Search

After some reflections on the intuitive unconscious that scientists employ, the focus of the first part of this article concerns the analytic method, based on associations and symbolic interpretations, as formulated by Freud and his most important followers. I see this as a valid method when used with patients we can ascribe to the neurotic area, but not with the more seriously ill, non-neurotic patients. This distinction does not particularly concern symptomatology, but a kind of unconscious functioning. When working with more seriously ill patients, such as those who have suffered infantile emotional trauma, or have a borderline or a psychotic disorder, analysts are confronted with more complex tasks. Considered here are functions of the mind outside awareness, the problem of non-representability, and several aspects of psychotic functioning. As the title states, this article goes beyond the dynamic unconscious to investigate areas of the mind that have not yet been systematically explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution deals with the difficulty in understanding the specific nature of psychotic functioning. These patients distort their perceptive apparatus to create dissociated sensorial worlds in which to live. They cannot be treated with the analytic technique employed with neurotic patients because they are unable to use the intuitive functions that enable psychic reality to be recognized. My hypothesis is that their mind functions as a sensory organ that is able to produce a new alternative reality to the real one. This paper develops a series of considerations on the nature of the enigma of psychosis and the way in which it is possible to analytically meet the psychotic patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supervisor's prime task is to consider from the very beginning the analytic ability of the analyst presenting the case; this can be assessed by observing how the colleague transcribes the clinical material and describes what is meaningful in the session. It is extremely important to understand whether the patient's suffering is neurotic, or whether he suffers from an initial psychotic disorder. In this latter case, the analyst will know that he cannot employ the same tools that he uses for the neurotic patient. It is fundamental to draw careful attention to the importance of the patient's personal history. In the process of reconstructing the past, the patient's difficulties are gradually understood by the analyst, the patient and the supervisor. Given that a memory may be distorted by present emotions and conflicts, the analyst must form meaningful hypotheses that, through reconstructing interaction with the original objects, help to comprehend the precarious equilibrium of the present. Over the course of supervision, I consistently emphasize the construction of the analytic relationship, which is based on the analyst's mind and of the patient's ability to communicate emotionally, so as to promote the analysand's mental growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations of summary The delusional experience is the result of a grave disjunction in the psyche whose outcome is not readily predictable. Examination of the specific mode of disjunction may help us understand the nature and radical character of delusion. I will present the therapy of a psychotic patient who after many years of analysis and progresses in his life continues to show delusional episodes although limited and contained. In his case, the two visions, one delusional and the other real, remain distinct and differentiated from each other because they both possess the same perceptual character, that of reality. He has a bi-ocular vision of reality and not a binocular one because his vision lacks integration, as would necessarily be the case if the two visions could be compared with each other. The principle of non-contradiction ceases to apply in delusion. A corollary of the failure of the principle of non-contradiction is that, if a statement and its negation are both true, then any statement is true. Logicians call this consequence the principle of explosion. For this reason, the distinction between truth, reality, improbability, probability, possibility and impossibility is lost in the delusional system, thus triggering an omnipotent, explosive mechanism with a potentially infinite progression. The paper presents some thoughts for a possible analytic transformation of the delusional experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]