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In this paper, I set out to describe the different viewpoints, conceptualisations and defence mechanisms of the state of passivity; the categorisation by Freud; how the perspective of his thinking was altered by later insights and clinical observations; the close connection between the superego, passivity and masochism; the significance of the internal object world for Melanie Klein; countertransference as a means of access to masochism and destructiveness, with the aid of a short case illustration; and, finally, Betty Joseph's clinical experiences in work with her patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalytic identity "in vivo" means psychoanalysis as an authentic, lived experience, socially and historically situated. What we have inherited from the psychoanalytic tradition now needs to be collectively and individually updated and shaped as therapy, as research and as theory. The focus of this paper is on developing a more critical and realistic sense of psychoanalytic identity, grounded in our clinical experience. We need to recognise our identity in what we actually do and achieve with our patients in our daily practice and avoid idealisations or devaluations arising from theoretical speculation. The important role of the Three Level Model (3-LM) and similar working parties is discussed. Psychoanalysts need a pluralistic professional identity, which implies triangulating our clinical perspectives with those of other colleagues, as happens in 3-LM clinical discussion groups, and contextualizing our knowledge from a broad perspective, including extra-clinical research and interdisciplinary dialogue with both health sciences and hermeneutic disciplines. A psychoanalytic identity that is open to the future requires an acknowledgement of the different positions that exist within our discipline and neighbouring fields, and a willingness to critically examine and discuss these differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on how for some young people who identify as transgender, the anticipation, and/or the actual process, of transitioning represents a movement away from something in themselves that feels wrong, painful, or traumatic and that has not yet been consciously recognised as such. This becomes a 'missing' part of the self's experience, locked into the body. I suggest that the process of identifying and restitution of 'the missing' part requires working through the natal body in its metaphorical and literal senses, in the service of expanding autonomous choice about how to find a hospitable home in the body. Building on Money-Kyrle's three 'facts of life', I propose a fourth one, namely the inescapable fact of our embodied nature, to underscore that our personal history always includes our embodied history, hence the importance of working through what the natal body unconsciously represents. I describe the use of photographs during psychoanalytic psychotherapy with young people who have commenced social transitioning, to work through visual representations of the natal body in the service of facilitating the working through, in its psychoanalytic sense, of the natal body's unconscious narrative. I suggest that deploying this visual mode may be especially helpful in engaging young people on the autistic spectrum who nowadays comprise a significant minority of transgender young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the characteristics and clinical utility of the psychoanalytic field theory proposed by M. and W. Baranger, with particular emphasis on the issues of the transferential-counter transferential relationship and the 'second look'. The role of central key metaphors embodied in the experience of both patient and analyst is illustrated through the author's personal experience and participation in Three Level Model (3LM) work groups. The risk of moments of intense communication between patient and analyst has the possibility for the analyst to lose distance, making it necessary to go beyond moments of emotional resonance and reverie and to take a "second look" to understand the analyst's involvement in the interactional process in order to prevent the constitution of bastions of the field. The 3LM work groups extend the temporal context to include longer periods of time and a "third group look" that triangulates perspectives through group discussions, allowing for the exploration of transformations that have occurred in the analysis. The field perspective contributes to a deeper understanding of the transference-countertransference relationship. The "second" and the "third look" broadens the analyst's insights and enriches the understanding of the psychoanalytic process and its multifaceted dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a presentation of the concept "transference" in psycho-analysis. In Freud's thought, transference movements are new editions, copies of tendencies or phantasies that are the repetition of infantile prototypes, relived with a lively feeling of actuality. The text shows Freud's reflection on transference, and the importance of the countertransference which has been much developed by the post-freudians authors. Then, the principal forms of transference are presented, for example passionate transference, or transference by reversal. The psychoanalytic reflection about transference leads to study the analyst's neutrality, and to pay attention to the setting of the sessions. André Green emphasizes that the transference that is addressed to the analyst is at the same time a transference on the setting and on to speech. In the complexity of the "analytic situation" (Donnet), speech is transformed under the effect of the transference address (Rolland). