Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2011, 56, 290–333
Panel: Archetypes and/or primal phantasies:
an encounter and a debate between
Freudian and Jungian analysts
Christian Gaillard, Paris; Alain Gibeault, Paris;
Joe Cambray, Providence, RI, USA;
Eduardo Gastelumendi, Lima; Verena Kast, Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract: These papers were presented at the 7th meeting between Freudian and Jungian
analysts held at the Montreal Congress of the International Association of Analytical
Psychology (IAAP) in August 2010. The introduction describes the history and themes
of previous meetings and discusses the choice of theme for the Montreal meeting. Both
primal phantasies and archetypes imply a structural approach to psychological function
but in different theoretical terms. These theoretical differences may also be emblematic
of clinical differences between a focus on the sexual aspects of infancy in the Freudian
tradition and a focus on ongoing emergence and transformation towards a goal of
self-becoming in the Jungian tradition. The discussion aimed to test these hypotheses
through the presentation of a single case history by Joseph Cambray (IAAP, USA),
followed by commentaries from Eduardo Gastelumendi (IPA, Peru) and Verena Kast
(IAAP, Switzerland).
Key words: Freudian and Jungian analysts, theoretical differences, IAAP, IPA
Introduction
Christian Gaillard & Alain Gibeault
The meeting between Freudian and Jungian analysts held during the last international Congress of the International Association of Analytical Psychology
(IAAP) in Montreal is part of a now well-established series of discussions
between the IAAP and the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). The
first meeting of this type was organized by Alain Gibeault and Christian Gaillard
during the IPA congress of New Orleans in Spring 2004, just 90 years after the
split between Freud and Jung in 1914. This congress provided an opportunity
to resume exchanges between Freudians and Jungians, to evaluate the effects of
that split as reflected in the practice of psychoanalysis and to contemplate the
resumption of a dialogue between our international associations. Since 2004
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2011, The Society of Analytical Psychology
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Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 291
these scientific exchanges have been organized regularly during the IPA and
IAAP international congresses and have contributed to discovering that over
and beyond our divergences, there are many convergences between Freudians
and Jungians.
The first panel organized during the IPA New Orleans Congress, like the
others that followed from it, was devoted to one of the main issues common
to both groups yet one which continues to prove divisive: our respective
theoretical and clinical approaches to the work of symbolization. The Freudian
analysts who took part in that panel were Svi Lothane (American Psychoanalytic
Association, IPA), Alain Gibeault and Marcio de Freitas Giovanetti (Brazilian
Psychoanalytic Society of Sao Paulo, IPA); the Jungian analysts were Murray
Stein (then member of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, IAAP) and
Christian Gaillard, with whom Alain Gibeault has been working since then in
the organization of the subsequent meetings.
In that same year 2004, there was another meeting for an in-depth discussion
of these issues at a Freud/Jung panel during the IAAP Congress in Barcelona.
The theme of the panel was Symbolic life in clinical practice and in Elizabeth
Marton’s film ‘My name was Sabina Spielrein’. In addition to Christian Gaillard
and Alain Gibeault, Gert Sauer (Association of Graduate Analytical Psychologists of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, IAAP), Jean Kirsch (C. G. Jung
Institute of San Francisco, IAAP), Marcio de Freitas Giovanetti and Monique
Gibeault (Paris Psychoanalytical Society, IPA) took part in that meeting.
We continued to work along these lines the following year at the 2005 IPA
Congress in Rio de Janeiro, on the topic of trauma and symbolization. The
Freudian analysts who took part in those discussions were Marcio de Freitas
Giovanetti, Sonia Abadi (Argentine Psychoanalytic Association, IPA) and Alain
Gibeault, while the Jungian analysts were John Beebe (C. G. Jung Institute of
San Francisco, IAAP) and Christian Gaillard.
2007 saw our fourth meeting, this time in Berlin, where the IPA Congress
took place. On that occasion we did some work on another issue of crucial
significance for all of us: The present-day implications of the attitudes of
Freud and the Freudians and of Jung and the Jungians respectively in the
1930s, confronted with the rise of Nazism in Germany and in other European
countries. We invited a German Jungian analyst, Jörg Rasche (Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Analytische Psychologie, IAAP), and an Austrian Freudian
analyst, Thomas Aichhorn (Österreichische Gesellschaft für Psychologie, IPA),
to share with us their analyses of the events of that time and the reflections to
which they have given rise in those countries and in our international groups.
Our idea was to initiate a frank and open discussion which, ideally, would
not be distorted by prejudice or projection. A frank, detailed, and constructive
dialogue with a large number of participants followed on from the reports of
these two analysts.
The fifth such meeting also took place in 2007, this time during the
IAAP Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. On that occasion, we discussed
another set of issues of interest to both parties: The questions arising from
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C. Gaillard, A. Gibeault, J. Cambray, E. Gastelumendi, V. Kast
the continuing enigmas posed by prehistoric art. We invited the well-known
paleoanthropologist, David Lewis-Williams, professor at the Rock Art Research
Institute of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, to tell us more
about his research work and the sometimes animated debates that his ideas
about the shamanistic origin of prehistoric art have stirred up. Two analysts
joined Christian Gaillard and Alain Gibeault and shared with them their
own points of view on the subject: Sally Weintrobe (British Psychoanalytical
Society, IPA) and Peter Amman (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Analytische
Psychologie, IAAP).
The following panel was held at the IPA Chicago Congress in 2009
on the theme ‘Freudian and Jungian clinical approaches: convergences and
divergences’. That panel was co-chaired by Christian Gaillard and Alain
Gibeault, who had the task of recalling the continuity of our theoretical and
clinical exchanges. The format which was proposed was to have both a Jungian
and a Freudian analyst present a clinical case which was discussed by a colleague
of a different approach. Hester McFarland Solomon (British Association of
Psychotherapists, Jungian Section, IAAP) presented clinical material which
illustrated how a contemporary Jungian clinician thinks about the dynamics of
the Self in transformation in ‘As if’ personalities; her presentation was discussed
by a Freudian analyst, Steven Ellman (Institute of Psychoanalytic Training
and Research, IPA), who stressed the convergences that exist between Jungian
and Freudian analysts. Silvia Flechner, from the Uruguayan Psychoanalytical
Association, IPA, presented the difficult case of an adolescent at risk which
was a challenge for the analyst. Her case material was discussed by Andrew
Samuels (Society of Analytical Psychology, IAAP) which showed again how
Freudian and Jungian analysts could be very close in their understanding of
clinical material and in their clinical practice.
The panel held in August 2010 at the Montreal IAAP Congress was therefore
the seventh encounter between Jungian and Freudian analysts. It was devoted
to an essential theme, an issue that appears to us to be quite crucial in the
discussion of the convergences and differences that are a feature of our respective
approaches, according to whether the analyst identifies with the Freudian or
with the Jungian tradition and perspective: we had to consider Our theoretical
thinking and clinical practice in terms of ‘primal phantasies’, on the one hand,
and ‘archetypes’, on the other.
The question of primal phantasies and archetypes appears altogether crucial
because it is, in our view, an excellent example of the similarities between
our respective approaches. Indeed, we could say that for either a Freudian
or a Jungian analyst, it bespeaks a structural approach to psychological
functioning, in particular where the formation of certain recurrent and typical
representations is concerned. Both Freudian and Jungian analysts clearly deal
with the formation of such representations, but they generally do so on different
theoretical terms, which thus require to be more explicitly considered and
discussed.
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 293
In addition, from a more practical point of view, that very question of primal
phantasies and archetypes can also be emblematic of our differences, if not our
divergences, with regard to the orientation of our clinical attention in the dayto-day activity of our clinical practice. In the Freudian tradition, that attention
may focus on infancy, on the sources of our mental functioning, particularly as
regards its sexual dimension from the earliest stages of life. However, looking
at it from a more prospective attitude, which is one of the major features
of a Jungian approach, the focus may be on the ongoing emergence and
transformation of this functioning, originating and progressing moment by
moment, with the goal of self-becoming, in the course of the analysand-analyst
relationship.
These are at least a few of the hypotheses about what, in our view, we have in
common and what differentiates us, that we have submitted for discussion by
our fellow panelists. In addition, we felt that it was important for this discussion
to be primarily clinical, evoked and sustained through the presentation of a
single case, a single case history, which each of us could approach from the
standpoint of his or her own experience and theoretical references, in the wake
of Jung and Freud, four or five generations after them.
Our colleague Joe Cambray, from the New England Society of Jungian
Analysts and the Jungian Psychoanalytic Society, NY, IAAP, generously
accepted to present a case taken from his own clinical practice. His presentation
was discussed in Montreal by Eduardo Gastelumendi, from the Peru Psychoanalytic Society, IPA, and Verena Kast, from the Schweizerische Gesellchaft für
Analytische Psychologie, IAAP, with some very rich and diverse contributions
to the debate coming from the large audience that attended the panel.
The discussion is followed by a thematic dialogue between both of us, which,
we hope, may also open the way in future for other encounters of this type about
our respective theoretical assumptions and clinical experience of the analytical
process.
TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT
Ces articles constituent des exposés présentés lors de la 7ème rencontre entre analystes
freudiens et jungiens en août 2010 à Montréal, au Congrès de l’IAAP. L’introduction
esquisse l’histoire et les thèmes des rencontres précédentes et argumente le choix du
thème retenu pour la rencontre de Montréal: Les fantasmes originaires et les archétypes
supposent une approche structurelle du fonctionnement psychique, dont les termes
théoriques diffèrent cependant. Ces différences théoriques sont sans doute également
emblématiques de différences cliniques entre une approche centrée sur les aspects sexuels
de la petite enfance, dans la tradition freudienne, et une approche attentive à l’émergence
et à la transformation visant au devenir-soi, dans la tradition jungienne. La discussion a
eu pour objectif de tester ces hypothèses à travers la présentation d’un cas clinique par
Joseph Cambray (IAAP, USA), suivie des commentaires d’ Eduardo Gastelumendi (IPA,
Pérou) et de Verena Kast (IAAP, Suisse).
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C. Gaillard, A. Gibeault, J. Cambray, E. Gastelumendi, V. Kast
Diese Beiträge wurden beim siebten Treffen zwischen freudianischen und jungianischen
Analytikern während des Kongresses der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Analytische
Psychologie (IAAP) im August 2010 in Montreal vorgetragen. Die Einführung beschreibt
die Geschichte und nennt die Themen vorangegangener Treffen und erläutert die
Themenwahl für die Begegnung in Montreal. Beide, Primäre Phantasien und Archetypen,
implizieren eine strukturelle Herangehensweise an die psychische Funktion, jedoch in
unterschiedlicher Terminologie. Diese theoretischen Differenzen können gleichzeitig als
sinnbildlich für klinische Unterschiedlichkeiten zwischen einem Fokus auf sexuellen
Aspekten des Frühkindlichen in freudscher Tradition und der Akzentuierung des
immerwährenden Auftauchens und der Transformation auf das Ziel der Selbstwerdung
hin in jungscher Traditionhin gesehen werden. Die Diskussion zielte darauf ab, diese
Hypothesen anhand der Darstellung eines Einzelfalles durch Joseph Cambray (IAAP,
USA), gefolgt von Kommentaren von Eduardo Gastelumendi (IPA, Peru) und Verena
Kast (IAAP, Schweiz), zu überprüfen.
Questi lavori vennero presentati al 7th incontro tra analisti freudiani e junghiani tenutosi
al Congresso di Montreal dell’Associazione Internazionale di Psicologia Analitica (IAAP)
nell’agosto del 2010. L’introduzione descrive la storia e i temi degli incontri precedenti
e discute la scelta del tema per l’incontro di Montreal. Sia le fantasie primarie
che gli archetipi implicano un approccio strutturale alla funzione psicologica, ma in
termini teorici diversi.Queste differenze teoriche possono anche essere emblematiche
di differenze cliniche tra un focus sugli aspetti sessuali dell’infanzia nella tradizione
freudiana e un focus su un divenire emergente e la trasformazione verso la meta del
divenire se stessi nella tradizione junghiana. La discussione aveva lo scopo di provare
queste ipotesi attraverso la presentazione di un unico caso da parte di Joseph Cambray
(IAAP,USA), seguito dai commenti di Eduardo Gastelumendi (IPA, Perù) e Verena Kast
(IAAP, Switzerland).
