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From bastion to enactment: the 'non-dream' in the theatre of analysis.
In this paper, the author's objective is to discuss models that express what occurs in the analytical situation. He demonstrates how early models relating to painting and sculpture, to history and archaeology, develop into other models that refer to the relationship between two people. He studies in depth the Barangers' 'analytical field' with its obstructive bastions as a background to understanding what is currently valued as intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis. The container-contained model and the phenomenon of 'recruitment' are also discussed. The author uses clinical material to demonstrate how these models are linked to 'enactment', and a study of this concept provides evidence of the importance of the visual image, the dream and 'non-dream', the 'affective pictogram', as privileged aspects for the understanding and evolution of thought in the analytical process. Its importance leads to a proposal of a model that uses the theatre as a metaphor for the analytical process. In this model, analyst and patient both participate as characters in the scenes, and simultaneously as their co-authors. The analyst should also be responsible for the direction of scenes, as well as acting as critic. His task is to prevent obstructive conspiracies (the 'non-dream') and find new meanings for the scenes, thus allowing the development of new scenes and plots, and the enlarging of the mental universe.
On holding and containing, being and dreaming.
Winnicott's concept of holding and Bion's idea of the container-contained are for each of these analysts among his most important contributions to psychoanalytic thought. In this light, it is ironic that the two sets of ideas are so frequently misunderstood and confused with one another. In this paper the author delineates what he believes to be the critical aspects of each of these concepts and illustrates the way in which he uses these ideas in his clinical work. Winnicott's holding is seen as an ontological concept that is primarily concerned with being and its relationship to time. Initially the mother safeguards the infant's continuity of being, in part by insulating him from the 'not-me' aspect of time. Maturation entails the infant's gradually internalizing the mother's holding of the continuity of his being over time and emotional flux. By contrast, Bion's container-contained is centrally concerned with the processing (dreaming) of thoughts derived from lived emotional experience. The idea of the container-contained addresses the dynamic interaction of predominantly unconscious thoughts (the contained) and the capacity for dreaming and thinking those thoughts (the container).
The basic traumatic situation in the analytical relationship.
The author attempts to develop a concept of psychic trauma which would comply with the nucleus of this Freudian notion, that is, an excess of excitations that cannot be processed by the mental apparatus, but which would also consider the functions and the crucial role of objects in the constitution of the psychism and in traumatic conditions, as well as taking into account the methodological positioning according to which the analytical relationship is the sole possible locus of observation, inference and intervention by the psychoanalyst. He considers as a basic or minimal traumatic psychoanalytical situation that in which a magnitude or quality of emotions exceeds the capacity for containment of the psychoanalytical pair, to the point of generating a period or area of dementalisation in the psyche of one or both of the participants, of requiring analytical work on the matter and promoting a significant positive or negative change in the relationship. Availing himself of Bion's theory about the alpha function and the metapsychological conceptions of Freud and Green concerning psychic representations, he presents two theoretical formulations relating to this traumatic situation, utilising them according to the 'altered focus' model proposed by Bion. He presents three clinical examples to illustrate the concept and the relevant theoretical formulations.
The preconscious and psychic change in Fairbairn's model of mind.
Fairbairn's mature model of mind was developed over a period of time and was modified significantly as it developed. In contrast to some sympathetic commentators who have suggested changes, the author has been impressed by the untapped potential of the theory. There are two areas that he feels need clarification and explanation, which are the importance of the preconscious, so neglected in our literature, and its role in psychic growth. By looking closely at the topographic categories and the way that Fairbairn uses them, the author has developed a modified version of Fairbairn's original model, which has a crucial role for a structured preconscious. The preconscious now becomes both a crucial original aspect of the early self and a significant, descriptively unconscious, fulcrum for both psychic change and mature dependence.
Language and affects in the analytic practice.
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From mimesis to agency: clinical steps in the work of psychic two-ness.
In this paper, through the study of the clinical process of a girl starting treatment at the age of 3 years 10 months, who was thought of as a 'dummy' by her family and who came for consultation when the assumed genetic aetiology was questioned, the authors build upon Tustin's contributions on the context of togetherness and the crisis of two-ness, and upon Eugenio and Renata Gaddini's on the precursor object. The mimetic phenomena enacted with an older brother and at the kindergarten are found to result from cumulative trauma at her contacting a loving but mind-blind mother. After an initial stage of transference autism, enactment in the session of the traumatic situation was the ?rst step in surmounting her autistic pseudo-stupidity. Mimetic transference dynamics took place principally at the level of the gaze, leading to the unfolding of the work of two-ness to a differentiation from the analyst as psychic breast, on the road to symbol formation and personal agency.
Linguistic styles and complementarities in analyzing character.