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief introduction gives an historical outline of the development of the concept of transference in the different psychoanalytic traditions. It goes back to the various meanings of the German term "Übertragung" – transference, transcription, transmission, transposition and assignment – and how they were accentuated by the different psychoanalytic schools. The paper depicts the transition from a mainly intrapsychic understanding of transference as repetition to a more bipersonal and intersubjective approach exploring the different meanings of "intersubjectivity" and the forces that operate within the analytic field. Major developments arose from a new understanding of the role of the analyst's countertransference and the detection of transference mechanisms in narcissistic, borderline and psychotic states. The exploration of different forms of splitting and projective and introjective identification deepened the understanding of the analytic communication and led to concepts like "acting in", role-responsiveness, "actualization" and "enactment". As the author tries to show, all these approaches can find a legitimization in Freud's original writings, but the main differences concern technical issues, i.e. the interpretation of transference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lacan papers reading is difficult and often disappointing. His technique, using shortening of sessions as a way of interpreting transference ("scansion") is unacceptable. His great project of create a united structural theory of psychoanalysis, linguistic and anthropology has failed. However, his works on transference are worth being red. Lacan has reminded psychoanalysts that they are "divided subjects", meaning that their unconscious remains unconscious to themselves, that they have to listen to themselves as much as they have to listen to their their patients; he has rediscovered the importance of après-coup, already stressed by Freud, but often forgotten; and above all, he has rediscovered the importance of words in transference interpretation, showing the importance of the link between two signifiers, more than the link between signifier and signified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors explore the depiction of perversion and the associated interplay of life and death drives in Roman Polanski's 1992 film Bitter Moon. To begin with, a theoretical discussion is presented regarding perverse organizations of mastery and sadomasochism. Perversion is viewed as an expression of the death drive under erotic disguise, in which the destructive fingerprint of the death drive is revealed at every stage, having as its ultimate purpose the destruction of the other. Based on these theoretical insights a dialogue is developed with Polanski's film, which brings to life the theory of sadomasochistic relations through the multidimensional aesthetic medium of cinema. It is shown how Polanski's cinematic oeuvre conveys the essence of the difficult and complex experience of perverse relations, where the life and death drives and their transformations are manifested. The portrayal of the sadomasochistic relations in this film contributes to the experiential knowledge with which the authors promote insight that would potentially enrich the clinical work with patients with perverse organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Besides the symbolic unconscious, psychoanalysis today investigates unconscious structures that are dissociated from mental functioning (Lombardi 2017) and encoded in bodily inscriptions. These bodily configurations often stay outside of the psychoanalytical attention and technique of treatment. Two concepts – encapsulated body engrams and somatic narration – provide a theoretical and technical proposition for the bodily encoded unconscious. Within this frame, the paper focuses on new aspects. It is outlined that the encapsulated body engrams result from a traumatic disorganization of the primal relation to the caregiver leading to an impossibility of a separation from the mother's body. Separation is now feared as a deadly fall into an endless abyss. However, this element is no longer viewed as an unconscious phantasy that can be interpreted but as the perception of a disorganized bodily syndrome that must be worked through with a considerable reverberation-time (Birksted-Breen 2009) in a body-to-body dialogue. Somatic narration encourages the patient to describe his painful bodily perception and invites the body-self to show up during the analytical encounter. Working this way allows the patients disorganized body-self to slowly develop into a container to harbor, organize and symbolize emotions. Four clinical examples illustrate this manner of working. