Examination of the hypothesis that repression is premature automatization: A psychoanalytic case report and discussion

ABSTRACT

This paper is a combined and edited version of two oral presentations by the authors in 2016, under the titles “A case which challenges the neuropsychoanalytic theory of repression” (at the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute) and “Examination of the repression-as-premature-automatization hypothesis, using a psychoanalytic case presentation” (at the 17th International Neuropsychoanalysis Congress, Chicago). The aim of these meetings was to provide analytic material to see if Solms’s neuropsychoanalytic theory of repression as premature automatization, and the related conceptualization of transference interpretation as reconsolidation of memory, could be used to characterize therapeutic action in an analytic case in a new way. If this proved to be possible, then this could have technical implications for the practicing analyst.

KEYWORDS:

• repression
• automatization
• prediction
• psychoanalytic treatment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For a more elaborated version of this introductory summary, see Solms (2017).

2 Certain details have been disguised or substituted, to protect the patient’s identity.

3 The exploitative personal qualities of Mr. A’s lovers and the emergence of transference FEAR in relation to Dr. Smith provides confirmation of this. Please note: there is a particular type of object that he falls in love with, that he’s trying to seduce. That is an object which he believes is trying to seduce and abuse him. He is attracted to men who do not really wish him well; they actually wish him harm. We hear that N, the man who brought him to treatment in the first place, was a sociopath who was exploiting him. The same – the patient believed – was the case with his previous therapist; and, of course, the same was the case with Ben. He had no real relationship with him. We heard also about this tragic situation when the patient was removed from the foster home. There’s no relationship with the biological father, either. So Mr. A finds himself attracted to people whom (he believes) want to abuse him – and then what he does is that he tries to abuse them, he tries to seduce them. Herein lies the importance of the fact that he eventually acknowledged his fear of Dr. Smith: he started from the unconscious assumption that Dr. Smith, another paternal (supposedly caregiving) object, is dangerous.