This paper discusses and illustrates some technical implications of D. Liberman's contributions to character analysis. Psychoanalysis is an extended conversation, and character structure is expressed linguistically as part of an interactive linguistic field. Liberman's notions of linguistic styles and communicative interaction define a unique analytic surface from which to examine the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of character. The presence of a rigid and defensive linguistic style reflects resistance and communicative impasse within the transference and countertransference matrix. A fully interactive communicative experience integrates all aspects of the conversation and allows both participants to take part in a shared semantic field, the precondition to the generation of new meanings. Liberman suggests responding to miscommunication by means of a methodical linguistic attitude. Various such complementary responses are explored through several vignettes, with a particular focus on the interplay of the epic and narrative modes.
Los Degradados: out, down, dead. Transmitted and inflicted trauma as encountered in the analysis of a 6-year-old girl.
The author presents the analysis of a precocious traumatized little girl, which reveals the ways in which historical trauma is transmitted and intrafamilial trauma is both disguised and represented. The play as it evolves is seen to simultaneously communicate what the child struggles with and to resolutely try to hide what has actually happened. Analyst and child together participate in play which utilizes displacement, enactment and interactive enactment, the latter play mode being the very hallmark of profound traumatic experience. Carlotta, the child, helps the analyst to follow her quest for meaning making even as the interaction between them adheres to and departs from the deepening pentimenti of traumatic experience, which needs to be unraveled and reconstructed in order that her own developmental progression can be rejoined. The analysis facilitates Carlotta's capacity to play in a more unfettered fashion and to assist her family's recovery as well.
On the threshold of the creative imagination: Swimming pool (2003).
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Metaphor and the violent.
During the treatment of violent individuals who were, incidentally, highly verbal, the authors noticed that physical assaults were often preceded by the perpetrator' s use of metaphors. It was observed that the linguistic metaphors failed to function as ordinary 'as if' devices and became 'concretised'. When this occurred, the perpetrators resorted to a physical attack. In this paper, the authors argue that the capacity to interconnect (which is considered to be the essence of psychic work) is dependent upon what can be conceptualised as a primary mental 'frame' or 'warp'. Distortion of the warp will, in turn, weaken the 'weaving', or interconnecting function of the ego, which is considered analogous to the interconnecting in linguistic metaphors. Clinical material from the treatment of three violent men (two in psychotherapy and one in analysis) is used to illustrate the hypothesis that the concretised use of metaphor represents a restitutive, but failed attempt to maintain a psychic coherence in the face of an imminent breakdown.
Falling forever: the price of chronic shock.
Manifestations of chronic shock and annihilation anxiety-including autistic defenses, chaotic relationships, disorganized attachment, split-off affective states, and vulnerability to disintegration--exist side by side with apparent ego strength and high functioning, even in nonabused patients. Chronic shock stemming from uncontained distress and failed dependency during childhood can persist throughout the lifespan, creating ripples of dysfunction that mask as character distortion and contribute to therapeutic impasse. Patients rely on omnipotent defenses to provide a sense of "having skin" in the face of the fear of breakdown, striving to avoid vulnerability, and trying to insulate themselves from shock experience. Although the relinquishment of autistic defenses and subsequent integration of disowned affect states are overwhelming and painful, patients can emerge from this process with significant shifts in intrapsychic, interpersonal, and existential/spiritual functioning. Clinical material from one psychodynamic psychotherapy group tracks the group process and growth trajectories of seven group members struggling with chronic shock. The ability to recognize subtle dissociative states is a valuable tool in the repertoire of the group psychotherapist.
Parting gifts: termination rituals in group therapy.
A patient's termination from group therapy is a powerful experience for the departing patient, the therapist, and all group members. Unless the feelings evoked are channeled into constructive expression, they may undermine this potentially valuable phase of both the departing patient's group treatment and the life of the group as a whole. A termination ritual, styled by a particular patient according to his or her own need, therapy goals, and personality may help the patient achieve a more clearly defined sense of self. The authors suggest that the group therapist's careful attunement to and thorough exploration of the significance of any termination ritual or gift will help to extract maximum therapeutic benefit for the departing member and the group as a whole.
Acting-out: its functions within analytic group psychotherapy and its transformation into dreams.
In group processes, acting-out has diverse functions, all of them equally important. It has an intrapsychic, interpersonal, and group dynamic function. Not only may it be understood as a form of resistance, but also in its communicative and reparative potential. The authors investigate the thesis that acting-out also contains the seed for change, thus helping patients divest themselves of pathological behavior. Using a group process as an example, this article shows how boundaries can be drawn between past and present experiences while using the communicative and reparative functions of acting-out. Unconscious psychodynamics can then be transformed from acting-out into dreams.
From analysis to formation: towards a shift in psychological paradigm.
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Dreams stimulated by the analyst-patient relationship.
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Creativity, mid-life crisis, and Herman Hesse.
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