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to report the partial results of an exploratory investigation into how twelve psychoanalysts of different theoretical-clinical orientations perceive and use hypotheses about the phenomena of change in connection with selected material from a psychoanalytic treatment. The Three-Level Model (3-LM) was used for the observation of patient transformations and for the collection of data. This was followed by the statistical analysis of the behaviour and relationship of a set of variables relating to the type and degree of change perceived in the patient's mental functioning during the course of her treatment. The results reported here show that there was significant agreement among the participants, irrespective of their theoretical-clinical orientation, as regards the following: 1) the positive impact of the application of psychoanalytic treatment in diverse areas of the patient's mental functioning; 2) the explanatory hypotheses of the changes observed in the patient under consideration; 3) the usefulness of the experience of group exchange using the 3-LM in observing and understanding the changes in the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights some aspects of the conceptualization of trauma in psychoanalysis and introduces the three subsequent papers by Bernard Chervet, Jan Abrams and Howard Levine. It focuses on the interchange between external and internal reality, the construction of traumatic defensive organizations and the role of reparation and guilt in overcoming the repetition compulsion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with the observation that a good integration of soma and psyche is often missing in our work with severely disturbed analysands, two concepts are discussed that focus constellations of bodily encoded unconscious material, which needs a specific form of working-through. The concept of encapsulated body engrams referring to defence structures revolving around the inhibition or disorganization of an affective bodily impulse is outlined. The imbalance arising this way is perceived as a foreign body within the body-self. These engrams are repetitive and are not susceptible to symbolic transformation. Parallels between the encapsulated body engram, the autistic objects (Tustin, F. 1980. "Autistic Objects." International Review of Psycho-Analysis 27: 27–39) and Freud's theory of inhibition (Freud, S. 1926. "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety." SE 20: 77–175) are discussed. To unblock encapsulated engrams, body feelings emerging in the chain of associations are understood as attempts to communicate. In a process called somatic narration these perceptions are contextualized with other bodily sensations. The working-through of this material in transference and countertransference is described in the light of Lombardi's concepts (Lombardi, R. 2017. Body- Mind Dissociation in Psychoanalysis – Development after Bion. New York: Routledge). Two case reports precede the theoretical discussion. The paper begins with the observation that a good integration of the soma and psyche is often missing in our work with severely disturbed analysands; two concepts are then discussed that focus on constellations of bodily encoded unconscious material which need a specific form of working through. The author proposes the concept of encapsulated body engrams to refer to the defense structures revolving around the inhibition or disorganization of an affected bodily impulse. The dysfunctional imbalance that arises this way is often perceived as a foreign body within the body-self. These engrams are highly repetitive and are not susceptible to symbolic transformation. Parallels between the encapsulated body engram, the autistic objects (Tustin, 1980) and Freuds theory of inhibition (Freud, 1926) are discussed. The paper argues that body feelings emerging in the chain of associations are attempts to communicate and to unblock encapsulated engrams. In a process called somatic narration, these perceptions are then contextualized with other bodily sensations. The unfolding and working through of this material in the transference and countertransference is described in light of Lombardi's concepts (2017). Two case reports are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evidence that Bion's epistemological contributions drew on the work of R. B. Braithwaite, a British philosopher of science, more than has generally been acknowledged. Braithwaite introduced the "scientific deductive system", a term Bion adopted. It proposed that empirical scientific methods could be applied to immaterial subjects of study, including "unconscious mental processes" (Braithwaite 1953, ix). Bion's private work journal, collected in Cogitations, documents Braithwaite's direct influence throughout its entries, particularly in one dated 10 January 1959, entitled "Scientific method" (Bion 1959b). This paper reviews relevant elements of Braithwaite's work, and examines Bion's "Scientific method" and samples from his epistemological work to argue that one of Bion's goals was to bring an empirically based scientific model to psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. More than a matter of academic interest, Braithwaite's work lends pragmatically useful context to understand Bion's theoretical and clinical intentions in greater depth. It also suggests the main reasons why his project did not come fully to fruition, which led Bion to turn from the scientific deductive system towards his later developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research addresses the initial reception of Lacanian ideas in Uruguayan psychoanalysis. Lacanian ideas arrived in Uruguay in the 1960s in a context in which Kleinian thought prevailed. This paper studies the relation between Kleinianism and Lacanianism by analyzing discursive phenomena. The corpus used for this study was built from a variety of sources: theoretical-doctrinal papers, clinical cases, media publications, seminars transcripts, and institutional documents. The discursive materials presented here show the different controversies, crossroads, compromises, and demarcations that characterized the reception of Lacanian ideas in a context of Kleinian predominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article announces the first anniversary of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP) Open.

