On excess, trauma and helplessness: Repetitions and transformations

Abstract

Freud's work establishes a link between an excessive amount of excitation, the infant's experience of helplessness, and trauma. The idea of excess emphasises a quantitative element, not reducible to the field of representation. In this paper I explore the notions of excess and closure in relation to two clinical examples. A patient who lived through experiences of excess and flooding is contrasted with another patient whose experience of excess is expressed through withdrawal. The complex process of elaboration and working through in their analyses takes place by bringing together affect, representation, sensorial and somatic experiences, dreams, associations and enactments as they are gathered and given meaning après coup through analytic work. Two concepts were central to the understanding of what took place in the analyses: excorporation and figurability. The paper emphasizes the place of temporality in creating a triadic space in an analysis as it relates the here and now with the there and then in the work of après‐coup. The paper also traces the roots of this modern approach that relates the analyst's work of regression, time, and the creation of a triadic space to Freud's metapsychology.

Excès, traumatisme et etat de détresse: répétitions and transformations

Dans son œuvre, Freud établit un lien entre le surcroîtd'excitation, l’état de détresse du nourrisson, et le traumatisme. L'idéed'excèsaccentue un élémentquantitatif, non réductible audomaine de la représentation. Danscet article, j'explore les notions d'excès et de désinvestissement à partir de deuxcascliniques. La première patiente et sesexpériences d'excès et de débordement contrastent avec le second dont les expériencessontexprimées par un désinvestissement. Le processuscomplexe de perlaborationdanscesdeux analyses se produit après avoirtravaillél'affect, la représentation, les expériencessensorielles et somatiques, les rêves, les associations et les mises en acte au fur et à mesurequ'ils apparaissent et prennentleursensdansl'après coup du travail analytique. Deux concepts clés permettent de comprendre les parcours de cesdeux analyses : l'excorporation et la figurabilité. Cet article met en relief le rôle de la temporalitédans la création d'un espace tiersdans le processusanalytiquepuisqu'ilreliel'ici et maintenant avec l'ailleurs et l'autre foisdans le travail de l'après‐coup. Il s'agitaussi de trouver les origines de cetteapproche moderne qui met en rapport le travail de régression de l'analyste, le temps, la création d'un espace tiers, avec la métapsychologie de Freud.

Über „zuviel“, trauma und hilflosigkeit: wiederholung und transformationen

Freuds Werk zeigt die Verbindung auf zwischen einem „Zuviel“ an Erregung, der Hilflosigkeit des Säuglings und dem Trauma. Das Konzept des Zuviel, des Exzesses oder Übermaßes, betont ein quantitatives Element, das nicht auf den Bereich der Repräsentation reduzierbar ist. In diesem Beitrag untersuche ich die Konzepte des Zuviel und des Besetzungsentzugs anhand zweier Fallbeispiele. Eine Patientin, die Erfahrungen des Zuviel und des Überschwemmt‐Werdens durchmachte, wird mit einer Patientin verglichen, deren Erleben des Zuviel Ausdruck im Rückzug fand. Der komplexe Prozess des Be‐ und Durcharbeitens in den Analysen erfolgt durch das Zusammenbringen von Affekt, Repräsentation, sensorischen und somatischen Erfahrungen, Träumen, Assoziationen und Enactments, die auftauchen und dann nachträglich durch die analytische Arbeit Bedeutung erhalten. Zwei Konzepte waren für das Verständnis dessen, was in den beiden Analysen stattfand, von zentraler Bedeutung: Ausstoßung und Darstellbarkeit. Der Beitrag betont den Stellenwert, den die Zeitlichkeit für die Schaffung eines triadischen Raumes, der das Hier und Jetzt in der Arbeit der Nachträglichkeit zum Dort und Damals in Beziehung bringt, in einer Analyse besitzt. Der Beitrag geht auch zurück zu den Wurzeln dieses modernen Ansatzes, der die Arbeit der Regression des Analytikers, die Zeit und die Schaffung eines triadischen Raumes mit Freuds Metapsychologie verbindet.