Зti statьi byli predstavleny na 7 vstreqe meжdu fredisckimi i ngianskimi analitikami na Monrealьskom kongresse Meжdunarodno Associacii
Analitiqesko Psihologii (IAAP) v avguste 2010. Vvedenie opisyvaet
istori i temy predyduwih vstreq i obsuжdaet vybor temy na Monrealьskom sobranii. Kak perviqnye fantazii, tak i arhetipy predpolagat naliqie strukturnogo podhoda k psihologiqesko funkcii, odnako
v raznyh teoretiqeskih terminah. Зti teoretiqeskie razliqi mogut statь
зmblematiqnymi dl kliniqeskih razliqi meжdu fokusom na seksualьnye
mladenqeskie aspekty vo frediscko tradicii i fokusom na postonnoe
provlenie i transformaci na puti k samostanovleni v tradicii ngiansko. Obsuжdenie zadavalosь celь proveritь зti gipotezy na primere
sluqa iz praktiki, predstavlennogo Dжozefom Kзmbreem (IAAP, SXA) i
prokommentirovannogo Зduardo Ǵastelumendi (IPA, Peru) i Vereno Kast
(IAAP, Xvecari).
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 295
Estos documentos fueron presentados en la 7 a reunión entre los analistas freudianos y
de Jung llevada a cabo en el Congreso de Montreal de la Asociación Internacional de
Psicologı́a Analı́tica (IAAP) en agosto de 2010. La introducción describe la historia y
los temas de las reuniones anteriores y se analiza la elección del tema de la reunión de
Montreal. Ambas fantası́as primarias y arquetipos implican un enfoque estructural de
la función psicológica, pero en diferentes términos teóricos. Estas diferencias teóricas
también puede ser emblemática de las diferencias clı́nicas entre un enfoque en los aspectos
sexuales de la infancia en la tradición freudiana y un enfoque sobre la emergencia en
curso y la transformación hacia una meta de la venir a ser en la tradición junguiana.
El debate tuvo como objetivo probar estas hipótesis a través de la presentación de una
historia clı́nica única por Joseph Cambray (IAAP, EE.UU.), seguida de comentarios de
Eduardo Gastelumendi (IPA, Perú) y Verena Kast (IAAP, Suiza).
Moments of complexity and enigmatic action:
a Jungian view of the therapeutic field
Joseph Cambray
Abstract: In presenting clinical case material for a panel on archetypes and/or primal
phantasies an initial discussion of archetypes as emergent phenomena organizing
‘moments of complexity’ is given1 . The relationship of such moments to ‘moments
of meeting’ as developed by the Boston Change Process Study Group is commented
on and explored within the context of the case. A condensed report of a multi-year
analytic treatment of a bipolar patient having a severe trauma history is offered for
discussion. Several unusual, enigmatic events are detailed to illustrate the occurrence
of moments of complexity. Dreams highlighting psychological transformation stemming
from a changing relationship to emerging archetypal material related to a psychotic
process in the patient are offered to further detailed moments of complexity.
Key words: archetypal, emergence, moment of complexity, moment of meeting,
numinous
Jung’s intersubjective model
Throughout his writings, Jung’s discussions of clinical matters contain an
intersubjective thread that readily lends itself to contemporary considerations
across schools of analysis. From the 1930s on, Jung increasingly attended to
the interactive field engendered between therapeutic partners. His theories of
therapeutic action drew on multiple sources, as diverse as cultural anthropology,
the history of symbolism, especially of alchemy, as well as modern physics,
through his friendships, especially with Einstein and Pauli. Thus, for example,
in a supervisory letter to James Kirsch who was asking advice about an explicit
transference dream of one of his patients, Jung commented:
With regard to your patient, it is quite correct that her dreams are occasioned by you
. . .In the deepest sense we all dream not out of ourselves but out of what lies between
us and the other.
(Jung 1973, p. 172; 29 September 1934)
This was more fully developed in his abstract, symbolically dense monograph,
The Psychology of the Transference, first published in 1946. The dyadic relationship with multiple channels of communication, including the intrapsychic,
1
This theoretical discussion has been considerably expanded for publication. The commentaries
therefore refer mainly to the case presentation of ‘Melanie’.
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 297
was given form together with detailed discussion of the archetypal basis for this
model. The therapeutic couple is seen to become joined in entanglements that
can lead to the emergence of a new element, the analytic third, often appearing
in symbolic form, such as in a linking dream. Attending to the personal and the
archetypal aspects of this third as it plays through the therapeutic field can lead
to transformative encounters, not only between the individuals in the dyad but
also within each partner. As I’ve discussed elsewhere (2004), the methodology
Jung used to explore the analytic third can be formulated in general systems
theory as the means to detect and engage emergent properties of complex
adaptive systems, especially when the interactive field is undergoing a phase
transition or significant shift of states, as during a psychic reorganization arising
in the therapeutic encounter. The appearance of a dynamic third then is often
indicative of increasing interactional complexity, itself a signal of developmental
possibilities seeking expression.
One indicator of such a field being activated, especially in long term analytic
work which I’ve noticed over the years, has been the way essential features of
a dream often enter the therapeutic process even before the dream has been
explicitly told to the therapist. Not infrequently a patient will be discussing a
dilemma with considerable affective charge, which activates a reverie process in
me and leads to an exploratory comment. This in turn brings us, the therapeutic
dyad, into the orbit of the unarticulated dream and often serves as its point of
entry into the process, at times with a comment from the patient such as ‘that
reminds me of a dream I recently had. . .’. The clinical use of the therapist’s
reverie can be a valuable intuitive tool for exploring what is emerging in the
interactive field as some Jungians have been discussing since the 1960s in terms
of the technique of ‘active imagination’; more recently, some psychoanalysts,
in particular Thomas Odgen, have been extending the use of the therapist’s
seemingly mundane reveries as a guide to insight on the state of the field.
Field theory
Before proceeding to an updated version of this model, I would like to provide
a thumbnail historical background to Jung’s use of field theory. He was most
likely introduced to the importance of modern field theory by Albert Einstein,
who was a house guest of Jung’s several times in the years between his
publication of the special and the general theories of relativity. Jung commented
on this in a 1953 letter: ‘It was Einstein who first started me off thinking about
a possible relativity of time as well as space, and their psychic conditionality’
(Jung 1975, p. 109). Einstein was of course the greatest field theorist of the 20th
century, if not of all time. His theories of relativistic fields were themselves developments of classical field theories of science first articulated in the 19th century
in attempts to study and then link electric and magnetic properties of matter
and light. These began in 1820 with serendipitous observations by Hans
Christian Orsted on how an electric current could deflect a nearby magnetic
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compass. Michael Faraday greatly expanded these observations experimentally
and proposed the first field theory in 1845 to explain electrical and magnetic
phenomena more generally. In the process he rejected Newton’s idea of space as
wholly empty; instead he saw how lines of force described a field which could
carry light and extended this to an account of gravitation thereby overcoming
Newton’s mysterious and troublesome ‘action at a distance’ view of gravity.
Faraday subsequently began a correspondence with a young James Clerk
Maxwell who from 1862–65 worked out a complete, rigorous mathematical
expression for the electromagnetic field, not only providing the equations that
unify electric and magnetic phenomena but also verified that light was a form
of electromagnetic radiation with a spectral range extending far beyond visible
light in both directions (which Jung was to borrow in metaphoric descriptions
of archetypes, having both infra-red, i.e., somatic, and ultra-violet, i.e., spiritual,
aspects). Einstein then radically revised Maxwell’s classical field equations into
the relativistic field theory of 20th century physics. (For more details of this
history see chapter two of my book on synchronicity [Cambray 2009].)
The initial pathway for the importation of these ideas into psychology comes
via Williams James. By 1875 James was known to have been carefully reading
the latest in physics, which probably included Maxwell’s 1873 Treatise on
Electricity and Magnetism (Richardson 2006). He went on to speak of ‘the field
of consciousness’ and in The Varieties of Religious Experience, from his Gifford
Lectures of 1901–1902, he writes:
The expression ‘field of consciousness’ has but recently come into vogue in the
psychology books. Until quite lately the unit of mental life which figured most was the
single ‘idea’, supposed to be a definitely outlined thing. But at present psychologists
are tending, first, to admit that the actual unit is more probably the total mental
state, the entire wave of consciousness or field of objects present to thought at any
time; and, second, to see that it is impossible to outline this wave, this field, with
any definiteness. . .. The important fact which this ‘field’ formula commemorates is
the indetermination of the margin. Inattentively realized as is the matter which the
margin contains, it is nevertheless there, and helps both to guide our behavior and to
determine the next movement of our attention. It lies around us like a ‘magnetic field’,
inside of which our center of energy turns like a compass-needle, as the present phase
of consciousness alters into its successor.
(1961, pp. 190–91)
Thus James is articulating a holistic field theory of the mind with operations
outside consciousness, though it lacks a detailed articulation of dynamic
unconscious processes. Jung is known to have been influenced by James,
including having spent time with him when he was a guest along with Freud at
Clark University’s twentieth anniversary celebration in 1909. In fact Jung quotes
from this same material in his essay ‘On the nature of the psyche’ (see 1954,
para. 382, n. 47). Thus, James is clearly a major source for Jung’s formulation
of a field model.
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 299
A contemporary model of therapeutic action in analytical psychology
Descriptions of the therapeutic process occurring in an interactive or intersubjective field have received much interest in recent decades. Psychoanalysts
from various camps have debated the merits and difficulties with relational,
interpersonal and intersubjectivist points of view. Some parallels with Jung’s
views can readily be found in these discussions, though are rarely made explicit.
While the recent discussions draw upon more fully elaborated theories and are
exemplified with greater clinical details, they are generally missing the broader,
collective dimensions of Jung’s theory. Thus, Thomas Ogden’s idea of a coconstructed analytic third emerging in the therapeutic process (Ogden 1997)
while having many resonances to Jung’s field model, does not include reflections
on the dyad’s embeddedness within cultural or social milieus beyond the overt
contents of the sessions, nor an acknowledgement of potential archetypal
patterns. Alternatively we could say that recent research on how individuals are
influenced by larger social networks has not yet been integrated into most field
models. Similarly, some contemporary Kleinian and Bionian analysts have also
taken up a field model with enthusiasm as in the edited collection, The Analytic
Field: A Clinical Concept, by Antonio Ferro and Roberto Basile (2009). The
clinical use to which they and their authors put the bipersonal field model
is impressive, though theoretically they only trace the field concept back to
Madeleine and Willy Baranger, psychoanalysts from Latin America, without
reference to the origins of the idea in 19th century science and thereby miss the
opportunity to locate the model within the larger multidisciplinary discussions
that have been emerging in the last decade.
Of particular relevance for my topic have been the contributions from
the Boston Change Process Study Group, with their descriptions of the
implicit domain of relational knowledge. In their views developed from microanalysis of therapeutic encounters, progressing from ‘present moments’, of
being present to the lived subjective experience of a moment, to affectively
charged ‘now moments’, which when taken up therapeutically can lead to a
unique, transformative ‘moment of meeting’ (Stern 2004). The latter is marked
by a sudden qualitative change in the way the therapy partners experience one
another in the implicit relational domain. Now moments tend to occur ‘when the
traditional therapeutic frame risks being, or is, or should be, broken’ and passes
through ‘an unknown and unexpected intersubjective space’ which as noted can
lead to a ‘moment of meeting’ (Stern et. al, 1998, p. 912). Additionally a now
moment is understood by the group as being ‘a potential emergent property of
a complex dynamic system’ (ibid.) which they related to the Greek concept of
kairos (ibid. p. 911) a seizing of the right moment, ideas I shall return to shortly.
Thus therapeutic action pivots on the responses to such charged moments,
which when skilfully handled can foster increasing psychological complexity
and richness in the dyad. The Boston group’s attention focuses on the experience
of the therapeutic partners, acknowledging the asymmetries involved in the
mutual process of transformation occurring within the intersubjective matrix.
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Recently George Hogenson has written a series foundational papers (2005,
2007, 2009) in which he has been considering the notion of symbolic density
in relation to psychological transformation and has applied this idea to
synchronicity constructing a potential bridge to clinical studies involving
moments of meeting. I would like to expand on this cluster of ideas and shift
focus onto transformations of and within the field itself; i.e., I will take the field
as an analytic object for exploration as this can, I believe, provide a unique
perspective on the more enigmatic aspects of the therapeutic process.
While the recent interest in the study of emergent properties of complex
adaptive systems has been a product of scientific research in the later portion
of the 20th century, most notably from the Santa Fe institute, there had been
an early wave of publications on emergent phenomena at the end of the 19th
and into the first several decades of the 20th century. These papers, however,
were speculative as the computational power needed to study such systems
was more than 60 years in the future. Thus, the American developmentalist
James Mark Baldwin wrote a series of articles in the 1890s on the interactions
between culture, or learned behaviour, and evolutionary processes. These have
been rediscovered with much acclaim in the last two decades, with articles
and books now written on the ‘Baldwin effect’. His descriptions of these
interactions indicate a key role for emergent properties, those that arise out of
the interactions between components in a system but cannot be reduced to these,
such as the way the experience of mind arises out of our neurophysiology. These
ideas were elaborated on by Baldwin’s friend and colleague, the British scientistpsychologist Conway Lloyd Morgan. In fact, Morgan’s Gifford lectures in
1921–22 were entitled Emergent Evolution. C. G. Jung was familiar with
Morgan’s writings, incorporating the example of the leaf cutting ant from
Morgan’s Habit and Instinct to demonstrate how an instinct ‘[a]lways. . .fulfils
an image and the image has fixed qualities. . ..[s]uch an image is an a priori type’
(1954, para. 398, and n. 112). He continued on to note ‘the image represents
the meaning of the instinct’ (ibid.) and thus building this biological concept into
his archetypal theory thereby providing it surreptitiously with an emergentist
core as detailed by Hogenson in 2001.