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper addresses three dimensions that contribute to the constructions of the infantile, as they inform different psychoanalytic perspectives: the infantile body; the infantile mind; and the infantile psyche. Brief reviews of our current knowledge of the infant's physical state and earliest mention, derived from observational and experimental methodologies are presented; raising the question whether psychoanalysts should incorporate such knowledge or rely solely on clinical data. Further, the sources in Freudian texts that legitimate reconstructions of the infantile psyche are examined, while also noting theorists who have chosen alternate approaches. The paper concludes with the assertion that the dimensions which are determined as most germane to a psychoanalyst's construction of the infantile will depend ultimately upon their usefulness in establishing intersubjectivity with patients in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) Congress Buenos Aires 2017: Violation of intimacy and gender held in 2017 which was presented by Joshua Durban and Ester Palerm and chaired by Gertraud Schlesinger-Kipp. Topics discussed include Durbin shared his experience of working with a male patient suffered from a confusion between intimacy and violence, patient's thought about intimacy like feeling at home in the body and a capacity to contain anxiety.

The article offers information on several papers discussed at a panel discussion on psychoanalysis. Topics include the psychoanalytic history in Prague, Czech Republic from 1933-1938, and the contributions of Viennese psychologist Frances Deri, physician Heinrich Julius Löwenfeld, and Russian emigrant Theodor "Bohodar" Dosužkov. Also provided information on the paper by Nellie L. Thompson on the Prague group and its influence in the works of writer Annie Reich.

Many situations are now characterized by a breakdown of order and structure, leaving people at the peril of unorganized forces (war machines, human traffickers, etc.) resulting in the dehumanizing of ordinary people on a mass scale, especially in the refugee field. The paper focuses on how alienating discourses on "trauma" and society's neglect of traumatized people increase suffering and have grave consequences for coming generations. It reflects on how psychoanalysis may represent a mediating function in relation to regressive processes at individual, group and societal levels. A conceptualization of a third position from which psychoanalysis can work is developed. The third position is seen as inevitable in psychoanalytic clinical work in that symbolization and working though must be anchored in a common cultural discourse. A model for rethinking traumatization is proposed that develops the conception of the third position in relation to a broader field and encompasses the subject's relations to dyadic, bodily-affective relations, to the group and family, and to culture/ discourse. This model may lay the groundwork for understanding how atrocities and social catastrophes such as collective traumatization can be worked through at the individual and social levels. Clinical examples are presented to illuminate these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper offers a comparative reading of Sigmund Freud's and Walter Benjamin's thoughts on remembrance and history. Freud's dream thought, constructed from visual images, and Benjamin's dialectical image, and the Denkbild as its literary form, are presented as intriguingly intertwined concepts. They both refer to residues of regressive thought expressed through the medium of the German Bild, which can be translated as image, picture or figure. The visual image (visuelles Bild) and the Denkbild are presented as crucial to the construction of history because they present a dialectic between a condensed experience of the past (beyond the scope of words and representation) and the inevitable transformation of experience into language. Freud's and Benjamin's late writings are read in the historical context of European Jewish intellectuals facing the rise of the Nazi regime. The images discussed comparatively here are Freud's last Moorish king and Benjamin's angel of history. These condensed images are presented as lamenting figures, images of despair and struggle. They serve as examples of the visual image's ability to represent the unrepresentable and capture hidden mnemic traces at traumatic times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to emphasize the pertinence of psychoanalytic work in the context of communitary mental health. The theoretical orientations for this are based on the concept of Social Defence Systems, as introduced by Jaques and developed by Menzies, and the intervention method used is Work Discussion, an original and applicable approach designed and consolidated at the Tavistock Clinic. With this contributions, we are able to consider the ways in which Institution´s malfunctioning relates to ways in which it´s work implies a defensive activity with which its participants, workers and patients, can be unconsciously colluded. After describing this method and the mentality behind it, this work describes in detail its application in the context of a Communitary Mental Health Centre in Santiago, Chile. Some clinical examples are included, together with some thoughts about the value that this intervention has for the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to define "time" in clinical-psychoanalytic terms. After brief remarks on time, on timelessness, on times, and on Nachträglichkeit, the treatment of a breakdown state is described. The breakdown from the earliest period of the patient's life first manifested itself in an autistoid perversion. It finally occurred in