International Journal of Psychoanalysis最新文献

This paper explores the impact of homophobia, internalised homophobia and heteronormativity on the psychic lives of some gay men, as depicted in the film "All of Us Strangers". Themes of Oedipal rejection, alienation, melancholia, mourning and loss are explored.

Inspired by Dana Birksted-Breen's ideas on reverberation time, the author explores the changeability and transformation of the sensations of time and space and their connection to early embodied phantasies in the treatment of a 10-year-old boy. The experience of time changes (summarized under "time elasticity" to reflect the various forms this can take) is lived out in the transference relationship from the beginning of the therapeutic encounter. The author proposes the simultaneous development of the capacity to accept "objective" time, the establishment of a tri-dimensional space within the self and between objects and tolerating separateness and separation. The development of a capacity for symbolic thinking and depressive anxiety, as well as acceptance of the Oedipal situation and separation, has, as Dana Birksted-Breen underlined, a fundamental effect on the acceptance of objective time. This paper also discusses the difference between dealing with the difficulty of accepting objective time under the impact of fear of death and from the terror and nameless dread arising from the phantasy of the annihilation of time.

The objective of this paper is to discuss the ways in which primitive aspects of the mind, in particular, the archaic elements of character, become manifest within the analytic field. After a review of the concept, it is proposed that a "normal" character manifests through memories in behaviours/feelings, which seek the object to satisfy their needs. The characterological structure keeps primitive traumatic inscriptions under control. Other emotional experiences can activate these inscriptions, causing them to detach from the seemingly stable organization. New attempts to freeze traumatic situations occur within the analytic field and manifest as a mimetic theatre that keeps the analytic pair paralysed. So-called chronic enactments take root. Analytical work in parallel areas disrupts the collision, leading to an acute enactment. The abrupt access to triangularity revives traumatic situations. Understanding these situations expands the symbolic network of thought. The text articulates the behaviours/feelings using the Freudian concept of Agieren. Its two connotations - discharge and mimetic theatre - are discussed and their similarities and differences with enactments are highlighted. The accompanying feeling of uncanniness (Unheimlich) reflects the ambiguity of the known (registered) and the unknown (unsymbolized). The ideas presented stem from clinical investigation. The facts are discussed through detailed clinical material.

This article examines the signification of the principle of constancy in Freud's pre-psychoanalytic drafts and papers and in Entwurf. It is argued that Freud's principle differs from seemingly similar principles proposed by Breuer and Fechner, and that it constitutes an assumption about the maintaining of a constant amount of mobile biophysical energy whose purpose is not to return to equilibrium, but, proceeding from the primary functions of discharge (principle of inertia) and accumulation (exigencies of life), to consolidate an asymmetry within the nervous system. This gives rise to a set of quasi-psychological dualisms: an energetic dualism between kinetic and tonic energy; a systemic dualism between impermeable and permeable neurons; and a processual dualism between courses of the excitation with and without the inhibiting influence of the ego. Further, it is argued that the principle of constancy makes itself redundant, to the extent that it opens up a psychological domain operating relatively independent of its biophysical basis, thus enabling its "auto-subtraction" from the psychological theory. Lastly, it is argued that the constitution of psychoanalysis is dependent on an "epistemological repression" of this principle, and that "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" may be understood as the return of the repressed principle of constancy.

Drawing upon Dana Birksted-Breen's work on temporality, and the contrast which she draws between linear, developmental time, seen as a series of unchanging moments, and bidirectional, process time, which is retranscribed again and again (Birksted-Breen [2003] 2016. "Time and the Apres-Coup." In The Work of Psychoanalysis, edited by D. Birksted-Breen, 139-157. London: Routledge.), the author considers the role of unchanging elements in mental life. She argues that these elements are a form of memorialization, which defends against loss. Incorporated throughout life, they have a core of concrete, sensory experience but evoke larger scenes that are not entirely sensory. The author explores the operation of two kinds of memorial tokens: screen memories, which remain inalterable, and recurrent dreams whose unchanging structure serves as a frame in which change can take place. In analysis, both of these preserve memories of the analytic process and re-evoke the presence of the analyst. Both are particularly prominent at termination, when they function both as markers of approaching termination and as defenses against the loss of the analyst. Two brief clinical examples from patients who are nearing termination Illustrate these points.

Countertransferential and other types of personal responses to candidates are inevitable among psychoanalytic educators, whether they be supervisors, progression advisors, the progression committee as a whole, or course instructors. Nonetheless many educators remain unaware of these phenomena - despite the robust literature on this subject in supervisors - perhaps because we do not like to think of ourselves as having potentially deleterious personal reactions to younger colleagues with whom we have significant and highly valued relationships. This paper emphasizes the role of such phenomena in progression advisors' deliberations about candidates' development, as well as in the committee as a whole - a subject not addressed in the literature. Especially when unrecognized such responses can compromise the checks and balances function of the progression committee and significantly diminish rich and effective dialogue with candidates about their development. Examples of the potential impact and more or less effective mitigation of such responses are presented. Ensuring that faculty members and candidates alike are familiar with the inevitability of these reactions, their multiple sources and manifestations in those involved in the work of progression enhances the possibility of developing strategies to address these reactions and reduce their effect.

This work seeks to examine two aspects of the passage from the somato-sensory function to the psyche, in an attempt to explore in greater detail the construction of mental representations. The first aspect is the primordial inscription, which ends in the formation of a pictogram. This is an attempt to represent the "thing". The relevance of this work stems from the fact that the number of patients with difficulties in representation is increasing in clinical work. The second aspect addressed is word representation, which is necessary for the expression of meanings and for the development of a signifying chain, an essential element in the establishment of mental representations. Two questions arose during the writing of this work. The first: What enables a word to be incorporated in the psychic apparatus, with the functions of denoting, expressing and performing, thus achieving its relational and representational potential? The second and more important question: What enables words to come together and form the most varied and complex thoughts?