Extending such revisions by employing complexity theory, especially as
developed at the Santa Fe Institute, a number of contemporary Jungians have
been drawing out modern emergentist elements implicit in Jung’s theories.
Among the benefits of this approach has been the opportunity to evaluate
and revise these theories in the light of contemporary neuroscience, biology and
attachment research, to good effect. Archetypes are themselves seen as emergent
properties in the field of body-mind, environment (natural and cultural) and
narrative; they are also being reconsidered as ‘epigenetic rules’ which would
operate at the core of multi-layered, nested complex systems.
My own work has involved a re-examination of Jung’s synchronicity hypothesis with these tools. By reassessing the basis for his theory in terms of complexity
and emergence, much of the anomalous phenomena that Jung was trying
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 301
to comprehend through this hypothesis can be better described as emergent
phenomena in systems undergoing self-organization. However, this is not meant
to identify synchronicity with emergent phenomena completely. It would no
longer be wholly surprising to find that there are actually a wide variety
of phenomena classified as synchronicities; the notion might be productively
analysed into various categories, some emergent, while others remain acausal
even from a contemporary perspective (exactly what constitutes acausality may
be a shifting horizon). Further, some of these phenomena can also be formulated
as transformations of the interactive field involving enigmatic communications.
Similarly a reexamination of empathic communication in therapy in terms of
interactive fields suggests significant self-organizing properties are operative in
which mirror neurons may serve as field resonators.
The intensity of transformations of the field can be quite variable: from
sudden reorganization with high intensity, as in phase transitions associated
with moments of meetings, to slow changes that build over extended periods
of time through series of micro-shifts, as from disruptions and repairs that
have a cumulative, mutative impact. However, from the perspective of where
a treatment begins there will be a feeling of enigma whenever the engagement
leads to a thorough-going transformation with emergent properties; emergence
is inexplicable from the viewpoint of contributors/agents but only makes sense
in terms of the whole, which can be most easily described in field terms—in
therapy this need not just be dyadic, it can be intrapsychic, as when parts of the
personality are reorganized into a more integrated whole. Emergence in complex
systems is known to most readily occur at the edge of order and chaos; too much
order leads to rigidity, while too much chaos is dissolutive. Therapeutic action
designed to foster emergence would then of course be best oriented toward
this edge, not as a fixed goal but as a rudder to guide the therapeutic couple.
More generally, I would like to suggest the use of the phrase ‘the moment of
complexity’, to capture the orienting possibilities of the field itself. The term is
borrowed from the philosopher of religions and cultural critic, Mark C. Taylor,
who has a (2001) book so titled.
Taylor was looking at the emergence of network culture, noting the increasing
rate of change, i.e., acceleration of transformations being engendered by the
expansion of connections between things (people, information, disciplines, etc.).
Several of his definitions of the moment of complexity may help clarify this: it is
‘ “the tipping point” where more is different’ (p. 5); ‘[it] is the point at which selforganizing systems emerge to create new patterns of coherence and structures
of relation’ (p. 24). These moments are intimately linked with moments of
decision when ‘some possibilities are realized and others are cut off’ (p. 149).
As we make choices in these key moments, for example in therapeutic work,
whether to intervene overtly or not, and if so, how, at just this moment (i.e., with
awareness of kairos as the psychological quality of the moment), we alter the
flow of the field. Each potential choice will lead to alternative pathways, some
holding greater richness, others truncating the evolving complexity. While we
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cannot know with certainty which paths are optimum for any given moment
in therapy, attending to intuitions about the quality and flow of complexity
can provide some guidance. Moments of complexity are moments in which
linear time is resisted; instead as systems self-organize a multiplex of temporal
possibilities can be encountered. Such moments often occur at the onset of a
transference / countertransference enactment in therapy; or when something
new is about to emerge beyond the transference / countertransference field;
similarly they occur often in the supervisory encounter when a ‘parallel process’
is at play. Let’s now turn to a clinical example.
The case of ‘Melanie’
On a spring day while having lunch with a psychiatrist colleague, we were
interrupted by a call from the police. They were trying to help locate a patient
of my colleague who had disappeared and, as I discovered, was feared to be in
the midst of a psychotic episode. Thus I was unexpectedly given some details
of the case of a young woman who had suddenly vanished and so I tried to
help my colleague reflect on the dynamics operating in this upsetting situation.
Later that year, in the autumn, I received a call from this colleague explaining
that the patient had eventually returned to the area but after several months
decided to terminate treatment (medications and psychotherapy) because she
felt her medications had not been adequately monitored and so had been a major
factor in her psychotic break. I was then asked if I would be willing to take the
patient for psychotherapy. Since both parties had agreed that termination was
appropriate I agreed to an evaluation interview, if the patient would contact
me. The patient was not told of my prior knowledge of her case.
Initially Melanie presented as an attractive, petite woman, groggy from a
host of psychotropic medications, and anxious about her chances of recovery.
The break had occurred over the Easter weekend and she had spent several
months in a distant hospital, with what today would be termed a Bipolar I
diagnosis. In her late 30s at the time, she was single and without children.
As a university professor Melanie was worried about her ability to continue
doing research given her decreased capacities for attention and concentration;
she was struggling desperately to regain her higher cognitive functions. For
the time being she had restricted her professional activities to teaching which
felt manageable despite occasional intrusions of delusional thoughts and quick
flashes of hallucinatory activity.
As a prerequisite for working with Melanie psychiatric care was essential.
In fact, she had already procured another psychiatrist who worked at a local
hospital with admitting privileges. She was to see him on a bi-weekly basis. I
requested permission to contact him as needed, especially should I have any
concerns about her mental status. She expressed relief with my conditions,
and in fact, her self-monitoring was so scrupulous that when she did begin to
decompensate, she was able to quickly report this to me as well as seeking out
her psychiatrist. She was understandably terrified of having another psychotic
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 303
episode, while I felt a parallel concern about treating someone in her condition
in a private practice setting.
Silently, I wondered about the connections between us that appeared to have
been operating at the time of her break. Retrospectively, I could now see the
lunch as having held a moment of complexity, in which my future patient and I
were being brought into relationship through a lapse (in therapeutic oversight)
and a disappearance; hence, our initial contact was made through negation
rather than meeting. Nevertheless, a powerful psychological field had been
constellated between us prior to any direct encounter. This field was to become
affectively charged at key moments both during the therapy and as I have
discovered, long after it formally ended. Experiences of this sort have led me to
subsume the notion of a moment of meeting into the broader category of a moment of complexity which has an irreducible element of serendipity associated
with it, often coming with the feeling of an enigma, something not emphasized in
most discussions of moments of meeting. In the present case this also helped me
to contain my own countertransferential anxieties about working with Melanie.
In the initial phase of our work together we explored Melanie’s family history;
the therapeutic focus was on establishing basic trust: she asked to tape record
the sessions ostensibly to capture the details but also scanning for potential
abandonments—I agreed to her request and the taping persisted for about 3
months until we could shift from a recitation of historical facts to more direct
engagement. Melanie’s early life was marked by trauma and loss. Her father
died when she was 3 years old; sadly she discovered the body. She then had a
nanny for about a year after this, which fortunately provided her with some
much needed care and affection. This woman was black, whereas Melanie was
white; the significance of this will become clearer when we hear her dreams.
Later she endured sexual abuse while in the care of a neighbour and had to
contend with erratic, at times psychotic behaviours in her mother. A keen
intellect was one of her saving graces as it brought her academic acclaim and
positive attention, though in a limited arena. Gradually she revealed that she
had had a previous psychotic episode about 8 years earlier; both that break and
the more recent one were precipitated by the loss of a love relationship with a
man. Thus the slow, cautious approach we pursued was allowing her to move
into more current feeling states with me; nevertheless the interactive field was
constrained and subdued during this phase.
As trust built between us through establishing constancy of psychological
contact and metabolizing her shame reactions especially with regards to her psychotic episodes, Melanie risked discussing some of the details of her delusions
during these episodes. The quality of the field changed markedly, becoming
charged and somewhat erratic, though her overt behaviours remained subdued.
Soon she brought in dreams spontaneously and the intensity of psychological
work accelerated. A figure she called ‘the beautiful woman dressed in black’
appeared in several dreams. Manifesting in various guises this figure was to become a potent entity in the analysis—a composite of memory traces of the black
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nanny who cared for her in her childhood despair, mingled with black moods of
grief and depression, clothed in the garb of mourning, yet holding the potential
for transformation. Although this figure included manic defences against grief,
she also offered genuine hope of establishing a more secure sense of self.
Through acknowledging this beautiful feminine figure within her, we moved
into a ‘now moment’ where Melanie asked me, in what felt to be a more authentic voice than I previously had heard from her, if I could genuinely see this figure
in her. Although a complex and delicate question, laden with transferential
significance, I felt the most important thing was to validate what was occurring
and not to offer an interpretation. I suggested the dream figure seemed to be both
a true aspect of herself, what could come out of the work on her suffering, and
a way for us to value that potential in our interactions, that such a possibility
was indeed a thing of beauty. With my affirmation Melanie proceeded to give
the first detailed account of the hallucinations she experienced during her recent
psychotic episode—they were truly terrifying, filled with devouring demons of
madness and failed attempts at salvation. The woman in black then emerged as
an image symbolizing a holding and transformative presence for what was to
unfold; she embodied this moment of meeting between us.
Together we noted parallels between the cyclical extremes of her bipolar
swings and seasonally based archetypal events. Springtime with Easter festivals
was resonant with death and rebirth myths, most directly available to her
through the Christ story. The wish to redeem others, and herself, had led her
to an inflationary identification with a saviour; the influx of numinous psychic
energy unleashed in her then crescendoed into an unsustainable manic crisis.
This was followed by the collapse of her ability to contain the affect. No longer
able to function in the mundane world, Melanie had plunged into a psychotic
depression. Contra Jung at this point, the encounter with the numinous was
disintegrative not therapeutic2 —I would say that there was not yet sufficient
psychological complexity available to employ this energy in the service of
enhancing self-organization.
On one occasion Melanie spoke of the demons as being like bugs, or
cockroaches, and surely these contents and associated affects did drive her
2
Numinosity is enigmatic for ordinary consciousness. Jung went so far, in certain moments, as
to equate this with therapeutic action: ‘the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real
therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse
of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character (Jung 1973, Letters Vol. 1, p.
377; to P.W. Martin on 20 August 1945). This view is at the heart of a classical Jungian approach
and accords with much current interest regarding the role of spirituality in psychodynamic therapy.
However, it is important to also look at the date of this letter; it is highly significant, as it was
written within a fortnight of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, darkly
numinous events for many, raising the spectre of annihilation for a world already exhausted by
war. Jung has clearly been impacted, perhaps traumatized by these momentous events (in the 1957
interview by Richard Evans in the midst of the cold war, he comments, ‘The world hangs on a thin
thread, and that thread is the psyche of Man . . . There is no such thing in nature as an H-bomb – that
is all man’s doing. We are the great danger. The psyche is the great danger’ (Jung 1977, pp. 303–4).
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 305
‘bugs’. However, they were not to be read as wholly destructive for on the
Easter morning exactly one year after the onset of her second break she had the
following dream:
I was in the beautiful woman’s home. She had wooden (plank) floors. We were lying
on the floor talking when I noticed a brown centipede circling us.
I asked her if I should kill it and she said, ‘No, it’s our friend’. We went on talking
until I noticed that it was quite close to me and it had something . . . She said, ‘This is
wonderful, he’s starting to trust you’.
He had turned darker and uglier. Then he came between us and crawled on my arm.
The beautiful woman said I was really lucky, ‘because look at what he can do’. With
that he clicked open an ornate box. He held it open for us to look. Inside the box were
incredibly beautiful jewels, bright shiny colours. I saw a red jewel, a huge ruby.
The beautiful woman said to me, ‘Whenever I can’t find something I go to him’. She
loved him.
In her associations she noted that the beautiful woman’s appearance now was
rather similar to her own, and that the wooden floors were reminiscent of
those in my office. The drama of revealing and engaging the madness was truly
entering the analytic space. Processing the dream was worrisome and deeply
troubling as this dream was a harbinger of an impending psychotic break.
