Some Brief Reflections on “Time” from a Psychoanalytical Perspective

Abstract

An attempt is made to encircle time and the times psychoanalytically. They are understood as the result of the interplay of different psychic systems: Timelessness of the Ucs system (psychic reality), actual time in the Pcpt-Cs (perceptual reality), and vectorial-linear time in the Cs/Pcs systems (reality principle). Time shows itself in the moment of presence, but it can only show itself if there is a temporal antecedent. At the same time, time and space are intertwined, so that the past is initially the place where something happened. However, the interplay of the mental systems with time and space can only develop in the object relationship. A short clinical example of an autistoid perversion illustrates this dynamic.

Keywords:

• Time
• times
• present moment
• space
• timelessness
• Freud

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors do not have any relevant financial or non-financial competing interest.

DISCLAIMER

Potentially personally identifying information presented in this article that relates directly or indirectly to an individual, or individuals, has been changed to disguise and safeguard the confidentiality, privacy and data protection rights of those concerned, in accordance with the journal’s anonymization policy https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/upaq20.

Notes

1 Even in the psychoanalytical sphere the literature on time is no longer manageable. Summaries/overviews can be found in Abraham (1976), Arlow (1984), Birksted-Breen (2003, 2009), various works in Glocer Fiorini, L. & Canestri, J. ed. (2009), Green (2002, 2003, 2005, 2009), Gutwinski-Jeggle (1992, 2005), Hartcollis (1978), Hock (2003, 2005), Laplanche (1992), Loewald (1978), Schmidhüsen (2004), Nissen (2014, 2023), Reed (2016), Scarfone (2016). The same applies to the concept of Nachträglichkeit (deferred action or après coup). See: Freud, e.g., 1895, 1918b (p. 72), 1939a; Birksted-Breen, 2003, 2009; Dahl, 2010; Eickhoff, 2005; Faimberg, 2005; Hock, 2003, 2005; Laplanche, 1992; Loch, 1988, 1993; Pasche, 1988; Sodre, 2005.

2 Two vectors of time can be discerned in the case of Nachträglichkeit: In one, the Nachträglichkeit follows the chronological arrow of time. In the other, Nachträglichkeit works against the chronological arrow of time. In one the present is interpreted in light of the past, in the other the past in light of the present (see Nissen 2023). I will not distinguish between deferred action and après coup in the following, but always use the German words nachträglich/Nachträglichkeit.

3 Scarfones (2016) considerations, which do not refer to Loewald but to Noë, seem to me to have some points of convergence with Loewald’s conception.

Schmithüsen distinguishes with Loewald between time standstill and timelessness. He restricts timelessness to the “very short time during primary experience of indivisibility, relative tensionlessness” (Schmithüsen 2004, p.298; all translations BN) from which duration then develops “as a specific element of the circular, cyclical experience of time” (2004, p. 298). Time as duration (i.e., as the present) can only exist for a child “as long as it can maintain the inner image of a need-satisfying object despite its absence and thus the dimension of the future” (2004, p. 298). If traumatic experiences occur in the collapse of this inner image, the state of temporal stasis occurs, i.e., “the agonising experience of a meaningless, eternal now, without duration, without end, an experience of fragmentation in which the world falls apart, as it were, into pieces, none of which has any meaning.” (2004, p. 298)

4 Loewald (1972) describes the phenomenon by comparing it to when we focus on a word and repeat it several times, the word can change into a meaningless sound (p. 408). Karl Kraus described it more than 100 years ago as follows: “The closer you look at a word, the more distant it looks back.”

5 The actual (e.g., a trauma) can be known, but not consciously in the systemic sense, it falls out of the psychic process.

6 It is clear that there cannot really be a pure Pcpt.-Cs., perceptual consciousness is also subject to constructive-interpretive conditions, even in exceptional situations such as shock and trauma. But it is precisely in shock and trauma that the functioning of the Pcpt.-Cs. becomes apparent, namely perceiving without reflexive processing and limitations.

7 The Greeks distinguished not only Kairos and Kronos, but also rhythm and flow. Rhythm was associated with the movements of the sea, the breaking of the waves. The philosopher Durie points out that the Greeks never claimed that the sea flowed. Rivers flow (cf. Durie 1997, p. 156). So the question remains: how does rhythm (Ucs) come to flow (Pcs/Cs)? For Durie, rhythm is the third genre that allows us to approach the “proto-temporality that constitutes our consciousness of time without itself being temporally constituted.” (Durie 1997, p. 152; trans. B. N.)

Gutwinski-Jeggle asks how to think about the relationship between rhythm and duration. Her idea is that “rhythm is time in time and duration is space in time” (Gutwinski-Jeggle 2005, p. 95; trans. B. N.).

But as far as I can see in the literature, the rhythmic of the unconscious has not yet been psychoanalytically conceptualized.

8 There is an uncertainty here that I cannot resolve. Is the grasping of O (Bion) (presence moment, nunc stans) dependent on a pure Pcpt-Cs? What would be the characteristic of a pure Pcpt-Cs? That even the most basal quantifications are absent?

9 In German, sublation = Aufhebung means: something is deleted, something is preserved, and something is raised to a new level (see also the complex concept of Aufhebung in Hegel 1812, p. 13).

10 This process is complicated because defenses and resistances operate, current self-states have a strong influence, the infant’s form of communication exerts pressure, constitutional factors are not to be underestimated, etc. But we ignore these complications for heuristic reasons.

11 Freud paraphrases: “‘…I am the breast.’ Only later: ‘I have it’…” (Freud 1938b, p. 299).

12 Wherever possible, for reasons of confidentiality, I try to make use of published case material, which is then discussed from new points of view (see Nissen 2023).

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Bernd Nissen

Bernd Nissen is a psychoanalyst (DPV/IPA) in private practice. His main areas of work are metapsychological, theoretical, and clinical conceptualization of autistoid and nameless states as well as reflections on “time” and “space” in psychic systems. He has publications in many languages and is the Co-editor of the Yearbook of Psychoanalysis.