FROM SYMPTOM TO THE SYMBOLIZATION OF RECEPTIVITY

Abstract

Psychoanalytic practice and theory do not map together in any seamless ways. Nevertheless, the creative tension between the two is essential in the production of psychoanalytic knowledge. In this paper, I recount Emma’s psychoanalytic journey using a series of five vignettes from her four-year psychotherapy. When I met Emma, she had been unable to walk for six months. The reasons for her affliction were, at this time, mysterious. During her therapy, a transformative process took place reflecting a movement from symptom to the symbolization of an inner receptive space. The insights that emerged from this psychic journey challenge the conceptualization of a simple linear progression from the pre-Oedipal to the Oedipal moment which is seen to structure subjectivity. I argue that the representation of a receptive inner space is a necessary precondition for thought – and this is especially so for women’s development of mind. This argument calls into question the centrality given to the Oedipus complex and the associated paternal function in the structuring of subjectivity in some psychoanalytic models of mind. I suggest these models sit too closely to patriarchal fantasies which underestimate the complex processes involved in entering the symbolic realm.

Keywords:

• psychoanalysis
• gendered meanings
• femininity
• receptivity
• Oedipus complex

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

I am grateful to Pelagia Goulimari, Louise Braddock, Sylvia Martin and Gill Straker for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

1 I don’t use “resolving” here as I believe these struggles are continually required to be re-worked.

2 The analysand, Emma, was referred to in The Gendered Unconscious (157–59) to highlight issues concerning femininity and aggression.

3 I was to learn from Emma’s perspective that she (mis)believed that any angry, “out of control” moments could only be survived by men without risk of breakdown.

4 In discussing the criteria for terminating a psychoanalysis, Klein wrote:

Two features are usually emphasized in this connection, growth in stability and in the sense of reality, but I hold that expansion in the depth of the ego is essential as well. An intrinsic element of a deep and full personality is wealth of phantasy life and the capacity for experiencing emotions freely. (“On the Criteria” 45–46)

5 While authors use the term “feminine dimension” differently, it usually refers to identification with women’s maternal, procreative and sexual aspects.

6 For Bion, the desire for learning and knowledge has comparable importance in the construction of subjectivity as the capacity to love and hate (Learning; “Theory”).

7 Emma and her analyst are of Caucasian appearance.