While the analysis seemed to offer solid ground and a space where terrifying
internal experiences could be explored and understood, it remained to be seen
whether the jewels would become a psychological reality for her. Some solace
could be found in the beautiful woman serving as a companion and guide
helping us see that there was also something of value and meaning in the
frightening experiences. However, Melanie did suffer a third psychotic episode
about a month after this dream, but this time it was much less debilitating and
destructive than the previous two.
In my struggles with how to proceed during this difficult time, I came to
realize that there had been another moment of complexity captured in the
dream imagery. Following my curiosity in exploring the enigmatic figure of
the insect, and employing Jung’s method of amplification, applying relevant
cultural and historical analogies to unconscious imagery, I did some research
which included the following finding:
In Tahiti the two indigenous centipedes are regarded as shadows of the medicine gods,
and are never disturbed or killed. If one can be induced to crawl over a sick person,
that person will surely recover.
(Leach 1972, p. 206)
This might seem just a fortuitous coincidence of questionable relevance;
however, what strengthened my resolve to continue with the course we were
on, was the fact, wholly unknown to the patient, that my first wife’s family
was Tahitian (I kept this to myself until long after the treatment was over—by
20 years; I have written elsewhere about the issue of enactments in the use of
amplification [Cambray 2001]). Again, Melanie and I were profoundly linked
through a relational field in a moment of complexity involving a third person
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and outside awareness for either of us at the time of its occurrence. The enigma
of that moment, however, held the key to therapeutic action in Jung’s sense
that there was now a way of being in relation to the numinous that could foster
transformation. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to explore the rest of the work
we did on the dream but want to conclude the case with two brief dreams that
speak to the transformation itself.
As she rapidly recovered from the last break, Melanie reported that at the
onset of each of her last two psychotic episodes she had had dreams that were
close to being repetitive. At the time of the break that eventually brought her
into treatment with me she had dreamt:
A black fiery woman came up out of the earth; she watched me then walked on past
me, over to a hill to where people and children followed her. She was like a teacher.
Whereas this last time the dream was:
A black fiery woman comes up out of the molten ground. She walks behind me, as if
she is my shadow. I’m walking in stride with her.
In struggling to respond to the eruption of the psychotic process, to take it
‘in stride’, Melanie was no longer a passive victim but able to mobilize herself
(she actually took herself to the hospital, collapsing as soon as she stepped
on the grounds). She employed her new sense of agency to get into a more
viable relationship with the numinous energy of the emergent self. While the
effort required to accomplish this was enormous, Melanie’s active response,
positioning herself more favourably for what she was about to endure, bears
witness to the increased complexity of her psychological processing. I believe
this to be an outgrowth of the gradual integration of a series of moments of
complexity of varying intensity, even if not always consciously articulated.
Such moments, which often could not be readily accounted for by causal
mechanisms, manifested in her pressing need to be joined with a loving other, to
the point of unconscious fusion, or what I prefer to see as massive compensatory
attunements. There were a series of ‘now moments’ which led to moments
of meetings embedded in moments of complexity, which generally were not
made explicit but remained in the implicit domain between us, though certainly
riveting my attention. By my orienting towards and privileging the interactive
field in its enigmatic aspects, Melanie was able to use the therapy to learn to get
into a transformative relationship with what was emerging in the field and in
herself. To date, this has been the last psychotic break she has suffered in more
than 20 years. We were able to go past subsequent Easters without incident.
The latest development in this story came when I was first asked to give this
presentation. As I began to consider how I might address the topic of therapeutic
action, I found myself thinking back to Melanie’s case but as I had not asked for
permission to present her material, I felt I could not use it. Then about 6 weeks
later, I got a telephone call, seemingly out of the blue. Melanie was planning
a trip back east and wanted to see me for a single session—it had been more
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 307
than 15 years since we had last spoken. We did in fact meet and discuss her
current situation, but what she was really interested in hearing was how I had
managed to stay with her and keep her in treatment when she had the break
during the course of our work. I explained what I had learned about the dream
with the beautiful woman and the centipede and how that had impacted me.
She said she was grateful that I had not shared this at the time for it could easily
have been taken into her delusional system then, but that now it was helpful to
recognize that the deepest resource for her came from within her own psyche.
It seems that the field between us has not dissipated but continues to manifest
moments of complexity in unexpected ways.
Final reflection
To end I would like to briefly reflect on moments of complexity and analytic
boundaries. In my experience as an analyst, supervisor, and teacher, I’ve found
that such moments are not uncommon in cases where unconscious dynamics
have been significantly activated or constellated. These often occur at the
margins of, or outside our usual clinical boundaries as in the presented case.
The transgressive nature of unconscious processes to our normal, egoic sense of
time and causality can be made evident in moments of complexity. While such
breaches of our ordinary ways of experiencing the world challenge boundaries
and seemingly disrupt our attempts at neutrality, they are generally not based
in behavioural violations, nor are they reducible to enactments (albeit, as noted
above, enactments often have a core of complexity), but can be viewed as
challenges to expand our notion of boundaries so as not to rule out the impact
of unconscious processes. Moments of complexity therefore have the potential
to enlarge our view of analysis, helping to broaden but not degrade boundaries
while bringing us experientially into an encounter with the radical otherness
of the therapeutic field in which each of the partners may find themselves in
their own unique ways. Seeking to integrate these moments into our clinical
understanding of the way meaning is made and discovered may also encourage
us to incorporate their significance into our analytic attitude.
TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT
Cette présentation de matériel clinique lors d’un panel sur les archétypes et/ou
les fantasmes originaires, fournissent une première approche des archétypes comme
phénomènes émergents, organisant des « moments de complexité ». Le lien de ces
moments à des « moments de rencontre » tels qu’ils sont développés par le Boston
Change Process Study Group, est commenté et exploré dans le contexte de ce cas. Le
récit condensé du très long traitement analytique d’un patient bipolaire au lourd passé
traumatiqu est proposé à la discussion. Plusieurs événements inhabituels, énigmatiques,
sont détaillés afin d’illustrer l’apparition de moments de complexité. Des rêves mettant
en valeur la transformation psychique issue du changement de rapport au matériel
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C. Gaillard, A. Gibeault, J. Cambray, E. Gastelumendi, V. Kast
archétypique émergent, en rapport avec un processus psychotique chez le patient, sont
proposés pour détailler plus avant les moments de complexité.
Mit der Präsentation von klinischem Fallmaterial für eine Diskussionsrunde über
Archetypen und / oder Primäre Phantasien wird eine initiale Betrachtung der Archetypen
als etwas, gewisse auftauchende Phänomene in ‘Komplexmomenten’ Organisierendes
vorgestellt. Die Beziehung solcher Momente zu ‘Momenten der Begegnung’, wie sie
von der Boston Change Process Study Group entwickelt wurde, wird erläutert und im
Kontext des vorgestellten Falles untersucht. Die Zusammenfassung der mehrjährigen
analytischen Behandlung einer an einer bipolaren Störung erkrankten Patientin mit
einer schwer traumatisierenden Geschichte wird zur Diskussion gestellt. Mehrere
ungewöhnliche rätselhafte Ereignisse werden herausgehoben um das Auftreten der
Komplexmomente zu veranschaulichen. Träume, die seelischen Wandel beleuchten, der
sich von einer sich ändernden Beziehung zu auftauchendem archetypischen Material,
welches zu psychotischen Prozessen in der Patientin in Beziehung steht, herleitet, werden
als weitere Detaillierungen von Komplexmomenten angeführt.
Nel presentare materiale per un caso clinico in un panel sugli archetipi e/o sulle fantasie
primarie, viene fatta inizialmente un discussione sugli archetipi come fenomeni emergenti
che organizzano ‘momenti di complessità’. Viene commentata e esplorata nel contesto del
caso la relazione di tali momenti con i ‘momenti di incontro’ come sviluppati dal Boston
Change Process Study Group Viene portato alla discussione un resoconto sintetizzato
di un trattamento analitico di molti anni con un paziente bipolare che aveva una grave
storia traumatica. Per illustrare il verificarsi di momenti di complessità vengono riportati
in dettaglio vari eventi inusuali ed enigmatici.
V predstavlenii kliniqeskogo materiala sluqa na paneli po arhetipam i/ili perviqnym fantazim byla zadana diskussi ob arhetipah kak o provlwihs fenomenah, organizuwih «mgnoveni komleksnosti». Otnoxeni takih mgnoveni k «momentam vstreqi»—teme, razvivaemo Bostonsko uqebno gruppo «Processa peremen»—kommentiruts
i issleduts v kontekste sluqa. Sжaty otqet o mnogoletnem analitiqeskom leqenii bipolrnogo pacienta s serьezno travmatiqesko istorie byl predloжen dl obsuжdeni. Neskolьko neobyqnyh, zagadoqnyh
sobyti byli predstavleny v podrobnosth, qtoby proillstrirovatь
imevxie mesto «mgnoveni kompleksnosti». Snovideni, vysveqivawie
psihologiqesku transformaci, poroжdennu peremeno otnoxeni k
provivxemus arhetipiqeskomu materialu (otnosimomu k psihotiqeskomu
processu v paciente) byli predloжeny dl dalьnexego podrobnogo rassmotreni mgnoveni kompleksnosti.
En la presentación de material de casos clı́nicos para un panel sobre los arquetipos
y / o las fantası́as primarias emerge una discusión inicial de los arquetipos como
fenómenos emergentes en la organización de ‘momentos de la complejidad’. ‘Momentos
Panel: an encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts 309
de encuentro’. Se comenta y explora en el contexto del caso la relación de esos ‘momentos
de encuentro’ como el desarrollado por el Grupo de Estudio de los Procesos de Cambio
de Boston. Se ofrece para el debate el informe condensado de un tratamiento analı́tico de
varios años de un paciente bipolar con un historial de trauma severo. Se detallan varios
eventos inusuales y enigmáticos para ilustrar la aparición de momentos de complejidad.
Para detallar mejor la complejidad, se relatan sueños que indican la transformación
psicológica derivada de una relación cambiante con los nuevos materiales arquetı́picos,
estos surgen de las relaciones con el proceso psicótico del paciente.
References
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Comment on ‘the case of Melanie’
by Joseph Cambray
Eduardo Gastelumendi
Abstract: The discussion comments firstly on the role of synchronicity which seems
so natural and significant for Jungians but which Freudians would think no more than
interesting coincidences. This gives an idea of how different the two schools’ approach to
the psyche can be. Some theoretical elaboration is made regarding archetypes and primal
phantasies: primal phantasies are much related to sexuality, but sexuality understood as
intimately linked to the great mysteries of life. The discussion of the clinical work shows
more similarities than differences. This suggests that for both perspectives the clinical is
sovereign. As we know, respect and care for the patient’s evolution, true concern for the
patient and skilful use of technique remain the most important indicators of successful
therapeutic work in the different psychotherapeutic approaches.
Key words: archetypes, Freudian perspective, Jungian perspective, primal phantasies,
synchronicity
Joseph Cambray’s paper, with its concise prelude and very interesting clinical
material, is presented to discuss archetypes and primal phantasies. This paper
sets up a personal challenge for the discussion given its compelling qualities. The
richness in synchronistic events (both twenty years ago and now), the dreams
with strong, appealing imagery and ancestral (and interpersonal) connections,
as well as the mastery in Cambray’s clinical use of timing, silence, honesty and
respect for the patient, constitute a difficult start to confront styles and theories.
So my first emotions after reading the paper were of identification with the
author, surprise in face of the coincidences referred to in the paper and respect
for his analytic work. These emotions, of course, have to be put under control in
order to discuss his ideas from another point of view, that of a Freudian analyst.
From the start we see some differences between the way Cambray approaches
the patient and the circumstances around the contact with her, and what
an analyst trained in a Freudian institute (‘Freudian analyst’ from now on,
and of course making a gross generalization) would possibly do. Freudian
analysts wouldn’t give so much space to the synchronistic aspects that preceded
the encounter with the patient, or would just consider them an interesting
coincidence. Perhaps we would have considered it an amazing coincidence that
the patient re-appeared after so many years, just as the analyst’s mind was in
some way conflicted with the publication of a paper related to her treatment.
No more analytic thoughts would come, at least not during the session! In
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
311
spite of this difference, the analytical work wouldn’t be so different, especially
regarding the interpersonal relationship.
But let’s say some words about this difference. It becomes crucial when we
think and discuss the nature of psyche. For instance, Cambray’s introduction
of the concept of ‘moments of complexity’ in the analytic field (into which
the ‘moments of meeting’ are subsumed) allows the integration of archetypal
constellations, synchronistic phenomena and the therapeutic relationship with
the patient. A Freudian analyst, I believe, would consider only the last aspect:
the therapeutic relationship, not the archetypal constellations nor synchronicity.