the transference in a presence moment and could become conceivable as a thought for the patient in a turbulent process. Here two time dimensions became apparent: The timeless state of breakdown unfolds in the treatment in such a way that preforms of temporal experiences precede the event of time in presence moment, from which then the times past, future and present can become. In the presence moment and its sublation in the presentational symbol, not only did the breakdown become psychically real, but time, times, and space emerged, albeit dynamically very differently in the analyst and the analysand: for the analyst, past and place emerged with the presentational symbol, while for the patient, temporal location did not occur in the time "past," but in the place where the perversion was practiced. Past is the place where it happened. For the discovery and use of times, it is necessary for the patient to distinguish the absent object from the retraumatizing one. Then the present absent object becomes the object that was there in the past understanding and will be there in the future. The assurance of this figure of thought is obtained in the use of the object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Information on several papers discussed at a panel discussion regarding psychoanalytic clinical research is presented. The panel from members of the International Psychoanalytical Association's (IPA) Clinical Research Sub-Committee include Donald Moss, Mitchell Wilson, and David Taylor. Topics include the characteristic of language use, toleration of frustration, and the responsibility of mother on infant's environment.

When re-read today, "On arrogance", a very brief paper Bion wrote in 1958, reveals its extraordinary topicality. We can think of it both as a commentary on Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and as an essay on the "disease" of psychoanalysis. In both cases, lying at its centre is the triad of curiosity–stupidity–arrogance that drives us to know the truth "at any cost". In this paper Bion redefines the crime of Oedipus (and therefore of psychoanalysis) around epistemic instinct and no longer around sexuality; he unveils the objectifying attitude of the analyst he revolutionizes the understanding of negative therapeutic reactions. The analyst's "psychosis" (or that of psychoanalysis) finds expression in the phenomena of wanting to become a psychoanalyst, of aspiring to be "scientific" (as opposed to gaining a hermeneutical understanding), of wanting to tell the patient what he believes to be the truth, and finally of looking "down upon" his patients and colleagues. Anticipating the themes of Transformations and A Memory of the Future, "On arrogance" lays the groundwork for a cogent criticism of the ideology of psychoanalysis and an effective ethical re-foundation of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present our work as psychoanalysts in the interdisciplinary psychosomatic unit of a paediatric hospital. As the starting point for our work we use Winnicott's understanding of the psychosomatic dilemma delineated in his paper on psychosomatic illness in its positive and negative aspects. The central hypothesis is that splitting the medical field into many highly specialized fields can be understood as a display of the psychosomatic patients' inner need for splitting and their defence against integration. Based on four case examples from different developmental periods, we demonstrate the interconnectedness of the relational environment, developmental processes, and psychic and biological conditions, and show how early experiences of threat and deprivation can cause the soma–psyche unit to fragment. Drawing on several psychoanalytic psychosomatic schools, we delineate treatment principles of the psychoanalytic contribution to the interdisciplinary work and of the individual psychoanalytic treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through reexamination of Freud's thinking on the "compulsion to repeat", including detailed study of his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), this paper brings to the fore a central tension in Freud's thinking on the roles narcissism and love in his foundational view of the person. While Freud conceptualizes the person as self-serving, aiming primarily to maximize personal satisfaction in accordance with the "pleasure principle," he develops an alternative view of the person as primarily loving, desiring to truly encounter the other and reality, even if painful, and guilty when he fails to do so (largely because of conflicting narcissistic/destructive aims). This basic loving desire is associated with Eros and the life instincts, which, counter to what is commonly thought, is what Freud ultimately posits as lying beyond the pleasure principle. From this perspective, narcissistic pleasures become associated with death. The paper goes on to show how while Freud struggled to conceptually ground the view of the person as contending with his desire to love and inevitable inner obstacles to it, Kleinian psychoanalysis takes this view as basic and develops it further. One significant development finds expression in ideas on how the desire to love is not only non-narcissistic, but, rather, is self-sacrificing. Clinical implications are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents an analysis on influence of the works of theorist Enrique Pichon Riviere on his psychoanalytic community. Topics discussed include his efforts to establish link between the role and status of depositant, depository and deposited; efforts of the author to present Pichon's thinking and psychoanalytic ideas, and his writings on interpersonal relational structure which includes subjects and objects that perform a certain function.

