The analytic state of consciousness as a form of play and a foundational transference

Abstract

The analytic state of consciousness is a particular regressive altered state in the patient characterized by an increased sensitivity and reactivity to impressions arising from both the inner world and the analyst, a heightened sense of dependence and vulnerability, a permeability of boundaries in regard to the analyst, and a shift toward functioning on the basis of omnipotent fantasy in the analytic relationship. These changes are accompanied by a feeling of realness of one’s psychic reality, but without any true loss of reality testing. Based on an analysis of the structure of play, this state can itself be understood as a kind of play; it serves as a foundational transference underlying more specific transference manifestations; and it is central to the analytic process. Over time, in response to physical aspects of the analytic setting, its safety, the analyst’s emotional accompaniment, and a generally restrained analytic stance (an issue I discuss in some detail), it emerges in a more developed form that promotes symbolization and ownership of aspects of self, greater emotional presence, and a deeper sense of meaning in one’s experience. Additionally, the concept of the analytic state of consciousness provides a new look at the role of abstinence and frustration in analytic process.

Key words:

• abstinence
• analytic restraint
• analytic state of consciousness
• foundational transference
• play
• symbolization

1. An early version of this paper was presented at the Conferenczi 09 Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 2009.

1. An early version of this paper was presented at the Conferenczi 09 Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 2009.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Sheldon Bach, Deborah Browning, Norbert Freedman, and Deborah Moses for their very helpful readings of earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1. An early version of this paper was presented at the Conferenczi 09 Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 2009.

2. Ferenczi credited Freud with this statement.

3. Ferenczi’s disapproval of giving in to a patient’s omnipotent fantasies, already expressed in his early paper, Introjection and transference (1909), continued for more than another decade and a half: Ferenczi’s ‘active technique’ experiments of the late 1910s and first half of the 1920s (e.g. Ferenczi, 1919, 1920, 1925) involved his development of a technique to frustrate patients’ efforts to hold onto gratifying omnipotent fantasies in a way that he saw as undermining their treatment.

4. See Kohut’s (1971) description of the different self–object transferences whose form is based on whether grandiosity is owned or projected.

5. See Chused’s (1982) definition of analytic neutrality as a genuinely felt “nonjudgmental willingness to listen and learn” (p. 3) – an attitude that requires some degree of capacity to reflect upon and master one’s own conflicts as they arise in listening to the patient. This description of neutrality is also echoed in Borgogno’s (2009, unpublished) concept of ‘the introjective analyst’: an analyst who actively resists the impulse to interpret or otherwise intervene in a premature way, but rather tries to hold to a state in which he can take in as fully as possible the patient’s suffering and struggles.

6. Relational objections to the idea that the analyst can minimize his influence will be dealt with in the final section of this paper.

7. While play is often thought of as a physical activity, there is a strong basis for seeing certain mental activities and states, too, as forms of play. The natural history of play in children shows that with increasing age a progressive dissimilarity can be accommodated between the play object and the real object it represents – what researchers call “decontextualization” (Smith, 2005, p. 181). Additionally, with age play actions tend to become increasingly abbreviated, schematized, condensed, or incomplete, compared with the real thing, so that play actions become symbols or signifiers of other actions (Piaget, 1962). This progression characteristically culminates in complete ‘interiorisation’ of the symbol (Piaget, 1962). Ultimately, play often becomes a mental activity taking the form of daydreaming and private fantasy (Singer, 1995) – an observation echoed by psychoanalyst Eugene J. Mahon (1993), who said that “Play has become internalized as the action‐oriented childish mind grows up” (p. 175, italics in original). Another analyst, Russell Meares (1993), has discussed the similarities between children’s play and adults being “lost in thought” (p. 6). It may be that mental rather than physical play predominates in adult humans. Beyond this, play is associated with specific mental states. Researchers on play with animals and children have observed that play is characterized by moderately increased states of arousal and alertness, often accompanied by subjective pleasure but sometimes with other emotions activated (see, for example, Burghardt, 2005, pp. 19, 138–40, 155; Millar, 1968, pp. 45, 94; Sutton‐Smith, 1997, p. 174), and have understood play as reflecting a particular attitude (Millar, 1968, p. 20; Schwartzman, 1982; Sutton‐Smith, 1997). Its allusions to functional behavior are paradoxical (Schwartzman, 1982) – e.g. a play bite both is and is not what it represents – and are detached from their usual emotions, allowing animals to experiment with new behaviors without anxiety (Eibl‐Eibesfeldt, 1982). Play exists in the subjunctive mode (Singer, 1995) in a reality implicitly acknowledged not to exist. A duality of consciousness is intrinsic to play: as scholars from various fields have regularly observed, the sense of reality in play is colored by what psychoanalysts call the pleasure principle and primary process thinking, while at the same time containing a greater awareness of and perspective on self (Meares, 1993) – what Winnicott (1971) termed a ‘transitional’ state, which I will discuss shortly.

8. Play research suggests that play fosters learning, innovative thinking, flexibility in problem‐solving, exploratory behavior, the establishment and maintenance of social roles and bonds, the capacity to symbolize one’s experience, the capacity for restraint, and the capacity to act (see brief review in Frankel, 2011).

9. Cf. Fonagy and Target’s (1996) idea of psychic equivalence.

10. Cf. Bucci’s (1994) concept of referential activity.

11. In contrast to Anna Freud’s (1936) later, better known use of the term to mean making oneself like the frightening person, Ferenczi (1933), who first coined the term, was referring to an identification with what the frightening person expects or requires one to be – an identification with the object in the aggressor’s mind rather than with his self. In Racker’s (1968) language, this is a complementary rather than concordant identification with the adult’s role; or, said differently, the child forms a concordant identification with the adult’s experience, in which the child figures simply as an object, even for himself.

12. See Antal Bokáy’s (1998) exploration of the hypnotic element of the analytic situation in Ferenczi’s writings.

13. However, Freedman and Ward have found that the reverse is not true – when the patient enters a desymbolizing mode, this does not predict that the therapist’s symbolizing activity will decrease. In other words, the therapist may be able to hold on to his ability to reflect even while the patient has temporarily lost this ability.

14. See, for instance, Loewald’s (1971) reference to the analyst’s conscious effort at self‐control with his phrase “persistent renunciation of involvement” (p. 63).

15. Cf. Killingmo’s (1989) discussion of analysts choosing either an affirming or an exploratory tack, depending on whether a patient is functioning on primarily a deficit or a conflict level at that moment, and Frankel’s (2006) related idea that an analyst’s technical choices at any given time be based on the patient’s ‘diagnosis‐of‐the‐moment’.

16. For instance, see Bálint’s (1968) distinction between object‐loving ‘ocnophils’ and space‐loving ‘philobats’, Kohut’s (1971) descriptions of the need to idealize as opposed to the need for mirroring, and Bach’s (1994) discussion of masochistic versus sadistic strategies to control the object and deny anxieties about object loss; the second half of each of these pairs reflects an orientation in which the subject seeks to efface or subordinate the other person.