Eccesso, trauma e inermità: ripetizione e trasformazioni

L'opera di Freud stabilisce un nesso tra una quantità eccessiva di eccitazione, lo stato di inermità dell'infante e il trauma. L'idea di eccesso sottolinea l'elemento quantitativo non riducibile al campo della rappresentazione. Nel presente lavoro prendo in esame i concetti di eccesso e di disinvestimento in riferimento a due esempi clinici. Un paziente con le sue esperienze di eccesso e di invasione viene messo in contrasto con un altro paziente le cui esperienze di eccesso si esprimevano in stati di ritiro. Il complesso processo di elaborazione in queste due analisi avviene mettendo insieme affetti, rappresentazioni, esperienze sensoriali e somatiche, sogni, associazioni e agiti, man mano che si presentano, vengono raccolti e significati nell'après coup del lavoro analitico. Due sono i concetti chiave per comprendere quanto è avvenuto in queste due analisi: l'excorporazione e la figurabilità. Questo lavoro mette in rilievo il ruolo della temporalità nella creazione di uno spazio triadico poiché mette in relazione il qui ed ora con il lì e l'allora nel lavoro analitico dell'après coup. L'articolo inoltre fa risalire questo approccio moderno che collega il lavoro di regressione dell'analista, il tempo e la creazione dello spazio triadico, alla metapsicologia di Freud

Sobre el exceso, el trauma y el desamparo. repetición y transformaciones

La obra de Freud establece un nexo entre una cantidad excesiva de excitación, y la experiencia de desamparo y trauma del bebé. La idea del exceso enfatiza un elemento cuantitativo irreductible al campo de la representación. Este trabajo explora las nociones de exceso y clausura en relación con dos ejemplos clínicos: una paciente que tuvo vivencias de exceso e inundación se contrasta con un analizando cuya experiencia de exceso se expresa a través del retiro. El complejo proceso de elaboración en estos análisis tiene lugar mediante la reunión de afectos, representaciones, experiencias somáticas y sensoriales, sueños, asociaciones y puestas en acto, que se recogen y a las que se otorga sentido après‐coup gracias al trabajo analítico. Dos conceptos fueron esenciales para comprender lo que sucedió en ambos tratamientos: excorporación y figurabilidad. Se enfatiza el papel de la temporalidad en la creación de un espacio triádico en un análisis que vincula el aquí y ahora con el allí y entonces en el trabajo del après‐coup. Además, se rastrean las raíces de este enfoque moderno, que relaciona la tarea de regresión del analista, el tiempo y la producción de un espacio triádico con la metapsicología freudiana.

Key words:

• full and empty spaces
• drives
• unrepresentable
• figurability
• images
• excorporation
• après coup
• thirdness
• excess
• trauma
• helplessness

1. Keynote address to the Annual Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft (DPG) Conference in Dusseldorf on 21 June 2014. This paper was also read at the Scientific Meeting of the British Psychoanalytic Society in March 2015.

1. Keynote address to the Annual Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft (DPG) Conference in Dusseldorf on 21 June 2014. This paper was also read at the Scientific Meeting of the British Psychoanalytic Society in March 2015.

Notes

1. Keynote address to the Annual Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft (DPG) Conference in Dusseldorf on 21 June 2014. This paper was also read at the Scientific Meeting of the British Psychoanalytic Society in March 2015.

2. Britton has described two similar clinical situations that he designates as narcissistic detachment and narcissistic adherence (Britton, 2003, p. 174).

3. Freud first proposed the notion of ‘endopsychic perceptions’ in a letter to Fliess (1897). He is referring to an inner unconscious perception of one's mental functioning, originated internally that is then projected outwards: “Can you imagine what ‘endopsychic perceptions myths’ are? The latest product of my mental labor. The dim inner perception of one's own psychic apparatus stimulates thought illusions, which of course are projected onto the outside and, characteristically, into the future and the beyond. Immortality, retribution, the entire beyond are all reflections of our psychic internal [world]. Meschugge? Psycho‐mythology” (Freud, 1897, p. 286).

