Anxiety: The importunate companion. Psychoanalytic theory of castration and separation anxieties and implications for clinical technique

Abstract

In this article I consider the implications of our differing psychoanalytic theories of anxiety on clinical technique. Drawing on differentiations between the focus on separation or castration anxiety and the relative neglect of the latter in contemporary writing, I look in detail at two clinical examples of psychoanalysis in borderline young adults to exemplify the issue.¹

Key words:

• castration anxiety
• counter‐transference
• separation anxiety
• shame
• technique

1. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the European Psychoanalytical Federation Conference in Copenhagen, April 2011.

1. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the European Psychoanalytical Federation Conference in Copenhagen, April 2011.

Notes

1. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the European Psychoanalytical Federation Conference in Copenhagen, April 2011.

2. This was highlighted in the 1973 IPA panel on hysteria, when André Green challenged the view put forward by another panellist for arguing that sexuality in hysteria was a defence against psychosis. He riposted: “to consider sexuality as a defence looks more like a denial than a theoretical advance” (Laplanche, 1973, p. 464).

3. This analysis was part of a research initiative at the Anna Freud Centre, under the directorship of Mrs Anne‐Marie Sandler and Professor Peter Fonagy. It was designed to compare five‐times‐a‐week psychoanalytic treatment with once‐weekly treatment of a sample of young adult patients.

4. Thomas amply fulfils Fonagy’s definition of borderline psychopathology: “Among the most commonly shared characteristics of individuals considered to be borderline is an impairment of object relations, internal as well as external & relationships appear to be short‐lived, sound chaotic yet extremely intense. They manifest an interpersonal hypersensitivity which leads to dramatic alterations in their relationships, a fragmentation of their sense of identity, an overwhelming affective response and mental disorganisation” (Fonagy, 1991, p. 639).