Enrique Pichon Rivière's conception of reality in psychoanalysis

Abstract

The author places the subject of his paper in the context of the original views of a school of Argentinian psychoanalysts that differed from traditional conceptions of man and his² relationship with the sociocultural context – that is, with reality. These were the analysts who followed Enrique Pichon Rivière and further developed his ideas – namely, Madeleine and Willy Baranger, José Bleger, and David Liberman. The author begins his exposition with a discussion of Pichon Rivière and culture. He then offers an outline of Pichon Rivière's particular conception of man, followed by a section on the Internal Group as the nexus between the psyche and reality. Further sections address the idea of reality in the analytic situation as a dynamic field and the operative definition of the transference; the distinction between perceptual reality and the reading of reality, with a consideration of the notion of ‘critical judgement’; and lastly the issue of health and illness in terms of adaptation to reality. In addition, on the basis of a quotation from Antonio Damasio, the author draws a parallel between these psychoanalytic thinkers’ ‘psychosocial’ approach to man and the findings of contemporary neuroscience as presented by one of its paradigmatic protagonists.

Key words:

• reality
• link
• spokesperson
• Internal Group
• Education Section, Significant Figures
• Education Section, Psychoanalysts of Rio Plata
• Enrique Pichon Riviere

1. Translated by Philip Slotkin MA Cantab.

1. Translated by Philip Slotkin MA Cantab.

Notes

1. Translated by Philip Slotkin MA Cantab.

2. [Translator's note: For convenience, the masculine form is used for both sexes throughout this translation. The word ‘man’ does not of course imply a restriction to the male sex.]

3. Enrique was a popular composer known for his keen social criticism through the medium of the tango, while Armando was a playwright who portrayed the contributions of European immigrants to the nascent society of Buenos Aires in the ‘grotesque’ style.

4. See Pichon Rivière et al. (1960) and Pichon Rivière (1971). The reason for his dismissal from the Hospicio was his decision to train ‘groups’ of patients to take over the duties of striking nurses.

5. A brand name of imipramine, used as an antidepressant.

6. Cf. Freud (1930, p. 134, n. 1): ‘In sending the young out into life with such a false psychological orientation, education is behaving as though one were to equip people starting on a Polar expedition with summer clothing and maps of the Italian Lakes.’ In this context, however, learning means more than mere school or academic ‘education’, which can be equated with the raising of a child.

7. [Translator's note: This essay is included in Baranger and Baranger (1969) and was published in English translation in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 2008; the page number given here and the text of the quotation are taken from that translation.]

8. The terms ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’ are borrowed from Ferdinand de Saussure's structural linguistics.

9. A group of people are shown cards depicting lines of varying length and asked to point out the differences between them. As the experiment proceeds, all members of the group except the experimental subject persuasively give deliberately false information. The experimental subject is at first puzzled and must decide between the group's (secretly agreed) opinion and his own perception. A high proportion of subjects deny their own perception and accept the incorrect verdict expressed by the group.