Unconscious Phantasy and Relational Reality

Abstract

The concept of unconscious phantasy is embedded in the intrapsychic and instinctual models of the mind of Freud and Klien. This paper provides a relational perspective on unconscious phantasy that is centered on the actualities of external experience originating in the infant-parent relationship. Traditional theories of the origins of unconscious phantasy are reviewed and critiqued in the context of contemporary developmental research. Unconscious phantasy is also conceptualized as located in both the individual unconscious and the relational unconscious that structures all dyads. Similarly, the psychoanalytic situation itself is considered in terms of the basic unconscious phantasies it generates.

Notes

¹I have chosen to use the spelling phantasy because I rely heavily on the work of Freud and Klien, who favored this spelling. When I quote other authors, the spelling is their own.