Enactment as Unconscious Communication

ABSTRACT

I explore the way in which unconscious primitive and nonsymbolic experience is communicated to the analyst’s unconscious through enactment. As the analyst receives the projections unconsciously, she is encouraged to enact aspects of the patient’s internal world. The analytic work then is through the understanding of these subtle and ubiquitous enactments. I value the work of understanding enactments as a rich and subtle pathway into the deepest levels of the patient’s unconscious. I explore the nature of this work and illustrate my point with clinical examples.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to David Tuckett, Irma Brenman Pick, and Sally Weintrobe for help with earlier versions of this article. Some clinical material in this article first appeared in a paper in Revue Psychoanalyticka Psychotherapie; 2015/2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Polmear

Caroline Polmear is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Institute.