In Delusions and dreams in Jensen's Gradiva, Freud indicated the “perfect similarity” between the burial of Pompeii, depicted in Jensen's hero's dream and delusions, and the disappearance of his childhood past, combined with its preservation (1907, p. 51).

4. For Freud, the first move of the primordial mind was to split between what is good and what is bad, what had to be taken in and what had to be thrown out. Freud here opposes introjection and ejection (not projection). Donnet and Green (1973) have contrasted incorporation with excorporation distinguishing it from projection in order to characterize a mechanism that they identified in the psychotic individual. When psychic metabolization becomes impossible, the psyche attempts to get rid of extreme states of anxiety not only from the mind, but also the body. They suggest that different mechanisms exist in neurotic and psychotic patients. In the former, “representations which move from the unconscious through the preconscious to the conscious are then expressed through verbalisation” (Green, 1998b, p. 654); for the latter, “the messages are directly evacuated from the unconscious and projected to the object outside, bypassing the working through that transforms them through the preconscious before their verbalisation” (p. 654).

5. These different moments in time act like a fractal. A fractal is a complex geometric structure in which each image contains a smaller copy of itself, the sequence appearing to recur infinitely. Each repetition reflects the larger structure. The importance of the notion of a fractal is its connection with Freud's notion of repetition compulsion and après coup (Chervet, 2009; Perelberg, 2009, 2013, p. 564).

6. In the first, the affect is discharged while the ideational content is repressed; in obsessional neurosis the ideational content is rejected and the affect disappears via a reaction formation. In phobias the ideational content is displaced and the quantitative element is transformed into anxiety (e.g. fear of the wolf instead of love for the father) (Freud, 1915. Also Freud 1905a, 1909, 1918).

7. Klein has, nevertheless, suggested the notion of memories in feelings; these are emotions and anxieties that go back to earliest infancy and which “often underline a cover memory”. Klein offers this idea in her notes after the 64th session in her analysis of Richard. These “memories in feelings” are attached to unconscious phantasies that are explained in great detail: “This feeling was bound up with his memories of early childhood, revived by seeing their house again, and stirred up the love and concern for his father and the wish to renew the family life. As had been seen in connection with earlier material, the deserted and bombed house in ‘Z’ also stood for his deserted mother. By reviving the past and experiencing love, Richard felt that he could undo or counteract his destructive desires and his identification with the Hitler‐father” (1961, p. 318).

8. At the Colloque de Deauville in 2005, before the publication of Laplanche's volume on après coup (Problematique VI) in 2006.

9. Jean Claude Rolland (personal communication, 14 September 2014) suggested that an important aspect of my analytic work with Boris might be thought about in terms of Nebenmensch – a capacity to be in touch with a fellow human being, which Freud refers to in his ‘Project’. Although Freud does not explicitly refer to the mother–baby relationship, the notion of ‘Nebenmensch’ refers to a quality of humanity that enables one to be profoundly in touch with the distressing experiences of the baby. The baby is then able to internalize the perceptual experiences of this fellow human being. Chris Mawson made a similar comment when checking this reference: “It is the recognition of humanity as a primary feature in the mother's orientating her ‘perceptual apparatus’ to her baby and that of the baby in orienting to the mother's response to his/her cries” (personal communication, 28 September 2014). Throughout his work Rolland has been particularly interested in how perceptual experiences may gain representation in the analytic process through language (2006).

“Let us suppose that the object that furnishes the perception resembles the subject – a fellow human‐being. If so, the theoretical interest [taken in it] is also explained by the fact that an object like this was simultaneously the [subject's] first satisfying object and further his first hostile object, as well as his sole helping power. For this reason it is in relation to a fellow human‐being that a human‐being learns to cognize. Then the perceptual complexes [my italics) proceeding from this fellow human‐being will in part be new and non‐comparable – his features, for instance, in the visual sphere; but other visual perceptions – e.g. those of the movements of his hands – will coincide in the subject with memories of quite similar visual impressions of his own, of his own body, [memories] which are associated with memories of movements experienced by himself” (Freud, 1950 [1895], p. 331).