to sleep. In this paper four Isakower-like phenomena experienced by a patient on the couch are reported in the dynamic context in which they occurred. It is argued that these phenomena constitute a type of regressive ego experience that defends against oedipal conflict. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|