Whose Who in the Psychoanalytic Situation: Subject, Object, and Enactment in the Relational and Contemporary Kleinian Traditions

Abstract

The concept of enactment, although it has probably has become an overused term in the Relational literature, is a relatively new one for the Contemporary Kleinians of London. In explicating and synthesizing these different theoretical perspectives (Relational and Contemporary Kleinians), the author's primary focus is to tackle the notion of subject and object, in the context of enactment. The author first delineates the relationship between reality and fantasy, and each theory's notion of enactment. In doing so, the author shows how these differing theories and their related notion of therapeutic action inform the kind of object the analyst sees himself or herself as. The author also addresses the technical implications related to the consequences that arise for the analyst as an object of the patient's transferences and projections, including how the analyst extricates himself or herself from the enactment. Two previously published vignettes are used for the purpose of comparison. The author argues for a complementary technical stance comprising two analytic modes: analyst as subject and analyst as object.

Notes

¹ Fantasy is used when referring to Relational analysts, and phantasy is used when referring to Kleinian analysts. As I discuss, the variation in the spelling denotes different meaning of the concept.

²The Kleinian analyst's silence in the analytic situation is often misconstrued as an attempt to be neutral, or anonymous. It is more accurate to say that silence is an expression of the analyst's private, internal work of carrying out the act of “thinking.”