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Psychoanalysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper the author approaches mental pain and the problems in a psychoanalytic treatment of patients with difficulties in the psychic transformation of their emotional experiences. The author is interested in the symbolic failure related to the obstruction of development of phantasies, dreams, dream-thoughts, etc. She differentiates symbolization disturbances related to hypertrophic projective identification from a detention of these primitive communications and emotional isolation. She puts forward the conjecture that one factor in the arrest of this development is the detention of projective identifications and that, when this primitive means of communication is re-established in a container-contained relationship of mutual benefit, this initiates the development of a symbolization process that can replace the pathological 'protection'. Another hypothesis she develops is that of inaccessible caesuras that, associated with the detention of projective identification, obstruct any integrative or interactive movement. This caesura and the detention of projective identifications affect mental functions needed for dealing with mental pain. The personality is left with precarious mental equipment for transforming emotional experiences. How can a psychoanalytical process stimulate the development of creative symbolization, transforming the emotional experiences and leading towards mental growth? The author approaches the clinical problem with the metaphor of the psychic birth of emotional experience. The modulation of mental pain in a container-contained relationship is a central problem for the development of the human mind. For discovering and giving a meaning to emotional experience, the infant depends on reverie, a function necessary in order to develop an evolved consciousness capable of being aware, which is different from the rudimentary consciousness that perceives but does not understand. The development of mature mental equipment is associated with the personality's attitude towards mental pain. The differentiation between psychotic, neurotic or autistic functioning depends on what defences are erected to avoid mental pain. The primary link between infant and mother is where the building of mental equipment takes place, through communicational forms that, to begin with, are not verbal. The author suggests the need for the development of an ideo-grammar (in gestures, paralinguistic forms, etc.) in primary relations, as the precursor forms that will become the matrix for the mental tools for dealing with emotional experiences in a mature way. The paper stresses the significance of the parental containing function for the development of symbolization of prenatal emotional experiences. This containment develops ideograms, transformations of sense impressions into proto-symbols, instruments that attenuate the traumatic experiences of helplessness. The author takes Bion's ideas about extending the notion of dream-work to an alpha function that goes on continually, day and night, transforming raw emotional experiences in a 'dream'. In order to acquire a meaning, facts need to be 'dreamed' in this extended sense. Meaning and truth are the nurture of the mind. Mental growth, the development of adequate tools - including reverie - for dealing with mental pain, seen from a psychoanalytic perspective including reverie, implies that the object becomes a provider of meanings. Analysis begins to aim primarily at the generation or expansion of the mental container, instead of predominantly working on unconscious contents as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a Kleinian perspective influenced by Betty Joseph, the author describes the distinctive 'here and now' of a psychoanalysis as the place and the time of the patient's inner subjective world as it emerges in the work of patient and analyst. This psychoanalytic 'here' and 'now' is examined with clinical material from the analysis of Mr X; first, with an account of the way his analysis begins and then through a detailed session five years later.The author identifies Mr X's problems with place and time, and how these change over the course of the analysis. He moves from sequestered dyadic relationships towards an Oedipal and family space, and from disconnection and timelessness to acquiring a sense of duration, of being in the present with a past and a future - all of which, the paper aims to show, has implications for technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]