I might have in mind instead, when thinking of the patient (not necessarily
during the session), primal phantasies, if it were relevant to the case. Freud’s
concept of primal phantasies arose in response to Jung’s collective unconscious
and the archetypes. Unlike the archetypes, which are numerous, primal
phantasies are just a few: the primal scene, seduction, castration, intra-uterine
life (Freud 1917). Considering the complexity of the psyche, archetypes and
primal phantasies must then refer to different phenomena, or to experiences
at different levels. Archetypes are like characters in a play; primal phantasies
are like literary genres3 , psychic structures that depend on the nature of primal
phantasy and that express themselves in unconscious phantasy life, symptoms,
in interpersonal relationships and in what we call fate.
Both concepts are supposed to be the basis of the phantasy life. Yet, primal
phantasies are related more to questions regarding origins: one’s own origin
(primal scene, our existence as a person), the dawning of sexuality (seduction),
the difference between the sexes (castration) and all of them articulated with the
Oedipus complex (the inclusion of the third person, the limits to our desires). As
we know, Freud never ceased to look for the ‘real facts’ on which the phantasies
had been built. So in the case of the primal phantasy of castration he believed
that actual castration of the sons by the Ur-father had taken place in ancient
times and that it remained in the archaic psyche transmitted epigenetically.
A similar belief can be found earlier from the period when Freud worked on
his theory of seduction (1895–1897). He considered that under the hysterical
symptoms lay a real, historic seduction. This was true in many cases. Of course,
what is understood now as seduction, especially after the scholarly papers from
Laplanche (1995) and Laplanche and Pontalis (1968) and other theoreticians,
does not refer necessarily to real physical seduction from one of the parents or
caregivers, though it can very well be.
So primal phantasies refer not only to the origins of the subject but also to
the mysteries of one’s own sexed body (male or female) and to our place in the
Oedipal triangle of civilization. It is this triangle, or triad, that can open our
path into the discussion of clinical material that Cambray presents.
3 As Ansermet and Magistretti (2004) say, ‘we might say that phantasy scenarios are like literary
genres: though they are limited in number, their contents are different and unique in each case’.
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Melanie makes her first and indirect appearance when the author and a friend,
the patient’s psychiatrist (and also therapist) at that time, were having lunch
together. Here we have three people. Around six months later, when Cambray
meets the patient personally, he very soon introduces another person, another
psychiatrist, in the relationship.
The clinical material and biographical data that appeared in the first
interviews show the complex and tragic upbringing of the patient. We are
given just flashes of what must have been a very difficult childhood. No wonder
basic trust is the first and main issue to be addressed in therapy. And here
we see once more, the need for the third, someone or something who could
mediate and mitigate the fear of symbiosis or of seduction (primal phantasy
at work), symbolically represented by the tape recorder. In the middle of this
chaos the black nanny appears as an ordering presence in her life, as it were, in
her dreams.
During the first months of therapy, confidence in the therapist and in the work
together is built. Two moments are especially meaningful. The first occurs when,
after the therapist acknowledges the beautiful feminine figure in the dreams of
Melanie as part of her, she asks him if he is being honest in saying that. Touché
Cambray! But then he responds as the real, reliable person within the therapist.
Touchée Melanie! We see truth (the healing experience) emerging from the
therapeutic relationship.
The second moment is when Cambray researches into the centipede dream to
amplify its content and then consciously decides to keep the information related
to his private life out of the therapeutic verbal communication. I believe this
voluntary silence is the expression of an authentic care for the patient’s process,
later confirmed by the patient. And it is this attitude that is facilitating for the
patient.
This is intuition. As Cambray says, ‘attending to intuitions about the quality
and flow of complexity can provide some guidance’ as to how and when to
intervene. Intuitions, as we know, are a blend of personal constitution, style
and knowledge at a given moment.
I imagine Freud wouldn’t have lost the opportunity of interpreting the ornate
box in Melanie’s dream clicked open by the centipede in terms of explicit
sexual phantasies, at least in 1901, when he was, understandably, more oriented
towards proving his theory than caring about building a reliable therapeutic
relationship. And I imagine Melanie leaving Freud’s therapy as Dora did.
If I were working with Melanie, I think I wouldn’t have made the amplifying
research on the centipede dream. I believe that doing so would be like taking
the archetypal path. Instead, the primal phantasies path instead would lead me
to emphasize the working through of the elements of seduction and confidence
in the analytic relationship, considering the images of the dream not only as
productions of the unconscious but mainly as a way of transforming the primal
phantasy at play at that moment between the two of us by analysing it in the
analytic relationship.
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
313
There are still many issues to be discussed. For instance, how to integrate
from a Freudian perspective, the ‘numinous energy’, so important for this case?
Would the joy of experiencing an authentic self emerging explain it?
To end this discussion, I would like to note that one of the primal phantasies,
intra-uterine life, is not only responsible for paradisiacal phantasies or regressive
impulses, but also for the affective states described as oceanic feeling, states of
emotional elation with keen awareness, which are perhaps closer to a Jungian
perspective.
TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT
La discussion porte d’abord sur le rôle de la synchronicité qui, si elle semble naturelle
et significative aux jungiens, n’est pas envisagée par les freudiens autrement que comme
une série de coı̈ncidences intéressantes. Ceci donne une idée des différences d’approche
du psychisme entre les deux écoles. Puis s’ensuit une élaboration théorique concernant
les archétypes et les fantasmes originaires : les fantasmes originaires se rapportent en
grande partie à la sexualité, mais une sexualité envisagée comme étant intimement liée
aux grands mystères de la vie. La discussion du travail clinique révèle plus de similitudes
que de différences, ce qui laisse supposer que dans les deux perspectives, la clinique
est souveraine. Comme nous le savons, le respect et la sollicitude pour le patient ainsi
qu’un usage fin de la technique, demeurent les indicateurs les plus fiables d’un travail
thérapeutique réussi, au-delà des différences d’ approches psychothérapeutiques.
Die Diskussion bezieht sich in erster Linie auf die Rolle der Synchronizität, die Jungianern
so natürlich und bedeutsam erscheint, die bei Freudianern aber als nicht mehr als eine
interessante Koinzidenz gilt. Dies vermittelt einen Eindruck davon, wie verschieden
der Zugang der unterschiedlichen Schulen zum Seelischen sein kann. Es werden einige
theoretische Überlegungen zu Archetypen und Primären Phantasien angestellt: Primäre
Phantasien stehen in enger Verbindung zur Sexualität, aber Sexualität ist hier verstanden
als intim verbunden mit den großen Mysterien des Lebens. Die Betrachtung der
klinischen Arbeit zeigt mehr Ähnlichkeiten als Unterschiede. Dies legt die Vermutung
nahe, daß für beide Perspektiven die Klinik das Entscheidende ist. Wie wir wissen,
bleiben Respekt und Anteilnahme an der Entwicklung des Patienten, echte Fürsorge
für den Patienten und gekonnter Einsatz von Techniken die wichtigsten Gradmesser
erfolgreicher therapeutischer Arbeit innerhalb der verschiedenen psychotherapeutischen
Herangehensweisen.
La discussione è in primo luogo un commento sul ruolo della sincronicità che sembra
cosı̀ naturale e significativo agli junghiani ma che i freudiani penserebbero nulla più che
interessanti coincidenze. Ciò dà un’idea di quanto differente possa essere l’approccio
delle due scuole alla psiche. Viene fatta qualche elaborazione teorica riguardante gli
archetipi e le fantasie primarie: le fantasie primarie sono molto in relazione con la
sessualità, ma la sessualità viene intesa come intimamente legata ai grandi misteri della
vita. La discussione del lavoro clinico mostra più similitudini che differenze. Ciò fa
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C. Gaillard, A. Gibeault, J. Cambray, E. Gastelumendi, V. Kast
pensare che per entrambe le prospettive la clinica è sovrana. Come sappiamo, nei
differenti approcci psicoterapeutici, il rispetto e la cura per l’evoluzione del paziente,
un vero interesse per il paziente e un uso esperto della tecnica restano i più importanti
indicatori di un lavoro terapeutico che abbia successo.
V diskussii v pervu oqeredь obrawaets vnimanie na rolь sinhronistiqnosti, kaжuwes stolь estestvenno i znaqimo dl ngiancev, no
ne predstavlwe dl fredistov niqego, krome interesnogo sovpadeni.
Зto daet predstavlenie o tom, naskolьko moжet razliqatьs podhod dvuh
xkol k psihike. Sdelany nekotorye teoretiqeskie utoqneni otnositelьno
arhetipov i perviqnyh fantazi: perviqnye fantazii v bolьxo stepeni
otnosts k seksualьnosti, no vedь seksualьnostь ponimaec, kak tesno
svzanna s velikimi tanami жizni. Diskussi po kliniqesko rabote
vyvlet bolьxe xodstv, qem raxoжdeni. Зto predpolagaet, qto dl obeih
toqek zreni klinika – vladyka. Kak my znaem, uvaжenie i zabota ob зvolcii
pacienta, podlinnoe pereжivanie za pacienta i masterskoe vladenie tehniko
ostats samymi vaжnymi indikatorami uspexno terapevtiqesko raboty
v razliqnyh terapevtiqeskih podhodah.
Los comentarios en primer lugar sobre el papel de la sincronicidad tan natural e
importante para los junguianos, para los freudianos no serı́an más que coincidencias
interesantes. Esto da una idea de lo diferente que el enfoque de dos escuelas puede
ser al entendimiento de la psique. Se hacen algunas elaboraciones teóricas sobre
los arquetipos y las fantası́as primordiales: fantası́as originarias están mucho más
relacionados con la sexualidad, pero la sexualidad entendida como ı́ntimamente
vinculados a los grandes misterios de la vida. El debate sobre el trabajo clı́nico muestra
más similitudes que diferencias. Esto sugiere que en ambos puntos de vista la clı́nica
es soberana. Como sabemos, el respeto y la atención a la evolución de los pacientes,
la preocupación verdadera para el uso paciente y hábil de la técnica siguen siendo los
indicadores más importantes del trabajo terapéutico con éxito en los diferentes enfoques
psicoterapéuticos.
References
Ansermat, F. & Magistretti, P. (2004). À chacun son cerveau. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Freud, S. (1917). ‘The path to the formation of symptoms’. Introductory Lectures on
Psycho-Analysis. SE 16.
Laplanche, J. (1995). ‘Seduction, persecution, revelation’. International Journal of
Psycho-Analysis, 76, 663–82.
Laplanche, J. & Pontalis, J. B. (1968). ‘Fantasy and the origins of sexuality’. International
Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 49, 1–18.
Comments on ‘the case of Melanie’
and the reaction of Eduardo Gastelumendi
Verena Kast
Abstract: Following an attempt to connect the theory of archetypes with the theory
of primal phantasies, the commentary refers to how moments of complexity may be
differentiated in terms of ‘now moments’ and concludes with an amplification of the
‘black woman’ in Melanie’s dream related to a black woman in an important Austrian
fairy tale.
Key words: Austrian fairy tale, ‘now moments’, primal phantasies, theory of archetypes
Some theoretical reflections
As far as I understand Joe Cambray’s prelude, the theory of archetypes as
emergent in ‘moments of complexity’ connects ideas about the analytical
field, emotions, the formation of symbols, interpersonal connectedness and the
collective unconscious in important moments of transformation. It is defined as
a dynamic system of connections, a view very convincing to me.
In his commentary, Eduardo Gastelumendi concludes that: ‘Archetypes and
primal phantasies must refer to different phenomena or to experiences at
different levels’. However, I will try to create a connection between archetypes
and primal phantasies. The difficulty is that the two concepts operate at different
levels: while archetypes can be seen as dynamic epigenetic rules shown to be ‘at
work’ and experienced in a clinical case, primal phantasies operate more on the
level of the theory of developmental psychology. It would be easier to compare
the two if we also had a current clinical case in which primal phantasies play a
major role.
Intra-uterine life as a primal phantasy
I would like to propose the hypothesis that archetypal patterns start to evolve
in intra-uterine life. If we consider emotions as being bound to the body,
developing in connection and in exchange with the environment, we could find
here the basis for the development of archetypal structures and dynamics. Since
human beings have comparable experiences in intra-uterine life, besides all the
differences, the same patterns connected with emotions are likely to develop,
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enriched after birth through personal bonding experiences, experiences with the
world and resonance with culture.
Freud’s primal phantasies
Primal scene, seduction, castration could be seen as basic human experiences,
translated in Jungian terms as mysterium coniunctionis, Eros, Thanatos—the
archetypal fields of uniting opposites, of bonding, of feared loss . . . Seen in this
way, primal phantasies would not necessarily be a phylogenetic heritage in the
way Freud saw them, as events that actually happened in the past—for example,
that human beings have once been castrated and the memory of that and the
connected fear remain in the unconscious, as a primal phantasy. Rather they
would be part of our heritage in the sense that, biologically, human beings do
not change a lot and seem to have similar basic needs down through the ages.
