From relation to the field: Modes of unconscious fantasy elaborations¹

1 Paper originally presented at the 13th International Sandor Ferenczi conference Ferenczi in our Time and a Renaissance of Psychoanalysis, May 3–6, 2018, Florence, Italy.

Abstract

Relational and field theories have much in common, despite divergent foundations. In this paper, several areas of divergence are selected, including the structure of the field as a relational matrix or as an unconscious joint fantasy of the couple; the fate and form of insight; and the nature of the unconscious as relational or ubiquitous. Differences in cognitive and attentional sets are identified and linked to different modes of insight. Using a clinical vignette, these divergences will be illustrated with an attempt to compare and contrast the two approaches through a discussion of how each lens highlights, expands, or forecloses different features of the analytic process. A mode of conceiving the unconscious as unstructured and multiple in potential is offered to reconcile divergent assumptions in therapeutic action. A consideration of Sandor Ferenczi’s clinical emphasis on relaxed technique, elasticity, and especially mutuality suggests that he would have been a field theorist were he among us today.

Key words:

• relational theory
• field theory
• Ferenczi
• emergent process
• historical repetition
• cognitive set
• models of unconscious

Notes

1 Paper originally presented at the 13th International Sandor Ferenczi conference Ferenczi in our Time and a Renaissance of Psychoanalysis, May 3–6, 2018, Florence, Italy.

2 See Katz (2017) and the two-part series of papers proposed by Don Stern and introduced by Jack Foehl (2013a, 2013b) for the most recent comparative discussion of the use of the field concept and other facets of the two theoretical frameworks (Carnochan, 2013; Cooper, 2013; Ferro and Civitarese, 2013; Foehl, 2013a, 2013b; Levine, 2013; Peltz and Goldberg, 2013; Stern, 2013a, 2013b; Troise, 2013).

3 Compare, for example, Stern’s (2015) receptivity to “unformulated experience” and Ferro’s (2009) emphasis on “unrepresented states.”

4 Indeed, some practitioners (see, for example, Stern, 2013a, 2013b, 2015; Harris, 2011) make the case that American relational theory is a type of field theory through its focus on emergent, unformulated here-and-now phenomena.

5 Katz (2017) refers to a detailed inquiry into the emerging personal myths of the analysand and, quoting Levenson (2005), describes how patients recapitulate relationships with primary caregivers. Historical references are not a one-to-one relationship with what historically occurred and what is currently enacted, however, but a deconstruction of personal myths derived from historical experience and enacted in the here-and-now (Katz, 2017).

6 Stern (2015) represents one end of the continuum that favors emergent processes, courting surprise, and attention to novel affective experiences in the here-and-now. In this way, Stern qualifies as a relational/field theorist and exemplifies the overlap between these theoretical models.

7 See Stern (2013a) for a discussion of ambiguity as essence in interpersonal relational psychoanalysis versus intentional in Bionian field theory; see Levine (2013) and Stern (2013b) for a discussion of the role of certainty.

8 Neurophysiological studies (e.g. Damasio, 1994; Schore, 2018) have repeatedly demonstrated that sequential, linear (“analytic”) modes of cognition are governed by the dominant hemisphere (in most people, the left-hemisphere) while analogic, synthetic modes of cognition are governed by nondominant or right hemisphere visuospatial modes of processing. Neither of these modes typically functions alone; rather, one mode tends to predominate in particular mental states. This finding dovetails with field theorists’ favoring of analogic, metaphoric, and pictorial modes of cognition salient in creativity and dreams, a mode of processing associated with the right hemisphere.

9 In other places, Stern distinguishes between unconscious fantasy and unconscious relational configurations (essentially, internalizations; Stern, 2015) and emphasizes the focus on “semiotic incompetence” as the central task of interpersonal gaps or mysteries in a person’s narrative life story.

10 See Stern (2013a) for a discussion of ambiguity as essence in interpersonal relational psychoanalysis versus intentional in Bionian field theory; see Levine (2013) and Stern (2013b) for a discussion of the role of certainty.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Celenza

Andrea Celenza, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School. She has authored two books: Sexual boundary violations: Therapeutic, supervisory and academic contexts and Erotic revelations: Clinical applications and perverse scenarios. She is in private practice in Lexington, MA, USA.