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Abstract
The Argentine psychoanalyst Julio Moreno (Citation2010) theorizes two models of psychic functioning. One he calls associative functioning, which is composed of mental representations and words that link together in association, integrating both the conscious and preconscious. These representations are subject to repression and phenomena of displacement and condensation. The other type of psychic functioning is what Moreno refers to as connective functioning, which is represented by the immanent, the immediate, which falls outside the order of representation. These two types of psychic processing coexist and occur simultaneously and, for Julio Moreno, “the link” is the space between the two. This work intends to explore the linking dimension that an analytic relationship proposes and that is established in each analytic session in the patient–therapist pair. For this purpose, a clinical case is shown, describing the bonding climate, the analyst’s countertransference and the mutual unconscious work. It emphasizes that, in severely ill patients, the quality of the bond is more crucial than interpretative work, and for this, the live and real presence of the analyst is necessary.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The concept of “liquid world” by Zygmunt Bauman refers to the idea that contemporary society is characterized by a lack of solid and stable structures, and it can hinder the capacity for psychic representation. The fluidity and constant change in the social and cultural environment can generate instability and fragmentation in mental life, affecting individuals’ ability to construct coherent and meaningful internal representations.
2 According to Castoriadis (2014), the most radical and defining element of the human psyche, preceding and a condition for any logic is the capacity for representation. This capacity demonstrates its complexity in that each representation refers to an infinity of representations. This representative essence of the psychic is clearly observed in language (and with it, in the entire human world) as a perpetually open totality of meanings. There exists a logic he calls “magmatic,” which serves as a potential source of ever-new significations that the human mind is incapable of exhausting. The psyche is thus a magma of representations, always subject to potential reinterpretation, new inscription, and new creation.
3 Franco “Bifo” Berardi is a prominent Italian philosopher and cultural theorist known for his analyses at the intersection of culture, technology, and politics in contemporary society. He has addressed a wide range of topics, including the relationship between technology and society, political economy, alienation in the workplace, digital culture, and information politics. His writings on the impact of globalization, late capitalism, and technological acceleration on everyday life and human psychology are highly intriguing.
4 Marina Garcés is a Spanish philosopher who advocates for the concept of “embodiment” as a way of action and engagement with the world. According to Garcés “embodiment” entails actively involving oneself in reality, forsaking passivity and adopting a stance of active participation. She champions the significance of reconnecting with our bodies and living experientially, acknowledging that our existence is deeply rooted in corporeality.
5 In actuality, this would entail a return to a mode of thinking that is already delineated in Freud. Thus, in the section of the “Project” titled “Discernment and Reproductive Thinking” (Citation1895), Freud ponders how reality is constructed, as it is by no means a priori given. It is within the context of this process between discernment and recollection that he introduces the concept of the “neighbor complex” (Nebenmensch, literally “the one who is nearby” and not the similar one), which he divides into two components: on one hand, the “thing of the world” (das Ding), indistinguishable from oneself and thus liberated from all evaluative judgment, and on the other hand, that which is comprehended through mnemonic work and upon which judgment is to be imposed, potentially traceable to an experience within one’s own body. It is particularly noteworthy that, for Freud, judgment is intimately intertwined with one’s own body, the invested body, and the experiences of pain and satisfaction.
6 For Freud, the intricate activity of thought is woven from mnemonic imagery to the establishment of perceptual identity through the intervention of the external world. This ensemble of mnemonic traces, under the command of visual mnemonic traces, organizes itself as representations of objects, constituting the primary content of the unconscious system in the first topography. This enables the initial binding of instinct (Green, Citation1987) within the unconscious, where energy flows freely, governed by primary processes (displacement and condensation), and the pleasure principle prevails (Freud, Citation1900, Citation1915b). A second binding occurs through the preconscious system, as observed, for instance, in dreams and in psychotherapy (Freud, Citation1900).
7 For Freud in the “Project” (Citation1895) discerning or judgmental thinking seeks bodily identity. This judgmental thinking provides the groundwork for reproductive thinking (memory). It is noteworthy that, concerning judgment, “its foundation is evidently the preexistence of bodily experiences, sensations, and images – one’s own movements”. (1895, p. 378).
8 Bleichmar is a distinguished Argentine psychoanalyst who has delved into the unique and subjective impact of traumatic events. In her work, she examines how the self is affected in its functions and explores the subject's modes of response to trauma. She develops the concept of neogenesis, which she defines as the movement in practice that not only seeks to recover what already exists but also strives to create new conditions of symbolization, opening up new possibilities for life.
9 Bolognini discusses depersonalization, drawing on Racamier’s concept of the process of personation, which refers to the process in which a human being is capable of perceiving themself as an individual entity, integrated and real. Bolognini posits that there is a defense mechanism that, whether driven by the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of anxiety and pain, seeks to regain a certain undifferentiated state, resorting to partial regressions toward a state of primary narcissism. He considers it to be a potentially normal condition, even for a flexible self to oscillate between conditions of undifferentiation or self-integration. This concept of regression and undifferentiation may align with the one put forth by Cesar and Sara Botella (Citation2003) regarding psychic figuration and the “session state.” These authors discuss the unique moments that occur in some sessions when, through a regressive pathway, there is a reverse movement that intensifies the sensory psychic pole, resulting in an imaginary hallucination that reveals something about the patient that has not been symbolically inscribed.
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Notes on contributors
Juan Rodado
Juan Rodado Martínez is a Psychoanalyst at the Centro Psicoanalítico de Madrid, affiliated to the FEAP (Spanish Federation of Psychotherapy Associations), and has been a member of the IFPS since 1998. He has served as a training analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Madrid since 2008, while also practicing as a private psychoanalyst in Murcia. He has balanced his private activity with his position as an Associate Physician at the Psychiatry Department of HGU Reina Sofía since 1996. He is an associate professor of psychiatry since 1997. He also serves as a faculty member in the Master's program for Creative Therapies at the University of Murcia, MU.