I have considered these primal phantasies as archetypal symbols—among
many others—but basic ones. Could a Freudian see them in this way? And if
so, how would he/she use them in a therapeutic process?
Archetypes and the case of Melanie
Turning now to Joe Cambray’s clinical discussion. Firstly, I would like to say
how much respect I have for this therapy, for both the analyst and the analysand;
it is a most impressive masterpiece of analytical work.
It is interesting to think more closely about the different ‘moments of
complexity’, as Joe describes them, and to reflect on their consequences:
1. At lunch with the colleague: a powerful field becomes constellated,
‘affectively charged’ and connected with the feeling of an enigma.
The consequence according to Joe was that ‘it helped me to contain my own
countertransferential anxieties about working with Melanie’. The consequence
of this moment of complexity was also trust, trust in the analysis as a process,
trust in one’s own competence; perhaps it also provided encouragement to work
with Melanie in the setting of private practice. Certainly trust is, as Eduardo
pointed out, a basic aspect of this therapy—very much looked for, yet very
much endangered.
2. ‘The beautiful woman dressed in black’
The important question here is: Can the analyst see this figure in her? And
the wise answer of the analyst is to name it as an aspect of herself that is
coming to existence—and as a symbol of value in the therapeutic relationship,
a potential in the therapeutic interactions. (‘Such a possibility was indeed a thing
of beauty. . .’). This for me is really an emergent complexity—a now moment
that could happen only in this moment—it was kairos.
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
317
The consequence: more trust in which the analysand allows herself to share
her terrible experiences in her last psychotic episode, and it also creates a
moment of real bonding. It increases the bonding but is it also perhaps an
expression of respect for her future development?
3. In processing the dream with the beautiful woman, the analysand recognizes
this beautiful woman as like herself on the ‘solid ground’ (the wooden floor)
of the analytical space.
The moment of complexity is seen by Joe in the dream imagery after some
time has passed, I guess, through understanding the meaning of the centipede
by means of a link with Tahitian mythology, which in turn is connected with
a relative. This specific amplification was important to the analyst, thereby
creating more trust in the process at a moment where it was difficult to trust,
when even the therapy itself was interrupted by the analysand’s psychotic break.
Looking at these three moments of complexity, we need to differentiate
between them. The first and third moments of complexity are defined by
reflection, in retrospect; they are important for the analyst but the analysand
is not aware of them. The second moment of complexity is, in my view, a
‘now moment’ and a moment of complexity in the analytical situation itself.
The consequential impact of such moments is connected most with this kind
of experience. As Joe formulates it, ‘The quality and flow of complexity can
give some guidance’ for knowing better whether the analyst has to intervene or
not and, if so, how. He states that we have to follow our intuition to become
attuned with these moments of complexity. This seems to me clinically very
important. It would be interesting to know more about this.
Reflections on the imagery
I like the associations and the connections of the black woman with the
analysand’s life history, and this is no doubt significant. The beautiful black
woman reminds me of an Austrian fairy tale known as ‘In the home of the
black women’. In it, a girl, sold by her father to a deeply black woman, has
to clean 100 rooms—and she is not allowed to open the 100th room. But she
does so and, shortly before having cleaned all the rooms, she sees the black
woman—almost turned to white—who is then enraged and destructive. She
chases the girl who is soon found by a prince who marries her. Shortly after
having given birth to a boy, the black woman comes in the night and asks: ‘Did
you see me in my bad trouble?’. The queen denies it. The black woman takes
the newborn with her. This happens each time the queen gives birth to a boy.
When the third new born boy disappeared and the queen had no explanation,
she is seen as a witch and must be burnt at the stake. In the last moment, the
black woman with the three boys appears and asks again, and the queen again
denies having seen the black woman in bad trouble. Now the black woman
turns white and she is grateful for being redeemed, saying, if the queen would
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have said that she has seen her in her trouble, she would have torn her to pieces.
The queen gets her children back . . .
I do not know if I would have told Melanie this story. To decide that, I would
have had to see and sense her and consider my countertransferential feelings.
The danger of bringing in the story would be that it would match with her
wish to redeem others. The advantage would be that it could have helped to
contain the energy of the black woman in the really dark aspects, and strengthen
the hope that even crazy aspects in the psyche can be transformed. Since each
analyst creates, even when working with archetypal material, a specific field
in which moments of complexity can occur that might have been a narrative I
would have used.
The centipede
Like Eduardo, I would never have found the Tahitian amplification of the
centipede! I would have focused more on the feelings of disgust, trying to find
out about the most disgusting feelings. The understanding of the dream would
not have changed much: if you accept the most disgusting part of your psyche
that can really help. But what Joe found made the dream much more significant.
By the way: centipedes must have good balance—and they cling to the floor.
Finally, even though I am not a Freudian, I would have addressed the
possibility of being close and the fear of closeness in relation to the fear of
a sexual temptation.
TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT
Après une tentative de relier la théorie des archétypes et celle des fantasmes originaires, le
commentaire porte sur la façon dont les moments de complexité peuvent être différenciés
en termes d ’ « ici et maintenant » . Il se conclut par une amplification de la « femme
noire » du rêve de Mélanie, mise en rapport avec la femme noire d’un célèbre conte de
fées autrichien.
Im Versuch, die Theorie der Archetypen mit derjenigen der Primären Phantasien zu
verbinden, erläutert der Kommentar, wie Komplexmomente mit Begrifflichkeiten des
‘Now moments’ differenziert werden können und schließt mit einer Amplifikation der
‘Schwarzen Frau’ in Melanies Traum mit Beziehungen zu einer schwarzen Frau aus
einem wichtigen deutschen Märchen.
Seguendo un tentativo di connettere la teoria degli archetipi con la teoria delle fantasie
primarie, il commentatore fa riferimento al come momenti di complessità possano essere
differenziati in “momenti di ora” e conclude con una amplificazione della “donna nera”
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
319
del sogno di Melanie messa in relazione con una donna nera di una importante fiaba
tedesca.
Vosled popytkam svzatь teori arhetipov s teorie perviqnyh fantazi
зtot kommentari obrawaets k tomu, kakim obrazom moжno terminologiqeski
razliqatь mgnoveni kompleksnosti i «nynexni moment», i zaverxaec amplifikacie «qerno жenwiny» iz sna Melani qerez obraz qerno жenwiny
v izvestno i vaжno nemecko volxebno skazke.
Tras un intento de conectar la teorı́a de los arquetipos con la teorı́a de las fantası́as
primordiales, el comentario se refiere a la forma en la cual los momentos de
complejidad se pueden diferenciar en términos de ‘momentos actuales’ y concluye con
una amplificación de la ‘mujer negra’ en el sueño de Melanie relacionados con una mujer
negra en un importante cuento de hadas alemán.
A thematic dialogue:
towards a conclusion and a follow-up4
Christian Gaillard & Alain Gibeault
Abstract: Following the themed debate that took place after the panel, we reconsidered
and explored further our hypotheses in light of the comments made by our colleagues.
Clearly, it is the structural approach that underlies both the Freudian primal phantasies
and the Jungian archetypes, while taking account at the same time that their approaches
are informed by contemporary emergentist theories. Our discussion centred on the
divergences in the cases of psychosis and neurosis, on the roles, in turn, of a return
to childhood and the play of archaic representations, on the transference and
countertransference functions and finally on the need to pay attention to what are deemed
synchronous moments in the event.
Key words: archetypes, Freudian analyst, Jungian analyst, primordial images, seduction,
structural approach, transference relationship
Following on from the very interesting and complex case study that Joe
Cambray presented, our first task will be to take another look, with the help
of the case material itself and the discussion that took place thereafter, at the
hypotheses that we had in mind when we first had the idea of setting up this
panel.
We shall then go on to explore some of the questions that, in our opinion, have
come to the fore; they will undoubtedly contribute to directing and structuring
any subsequent discussions between us, both as regards our clinical work and
in terms of our more theoretical points of view and perspectives.
Structures at work
Alain Gibeault: This panel illustrated the evolution of the traditional opposition
between Freud and Jung on the subject of primal phantasies relative to sexuality
and non-sexual archetypes. I think that the very interesting clinical case of
a psychotic patient presented by Joe Cambray has enabled us to be more
constructive as regards what in the past has divided Jungians and Freudians
into opposing camps.
The issue of primal phantasies and archetypes requires us to take into account
the structural aspects of the unconscious. Freud found it necessary to reply
4
This is a shortened version of the dialogue that took place at the Montreal Congress. The full
version is being published in the Cahiers jungiens de psychanalyse, no 133, mai 2011.
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
321
to Jung’s criticism, according to which he (Freud) was making quite arbitrary
sexual interpretations; it was on that basis that Freud put forward the hypothesis
of primal phantasies, in conformity with biological realism, implying an innate
phylogenetic legacy. Eduardo Gastelumendi has quite correctly underlined
Laplanche and Pontalis’s (1964) reference to the traditional interpretation of
these phantasies: they have to do with the individual’s origins (the primal
scene), the origins of sexuality (seduction) and the difference between the sexes
(castration). In a footnote added in 1920 to his Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality, Freud went on to add phantasies ‘of being in the womb’ (1905d, p.
226, note 1)—and we could include here the murder of the father according to
the scenario developed in Totem and Taboo (Freud 1912–13).
Christian Gaillard: That does indeed bring us closer together, and it supports
the hypothesis that it is necessary to think about the effect that organizing
structures have whenever we are dealing with certain representations that are
obviously recurrent and typical features. The question that then arises is that of
the origins that we are talking about when we speak, both with and after Freud,
about ‘primal phantasies’ or, with and after Jung, of ‘archetypes’. Although that
question may appear to be highly theoretical, it seems to me to be all the more
important in that it quite obviously has some impact on our everyday clinical
work.
As regards the obviously recurrent and typical manifestations that he
observed, Freud speaks of Urphantasien. He makes use of the prefix Ur, which
is quite common in German (for example, Urschweiz, which refers to the
‘primitive’ beginnings of Switzerland, from which sprang, historically speaking,
the Swiss Confederation).
Jung himself in fact used the prefix Ur for some time, when he spoke,
for example, of Urbilder, which could be translated as ‘primitive images’ or
‘primordial images’. He later distanced himself from the hypothesis of an
origin in history of these representations. At the same time, he was gradually
abandoning the term Urbilder preferring that of ‘archetype’—which, with its
prefix arkhe, primitive, has obviously to do with origins, and therefore with
the imprint to which certain representations or phantasies bear witness. His
aim here was to explore why such representations or phantasies appear at a
particular moment and what their impact might be.
That question is very much alive in psychoanalytic thinking today, as it was
in the past. The traditional Freudian attitude as regards this issue is to draw the
attention of both analysand and analyst to the enigma of origins and in that way
to the earliest moments in the history of each of them (Freud also put forward a
hypothesis, meant to be explanatory but nowadays highly controversial, which
invoked the prehistory of humanity). The Jungian approach, on the other hand,
which has nothing to say about whether or not there may be some kind of
phylogenetic transmission, focuses on the observation and above all on the
experience of these representations, the emphasis being put on their highly
emotional content as it is perceived and experienced in the present moment
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rather than on their possible origin in the past, whether in one’s infancy or in
the initial phases of the history of humanity.
I would begin by pointing out that Joe Cambray’s presentation highlights
very explicitly the emotionally impressive and enigmatic nature of the dream
scenarios that his patient reports, together with the context and the impact
of these scenarios in the course of the analysis (for example, in the scene
in which the centipede, in a particularly decisive dream, approaches her). In
other words, his attention focuses on what is being expressed, played out and
transformed in present time, with the idea of another possible future time, given
in particular the place that the analysis and the analyst have in that patient’s life.
His observation and thinking are quite clear examples of the importance that
Jung, in his day, gave to what he called the aktual Konflikt and issues concerning
archetypes.
Joe Cambray’s observation thus focuses on the here-and-now organizing or
reorganizing quality of the representations or of the recurrent and typical scenes
that we are talking about. But what is crucial for our discussion is that, if we
follow his reasoning, the debate moves away from the hypothesis of a possible
phylogenetic transmission to an explicitly epigenetic approach. This requires us
to focus our attention on any new qualities that we can observe and sustain at
any given moment, depending on the level and type of complexity involved at
that time.
My feeling is that this kind of approach may quite significantly help us to go
beyond a certain tension or even opposition between our respective theoretical
legacies and perspectives by making something new out of them. It orients
clinical practice in the direction of a future that is still searching for itself and
trying out various possibilities, given the situations and events that may have
impacted on the patient until that point. What also has to be taken into account
is what is presented and represented in his or her imaginary or symbolic life,
as well as any new elements that have a specific reference to the history of the
analytical relationship.
