Space, time, space-time psychoanalytical thoughts on time and space

ABSTRACT

In this contribution, which is intended only to open up perspectives for reflection, Freud’s remarks on time and space are briefly outlined. For Freud, the unconscious was timeless, while chronological times could exist in the conscious. Freud conceived of his psychic apparatus spatially, assuming that the psyche is extended. Bion distinguishes between ’place’ and ‘space’. The place seems to be associated with the absent object, while the space is associated with a feeling. Disturbances in containment lead to the unlimited space being without spatial and temporal boundaries. The clinical consequences for space and time in nameless states are discussed with case vignettes. The considerations show that time and space are to be thought of as objectal. In the earliest phases, the place where the breast was could be experienced by the infant not as a space but as a time: the past as the place where the object was. The consequences of this are discussed – and an attempt is made to understand Freud’s enigmatic sentence a little bit better.

KEYWORDS:

• Time
• space
• Freud
• Bion
• nameless states

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. On the concept of ‘space’, see, for example, the fundamental works of Meltzer et al. (1975) and Matte-Blanco (1998a); various works in Münch et al. (2005); also Carignani (2018). On the concept of ‘time’, see, among others, the fundamental works of Loewald (1972), and Abraham (1976); various contributions, e.g., Glocer Fiorini and Canestri (2009); overview, e.g., in Nissen (2024b); see also the EPF ‘Symposium on Time’, 2022).

2. On the problematic nature of the concept of the model, see Bailer-Jones (2002, 2003).

3. See also Carignani (2018): ‘from the beginning he [Freud] had speculated that the perception of space and time was the result of projecting the functioning of the psychic apparatus into the external world.’ (p. 669) Carignani continues: ‘In short, from the beginning to the end, we find Freud attempting in various passages of his work to provide the reasons for the transcendental conditions of our knowledge: how are we able to have an a priori form for space and time? Freud answers: by projecting the specific characteristics of the functioning of our psychic apparatus which is, as far as it can be known by psychoanalytic investigation, extended and discontinuous.’ (p. 670)

4. A solid critique of Euclideanism can be found in Schneider (2005; esp. chap. 5), even if he perhaps does not sufficiently consider the projective aspect of spatiality.

5. See Bion’s discussion of premonition: ‘The term “premonition”, as I propose to use it, represents emotional states rather than ideational content, thus leaving the term “pre-conception” to represent the latter … Analysis must be conducted so that the conditions for observing pre-monitions exist … If premonitions cannot be experienced, correct interpretation becomes difficult for the analyst to give and difficult for the analysand to grasp …’ (1963, p. 76).

6. See also Bion’s (1970); Loewald’s nunc stans (1972); Stern’s present moment (2004). See also Gadamer (1969/1987). He writes: ‘Time is for being to happen.’ (‘Zeit ist, dass Sein sich ereignet.’ 1969, p. 143)

7. 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, 1812/13[1969]).

8. For Langer (1942), the presentative, or the presentative symbol, is non-discursive and untranslatable, but a first and independent form of intuitive comprehension.

9. If the sublation of the ‘emptiness’ in the above example had succeeded in the presentative, the analytical pair would have ‘discovered’ the emptiness, it would have become real, would have created a symbol in the interpsychic process at the same time and would have been subjugated by the force of this existential emptiness.

10. For reasons of confidentiality, I use the clinical material from vignettes several times, discussing them from different perspectives. Parts of this vignette see Nissen (2024a).

11. In 1930, many years before Kanner and Asperger, Melanie Klein had already described autistic symptoms in a treatment of a four-year-old boy and noted with irritation that he treated her ‘just as if I were a piece of furniture, but he showed no interest in any of the objects in the room’ (1930, p. 27; italics BN).

12. Paraphrased line from the poem: ‘Herzkranzgefäß’ (coronary vessel) by Heiner Müller.

13. In the case of nameless dynamics, the secure use of temporal and spatial categories, which must first develop, is difficult. In the presence of the object, the conception is palpable, but in its absence, the analyst threatens to become a retraumatising object. Only when this process succeeds does the conception become a thought and can be used by the self. These dynamics are turbulent, almost regularly accompanied by psychotic, suicidal or psychosomatic dangers (for details, see Nissen, 2024a, 2024c).

14. See also Freud: ‘Our picture of the universe, in his view, is arrived at by our intellect taking the impressions that impinge on it from outside and remoulding them into the forms of time, space and causality.’ (1900a, p. 36)

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Notes on contributors

Bernd Nissen

Bernd Nissen, Dr. phil., Dipl.-Psych., psychoanalyst (DPV/IPV) in private practice. Main areas of work include: nameless states, conceptualisation of ‘time’, hypochondriacal and autistic disorders, scientific-theoretical questions of psychoanalysis. Editor of several books. Co-editor of “Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse”. Various journal publications in several languages.