Run or die: bi-logical phenomena at the body-mind border

Abstract

In clinical psychoanalytic work, one often encounters psychical material that is devoid of form or shape. This kind of material is often manifest as concrete somatic sensations on the border of the body and mind. At the same time, it is a primitive body-related self-experience that functions as a background, an essential requirement for more developed, differentiated self-experiences. Bi-logic is a theoretical method by which one can outline these early, partially formless processes and states of mind. This paper includes an overview of the main hypotheses of Matte Blanco's bi-logical vertex, which focuses on the extreme symmetrization of mental phenomena that emanate from the body. Clinical vignettes illustrate ways in which analysis can gradually bring forth such form from the previously formless, dissociated traumatic material into the range of the conscious mind. In this way, the capacity for thinking and reflection increases and the early elements of self-experience are enlivened.

Key words:

• bi-logics
• body ego
• trauma
• Matte Blanco
• infinite