Differences between analytical work with a psychotic patient, as in this case, and
that with a neurotic patient
AG: In order to make some headway on that issue, which seems to me also to be
innovative and promising, perhaps we should take another look at the material
itself. In his clinical presentation, Joe Cambray showed that it was better not
to evoke primal phantasies in this clinical case, given the risk of being overintrusive and of provoking some kind of psychotic crisis. For example, in this
particular instance, I would think of the seduction phantasy as being by its very
essence traumatic, especially with reference to ‘the beautiful woman dressed
in black’: she does of course represent someone who is protective—but also
dangerous, given her seductive attitude. I would underline the analyst’s caution
here; what was important for him was ‘to validate what was occurring and not
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to offer an interpretation’. Offering an interpretation might have consisted in
underlining the psychotic anxiety about being sexually invaded, with a reference
to the primal phantasy of seduction.
In my view, with such patients it is important to transform the seduction
phantasy into a phantasy about the primal scene, in order to contribute to the
desexualization of the transference relationship. That is how I understand Joe
Cambray’s wish not to be the only person involved in that patient’s treatment
and to refer her to a psychiatrist who would be able to play a third-party role
with respect to the analyst’s work with the patient. Eduardo Gastelumendi quite
correctly emphasized that point, but I would add that this reference to a third
party is necessary in order to protect the specificity of the analytical situation
and to avoid any confusion between psychical reality and material, factual
reality. It was perhaps with the idea of not creating confusion that the analyst
decided to refrain from mentioning the ‘Tahiti’ centipede; this was confirmed
by the patient when she came back several years later.
In my view, that therapeutic approach takes support from Joe Cambray’s
reference to the archetypes as ‘emergent properties in the field of body-mind,
environment (natural and cultural) and narrative’. That is one way of taking into
account the need to work with psychotic patients on their own level of mental
functioning, in the ‘interactive field’, rather than interpreting the transference in
terms of unconscious phantasy. This will only become possible at a later stage,
once the patient is capable of setting up a transference relationship without the
fear of being merged with / into the object. The problem is somewhat different
with patients whose mental structure is neurotic; they have the capacity for
topographical and formal regression, according to the nature of dream-work
as defined by Freud, so that temporal regression can take place without their
becoming disorganized. Here the reference to a third party is more in the sense
of a virtual third party with respect to the analytical setting, rather than that
of an objectivized third party—the psychiatrist, in the history of Melanie’s
analysis.
CG: Thank you for those very clinically-based comments which concern two
aspects. The first of these has to do with the use we make of our respective
problematic structures as regards what is generally known as ‘indications’,
which lead us to adopt a particular theoretical and clinical approach depending
on the patient’s psychical structure, present mental state and past history.
The second is proof of the attention that you pay to the characters that have
populated the mental universe of this patient for a very long time (in particular
the ‘beautiful woman dressed in black’, with the profound ambiguity that this
character represented for her) or who might appear during the work of the
analysis itself (for example, the scene with the centipede, as already mentioned).
In addition, I would take note of your very cautious approach as regards
interpreting in such a case—indeed, it would be contraindicated here both on
practical and on theoretical grounds. That is exactly my own approach in my
clinical practice. I would add, nonetheless, that from a Jungian perspective, this
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might well help us to go a little more deeply into the role of the third party in
this particular instance.
The third party in question
CG: On this point, which Eduardo Gastelumendi also emphasizes, you mention
the psychiatrist who, through his own role and situation, protects the analytical
space from any risk of confusion between psychical reality and material reality.
I agree, and I would probably have done the same thing as Joe Cambray in
this particular instance. I would argue, nonetheless, that if the presence and the
role of the psychiatrist are necessary here, it is precisely because of the need
to open up, in the actual context and setting of the analytical work, a very
particular kind of space that needs to be experienced in the analysis—a space
in which the work of the unconscious can be expressed in terms of psychical
reality acknowledged as such, i.e., no longer merged or confused with material
reality. This, to my mind, is crucial in Melanie’s case.
I would say in fact that it is this space/time that plays a third-party role
between analysand and analyst, insofar as it opens up between them a locus
and a time in which can be played out the expression of fairly autonomous
representations and processes; we could call them symbolic, but in any case
I would argue that they are creative, yet contained within the setting of the
ongoing analytical work.
That third-party presence and the role and effect it has on the work of the
analysis are, to my mind, quite different from those of the psychiatrist—indeed,
they are quite different from what is traditionally seen to be the father’s role
in the triangular Oedipal situation, from what André Green, following Peirce,
calls ‘thirdness’, as well as from the ‘tertium non datur’ and the ‘transcendent
function’ that Jung spoke of as early as 1916 (a notion which, in my view, is
evoked and invoked a little too effortlessly in contemporary Jungian circles).
In the strict sense of the term, it is the space/time of an emerging and controlled
experience on the edge of which stand analysand and analyst, each in his or
her own place. Given what is presented and represented there, this could enable
the analysand gradually, to take another look at fears and events from his or
her own past, now made easier to re-visit. It might also incite the analysand
to size up in what way this very particular kind of work, under highly specific
conditions, is new to him or her, and perhaps lead to some form of renewal. It
goes without saying—even though a whole learning curve is necessary before
it does become obvious—that the analyst too may be very deeply moved in a
personal way by what then comes to the fore; the analyst will have to know how
to be attentive towards it, yet be able to keep it to him- or herself. One example,
in the present case, is how the analyst deals with the unexpected discovery of
the Tahitian legend and his own previous links with Tahiti.
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I would be glad to know if you have any ideas about the relationship between
the experience of these processes that I call ‘in a third-party space’ between
analysand and analyst and what you refer to as ‘desexualization’.
AG: I think that Verena Kast is correct to emphasize the fact that ‘we are on
different levels’ when we talk about the theory of primal phantasies and that
of archetypes. In my view, we have to take these different levels into account
when we work with psychotic patients. We could hypothesize that Jung drew
up his theory of desexualized archetypes because of his interest in psychotic
functioning and his need to help his patients desexualize their thinking and
develop their capacity to symbolize.
The concepts of sexualization and desexualization are part of the Freudian
approach to mental functioning. Freud (1913) uses the concept of sexualization
with respect to animism and magical thinking; these bear witness to the
predominance of the primary processes. He suggested also the concept of
desexualization with respect to ‘the transformation of object-libido into
narcissistic libido’, corresponding to ‘an abandonment of sexual aims’, ‘a kind of
sublimation’ (Freud 1923b, p. 30). This implies the structuring of some kind of
an ego and the actualization of secondary processes. Disorders of symbolization
in psychosis thus bear witness to the sexualization of thinking, and the work of
analysis will attempt to build up a space between, on the one hand, assimilation
and symbolic equivalence, in which the symbol replaces the object in the sense
that it is identical to it (a typical feature of the concrete thinking of psychotic
patients), and, on the other, symbolization proper which corresponds both to
the negation of that symbolic assimilation and to the distinction between the
symbol and the object symbolized. Symbolization thus helps to conceive of
the space, between sexualization and desexualization, object-cathexis and egocathexis, and primary and secondary processes—a space that is essential for
psychical functioning.
From that point of view, what you say about the importance of a thirdparty space that is built up between analyst and analysand and facilitates
the emergence of representations, is very close to the issues involved in this
dialectic between sexualization and desexualization. Is it possible for a kind
of sublimation to exist that is not linked to repression but keeps open some
connection with infantile sexuality? In sublimation there must therefore be
a complementary interplay between sexualization—cathexis of the primaryprocess system corresponding to the activation of an unconscious phantasy that
has its roots in the libido—and desexualization, corresponding to cathexis of
the secondary-process system, which contributes to the change of aims and
objects that are typical of that kind of functioning. This implies that when
the object is lost, the part of object-libido that is transformed into narcissistic
libido should be immediately re-objectivized through cathecting the sublimated
object. That dialectic does however leave open the possibility of sublimation
turning out in the end to be both positive and negative, either by maintaining
the link between these two processes (and therefore being life-supportive) or by
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splitting them, thereby promoting a death-like tendency in both the individual
and the surrounding culture.
Synchronicity and the question of the subject
AG: I would like to say a few words about the synchronicity of the encounter
between Joe Cambray and Melanie. How are we to understand Melanie’s phone
call just when Joe Cambray was writing his presentation? We could perhaps
talk of telepathy as a way of accounting for that event, but the risk there would
be that of cutting short any attempt at processing the countertransference.
Eduardo Gastelumendi speaks of a coincidence, but even a coincidence should
be meaningful. I wonder if that meeting, coming after a gap of so many years,
could be seen as an uncanny experience, a countertransference indication that
something in the transference was left unresolved. The question whether or not
to mention to the patient the Tahitian centipede episode could then be thought
of as a narcissistic factor that had remained an enigma waiting to be resolved,
during all the years that had passed since the end of the analysis.
CG: I think I understand what you are getting at here. I think that you see this
as a possible other way of ending the work of the analysis, which would focus
on explaining the history of the work carried out by both participants, to the
extent, of course, of what it would be possible to take up again at this point.
All the same, as regards moments of so-called synchronicity such as those that
rather strangely run through this analysis, I would say that, overall, their virtue
may lie in marking out an abutment, one that leaves a question hanging over
it—on condition that the event in question is really unexpected, that it has no
identifiable cause and that it does not entail diving into the twists and turns and
abysses of spiritualistic or astrological thinking, in an un-called-for narcissistic
indulgence, or the speculations of apprentice physicists with no work experience
and no control. In that way it becomes possible for an ego subjected to demands
and representations, especially ideal and perhaps even delusional ones, to move
towards being a subject—temporary, perhaps, fragile and unsure of itself but
much more able to go on with life and perhaps even re-shape it.
In the case presented to us here, it is easy to see how this kind of situation
makes both participants in the analytical encounter look again at their own
internal world, their own past, their own place and involvement in that
encounter.
On that point, it is important to note the analyst’s capacity to keep to himself,
in a kind of reserved and protected secret, things which are, after all, his own
business; being able to do this contributes to the quality of his relationship
with the patient. She perhaps never had the kind of experience that she is going
through here; given the trust that it establishes, she may be able to have a new
kind of relationship with other people, with herself and with her past.
This kind of situation highlights not only the singularity and therefore
the necessary solitude of analyst and analysand even within their mutual
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327
relationship, but also—somewhat paradoxically—what links them together
without their realizing it; this has no doubt to do with the fact that they are
sharing something that they have in common and which, as a third party as I
put it earlier, lives its own life between them—that shared element is expressed
in Melanie’s dreams in an apparently autochthonous way, and in the analyst
through his links with Tahiti.
It is precisely that kind of situation, and also, obviously enough, some others,
which lead us with Jung and after Jung to speak of a collective—or, better,
impersonal—unconscious and to think more deeply about individuation as a
process both of the emergence of a subject in all of his or her singularity and
of the relationship with the constantly working unconscious that we do indeed
share. Such a situation offers us a very interesting opportunity to observe, as
they become manifest, the ‘organizing structures of representation’ (Gaillard
2003, 2010) that are the theme of this panel.
The animal and animality
CG: One of the questions that traditionally come up in any discussion between
Freudian analysts and Jungian analysts with regard to our respective approaches
towards primal phantasies or archetypes, has to do with the fact that, in the
Freudian tradition, primal phantasies are limited in number (as you pointed
out, their actual number is still under discussion but at most there are three or
four of them) and involve sexuality, while archetypes, or, rather, archetypal
representations or scenarios, are said to be indefinite in number and not
necessarily of a sexual nature.
I would first of all like to correct the first of these two points. If we follow Jung
and pay heed to our own experience in this domain, archetypal representations
or scenarios are not in fact indefinite in number, even though it might not be
possible to say exactly how many there are.
These representations or scenarios that we call archetypal are not indefinite
in number because they all refer to particular moments or phases, often crucial
ones and traditionally more or less ritualized experiences and tribulations that,
as human beings, we all go through, from birth to death, including the discovery
of our parents, mother and father, or brother and sister, of the difference
between the sexes, of the relationship between the sexes, of the transition from
one stage in life to another, and of our relationship to nature’s most recurrent
and impressive manifestations. But it is impossible to say how many there are
because the forms they take vary in multiple ways in terms of particular ways
of living and the cultural environment.
On this point, the ‘centipede’ sequence reported by Melanie is of quite
remarkable interest for our discussion. In that sequence, the patient is
confronted by one of the most elementary of living creatures, far removed from
the world of human beings (even though with its hundred legs—in French, they
are a thousand in number [mille-pattes]—it can move about in a very balanced
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way, as Verena Kast pointed out). The patient is thereby put in contact—an
ambiguous kind of contact that can result only in ambivalence—with animality,
and therefore with a drive-related reality that is somewhat primitive, obviously
anterior to a more human structure in which the drives are differentiated.
