Momentums of Meeting

ABSTRACT

In this article, I attempt to engage questions about the momentums of the moments of meeting formulated by Lou Sander as propitious for early development. I wanted to portray observations that grapple with the intersection between psychic change and complex dynamics, like imagistic confluence with verbalized interaction, embodied recognition from parent to child, and affecto/libidinal communication between patient and analyst. The focus is on four different directions for comments: (1) Some links to my own clinical practice and research; (2) An instance of “confluence of visual image between patient and analyst”, a moment of imagistic meeting, as understood through self-analysis by an open-minded analyst, including the discovery of “the importance of unsuccessful empathy in learning and growing”; (3) A study of “engrossment,” exemplifying the ways in which the earliest moments of “recognizing” ones infant, can engender joyful, expansive affects, with enhancement of self-image in fathers; and (4) The continuing generative momentum of Lou Sander’s participation within the Boston Change Process Study Group.

Notes

¹ Lieberman (1953, pp. 110–114) discussed several cases of suicidal attempts in children, which “show a common feature in the mother-child relationship, namely conscious or unconscious death wish in the mother directed against the child.” Schmideberg (1948) related the case of a girl who made six serious suicidal attempts, each followed by overt guilt about how heartbroken her parents would be at her death. She stated, “Her guilt was a defense against the realization that they might be relieved at her death. She wanted to kill herself before their hostility became obvious.” Schmideberg held that “in every case of suicidal impulse we should pay particular attention to the latent hostility of the family and the patient’s unconscious awareness of it” (1948, p. 181).

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Lora Heims Tessman

Lora Heims Tessman, Ph.D., is author of The Analyst’s Analyst Within and Children of Parting Parents, member of The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (NY), and practices psychoanalysis and supervision in Newton, Massachusetts.