Through that sequence, the patient has, as it were, an experience of psychical
reality—or rather psychosomatic reality in this case. Jung became vividly
acquainted with that kind of reality, especially through his work with psychotic
patients at the Burghölzli clinic. That led him to explore, in response to
Freud’s approach in the Three Essays, the kind of libido that preceded Oedipal
organization and even the experience of different erotogenic zones—a similar
exploration was undertaken also by another Melanie, a British one this time:
Melanie Klein.
The sequence is a very animated one and its outcome remains uncertain for
quite some time, so that it is indeed an experience—that of work in progress,
we might say: it is the work of the analysis, bringing together and giving an
impetus, in the present time to the event as it is taking place, to the setting
that quite literally protects the work being done (the flooring that is mentioned
in the session), to the mainly unconscious reminiscence of the sexual abuse of
which she had been a victim as a child (Verena Kast pointed this out to us),
and to the eventually reassuring part played by ‘the beautiful woman dressed
in black’. In spite of her frankly negative and even threatening appearance at
other times, we can see how much she owes to the earlier, positive role of the
patient’s ‘nanny’.
In addition to the fact that the sequence itself is interesting for our discussion
of the relationship between sexuality and a more undifferentiated and primitive
kind of libido—particularly with regard to the representation of the centipede—I
think it is very important and helpful to highlight the capacity—the competence,
as I put it—of the work of the unconscious to restructure and redirect this
patient’s relationship with her past history and her own body and, as it does
so, with what will become of her.
This is indeed a matter of origins, and the origins of sexuality, via a
manifest regression that, as Freud would have said, is formal, temporal and
topographical—but with one particularity all the same: this return to events
in her past does not seem to be truly conscious, so that this sequence, as
experienced by the patient and reported by the analyst, could be said to be
‘primal’—but in the present time of its appearance in the course of the work
of the analysis, i.e., with regard to the developments and transformations to
which this work gave rise and in particular to the transference that is at that
point active.
In addition, in order to highlight more precisely the competence of expression
and the potential for transformation which is that of the work of the archetypal
unconscious that we are discussing here, it might be helpful, for our future
discussions, to recall the points that were debated in a previous panel between
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
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Freudian and Jungian analysts during the IAAP congress in Cape Town in
2007.
That earlier panel had prehistoric art as its theme, in particular regarding the
manner in which it reflects the relationship with animals and with animality. In
our discussions, our Freudian colleague from Great Britain, Sally Weintrobe,
talked—very appositely, in my view—of the part played in prehistoric art, as is
often the case also in our clinical work, by the ‘auxiliary animal’: in the present
case, through the dream-work, Melanie’s centipede comes quite concretely and
in a sensory manner to help her to try out another kind of relationship not
only with her past and her body but also with other people in her present
environment.
AG: The contrast that you make between sexuality and an undifferentiated
primitive kind of libido draws attention to differences in our conceptions of how
the mind functions. We know that Freud and Jung more or less agreed that the
universality of mental life must be based on a universal structure; from that point
of view, Freud’s idea of primal phantasies and Jung’s hypothesis of the collective
unconscious are responses to the same epistemological necessity, as is shown by
the fact that they both refer to Kant’s a priori (Gibeault 2010). Freud, however,
always gave pride of place to sexuality in the sense of infantile sexuality. It seems
to me that you would also dispute that, through your evocation of non-sexual
undifferentiated libido.
Your comment on the centipede dream sees it as an animal representation of
another kind of relationship between the patient and her own self and between
the patient and other people, a relationship that is less persecutory than would
tend to indicate her free associations to demons, with their connection to bugs
and cockroaches. The centipede is dangerous when it first appears because it
starts off by encircling and imprisoning the beautiful woman and the patient—
an image of psychotic anxiety about being completely surrounded and taken
over. At that level, the only way to resolve that state of merging with / into the
object is to reject it violently—the patient asks if she should kill it. But thanks to
the beautiful woman who says, ‘No, it’s our friend’, it becomes less of a threat,
so that the patient can let it come closer without feeling terrified. At that point,
we could think of the patient’s anxiety in terms of oral regression, in which
the self is both a devouring and a devoured object—and this, for the mind, is
something that cannot be represented.
The solution that the patient invents is to have the centipede offer her an
ornate box containing beautiful bright and shiny jewels. These jewels could
be a way of resolving anxiety about non-differentiation other than through
self-preserving violence which has as its objective the brutal de-cathexis of the
object and the pulling back of object-libido onto the ego—a typical feature
of psychotic functioning. As Francis Pasche points out, a child tries to protect
him- or herself from the psychical reality of the mother by placing some kind of
sensitive/sensory material (the mother’s tangible epidermal productions, clothes,
jewellery) between mother and child, and between the child and his or her own
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self, as a prerequisite for independence and differentiation with respect to the
object. ‘Finding some inanimate matter, soul-less—i.e., without any psychical
reality—helps the child to distribute his or her cathexes in a way that does not
threaten self-preservation and the sense of identity, and to satisfy the drives
as cheaply and with as little risk as possible’ (Pasche 1975, p. 52). That inert
matter thus forms the basis for fetishes and for the transitional object.
From that point of view, the psychical tendency represented by the centipede
dream depends on a transformation of drive-related elements in the relationship
with the object. This is exemplified by the patient’s less persecutory relationship
with the rest of the world, as you quite correctly point out; the drive-based
approach here specifies and lends support to the work of the mind according to
the three dimensions of Freud’s metapsychological approach: affect economy,
representational topography and the dynamics of psychical conflict.
Final question (for the moment): What if primal phantasies turned out to be
particular kinds of archetype?
CG: Verena Kast asks this question: she obviously takes delight in making us
move our lines in the sand! I would like to know how you would respond here.
AG: The question is to some extent complementary to the previous one. It
is true that the Jungian theory of archetypes covers much more ground than
that of primal phantasies, because it has as its aim a description of mental life
that does not give priority to infantile sexuality. Joe Cambray’s definition is
interesting, with its reference to ‘moments of complexity’ and ‘the emergence
of network culture’; the workings of the mind are described in terms of a
transformational system that makes for new structures of relationship. But what
is the driving force behind these changes and these transformations? According
to Freud, mental functioning reaches a certain degree of complexity only thanks
to psychical conflict which he based, from the outset, on the clash between the
drives—the one between object-libido and narcissistic libido has remained a
central focus in clinical work, even though he did attempt later to replace it
with that between Eros and Thanatos.
From that point of view, Melanie’s analytical adventure can be seen as moving
away from traumatic seduction, the source of excitation that overwhelms
the ego and gives rise to the risk of non-representation, towards a link with
phantasies of castration and of the primal scene, thereby facilitating a process
of transformation of feelings and affects into representations that the ego
can tolerate. The clinical presentation does not show this process in its full
development, but the rudiments of it can be seen in the setting up of an early
form of triangulation: in one of her last dreams reported, the patient is no
longer in a dangerous confrontation with the ‘black fiery woman’—this would
evoke the petrifying seduction of the Medusa. Now that woman walks on past
Melanie, with people and children following her—this is an illustration of the
primal scene in which each protagonist has his or her own place and there is
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331
no threat of completely merging together. As regards narcissistic regression and
the processing of a phantasy about returning to a state of undifferentiated unity
with the mother, we could probably say that it was not possible to deal with
that issue in any great depth, because even though Melanie has been able to
gain more psychological independence, the final dream that is reported evokes
the danger that lies in being passive towards the black fiery woman coming up
out of the molten ground and walking behind the patient as if she were her
shadow!
We could compare our discussion about the contrast between primal
phantasies and archetypes to that between understanding a concept and
extending it: what we gain in understanding, in depth, is often lost in terms of
extension. Therefore the idea is not to make a choice between the two concepts
but to assess the heuristic value of each of them. We seem to have quite a
lot of thinking still to do together as regards the relevance of our different
approaches!
A conclusion that is also a prospective opening
CG and AG: Over and beyond our initial working hypotheses, many issues
have been highlighted and updated in the course of the discussions that we have
had so far. We still have some work to do on these issues, of course. We shall
discuss another clinical case study, presented this time by a Freudian analyst,
so that we can give a new impetus to our thinking based on a clinical and
theoretical approach that takes its inspiration from ‘primal phantasies’ rather
than from a Jungian perspective which, as we have seen here, speaks in terms
of ‘archetypes’.
In actual practice, this further opportunity for taking up and reopening our
discussion will be provided by the setting-up of another panel during the next
IPA Congress, which will be held in Mexico in August 2011.
TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT
Dans la « discussion thématique » qui a suivi le panel, nous avons reconsidéré
et approfondi nos hypothèses à la lumière des communications présentées par nos
collègues. Il en ressort que c’est bien une approche structurale qui caractérise à la fois
la problématique freudienne des fantasmes originaires et la problématique jungienne
des archétypes, mais aussi qu’une telle approche se trouve renouvelée par les théories
émergentistes contemporaines. Notre discussion a porté de là notamment sur les
différences à prendre en compte quand il s’agit de psychose ou de névrose, sur les
rôles respectifs du retour à l’enfance et de la mise en jeu de représentations archaı̈ques,
sur les fonctions du transfert et du contre-transfert, enfin sur l’attention à porter sur les
moments dits de synchronicité dans un tel cas.
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Im Anschluß an die Debatte, die nach der Diskussionsrunde stattfand, überdachten und
vertieften wir unsere Hypothesen im Lichte der Kommentare, die uns unsere Kollegen
gemacht hatten. Sicher ist, daß beiden, den freudianischen Primären Phantasien wie
dem jungianischen Archetyp, ein struktureller Ansatz zugrundeliegt, wobei gleichzeitig
zu beachten ist, daß dieser Ansatz von zeitgenössischen Emergenztheorien profitiert.
Deswegen konzentrierte sich unsere Diskussion einzig auf die Divergenzen in den
Fällen von Neurose und Psychose, auf die Rolle eines Rückkehrs in die Kindheit
und das Wechselspiel der archaischen Repräsentationen, auf die Übertragungs- und
Gegenübertragungsfunktionen und schlußendlich auf die Notwendigkeit dem, was
synchronistische Momente unter den Ereignissen zu sein scheinen, Aufmerksamkeit zu
schenken.
Seguendo il dibattito tematico che ebbe luogo dopo il panel, noi riconsideriamo e
esploriamo ulteriormente le nostre ipotesi alla luce dei commenti fatti dai nostri colleghi.
Chiaramente è l’approccio strutturale che sottolinea sia le fantasie primarie di Freud
che gli archetipi junghiani, pur tenendo contemporaneamente conto del fatto che tale
approccio è informato dalle teorie contemporanee emergenti. La nostra discussione è
quindi centrata solamente sulle divergenze nel caso di psicosi e nevrosi, sui ruoli, a loro
volta, di un ritorno all’infanzia e del ruolo delle rappresentazioni arcaiche, sulla funzione
del transfert e del controtranfert e infine sul bisogno di prestare attenzione a quelli che
vengono considerati momenti sincronici nell’evento.
Prodolжa obsuжdeni, imevxie mesto posle paneli, my peresmotreli i
dalьxe issledovali svo gipotezu v svete kommentariev, sdelannyh naximi
kollegami. Oqevidno, qto imenno strukturny podhod leжit v osnove kak
fredisckih perviqnyh fantazi, tak i ngovskih arhetipov; v to жe
vrem зtot podhod dopolnen i sovremennymi teorimi «povleni». Naxa
diskussi, stalo bytь, vrawaets edinstvenno lixь vokrug raxoжdeni v
sluqah psihoza i nevroza, na pooqerednyh rolh vozvraweni k dectvu i
igry arhaiqnyh reprezentaci, na funkcih perenosa i kontrperenosa i,
nakonec, na neobhodimosti obrawatь vnimanie na to, qto nazyvaec momentami
sinhronii v sobytii.
Tras el debate temático que tuvo lugar después de que el grupo especial, reconsideramos
y estudiamos más a fondo nuestras hipótesis a la luz de las observaciones formuladas por
nuestros colegas. Claramente, es el enfoque estructural que subyace tanto las fantası́as
freudiana primordiales y a la del arquetipo de Jung, teniendo en cuenta al mismo
tiempo que este enfoque es aportado por las teorı́as contemporáneas emergentes. Nuestra
discusión se centra únicamente en las divergencias en el caso de las psicosis y las neurosis,
sobre los roles, a su vez, de un retorno a la infancia y el juego de las representaciones
arcaicas, en las funciones de transferencia y la contratransferencia y finalmente en la
necesidad de prestar atención a lo que se consideran momentos sincrónicos en el evento.
An encounter and a debate between Freudian and Jungian analysts
333
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