Trauma, process and representation

Sure It Works in Practice, but Does It Work in Theory? Appreciating Fred Pine

Fred Pine is a major contributor to contemporary Freudian analytic work. He expanded the breadth of clinical psychoanalysis by showing how the analyst could integrate ever expanding perspectives in analysis, and he expanded its depth through greater insight into how development affects psychic structure and, thereby, the context within which unconscious conflict and compromise is experienced and processed. Both of these-his expansion of potential variables implicated in the process of dynamic conflict and his developmental focus on structural deficit-have led to a way of Freudian thinking that is highly assimilative and integrative. Pine's focus on integrating disparate points of view-not different theories, but clinical observations that are featured in different overall theories-illuminates clinical possibility and nuance. Pine's work leads to questions about the relation of psychoanalytic theory to analytic practice and the definition of contemporary Freudian psychoanalysis itself.

The inability to mourn: Past and current challenges for psychoanalysis

Although the capacity to mourn is ubiquitously acknowledged as critical for individual psychic functioning, the impact of this capacity on a collective social level has been examined to a very limited extent in the psychoanalytic literature to date. The two papers that take up this this topic thus bring various critical and complex issues to our attention. After reviewing and commenting on these papers, I discuss how these issues are particularly relevant today to society in general and psychoanalysis in particular. I believe that the ability to mourn is under siege in the Western world at present, with respect to both "macro" mourning that is, mourning for significant losses such as a beloved person, ideal, or country, and "micro" mourning or mourning for losses inherently and unavoidably implicated in choices we make in everyday life. These mourning processes are undermined by the impact of complex socioeconomic parameters on psychic functioning, as evidenced by various internal problems and symptomatology characteristic of our times. In turn, difficulties in mourning contribute to social problems including social injustice, wars and the climate crisis. As psychoanalysts we are called upon to address these issues in our clinical work as well as in our global community.

The Innate Capacity for Representing Subjective Experience: The Infant's Mind is Neither Primitive nor Prerepresentational

The author cites the prominence of theories that locate serious adult psychopathology in the preverbal infant's inability to formulate or represent traumatic experience. The work of two such authors, H. Levine and D. B. Stern, is briefly considered. The frame of reference for this investigation is that clinical and academic research findings are highly relevant to psychoanalytic theorizing. It is argued that when such findings are considered, a view of the infant with "primordial and unrepresented" states of mind has little evidence to support it. In fact, research findings summarized herein point to an opposite view: that of the "competent infant," one with highly accurate perceptual discrimination capacities and an innate ability to register and represent subjective experience in both procedural and declarative memory, even prenatally. Given the infant's competencies, it seems implausible to hold that representational deficits are at the heart of serious adult psychopathology, which is instead seen to be the result of defensive maneuvers against unknowable and unspeakable truth rather than the absence of a preverbal representational capacity. Current research findings seem to pose a significant challenge for psychoanalytic theories that espouse "primitive mental states"; "unrepresented," "unformulated," or "unsymbolized" experience; or "nonconscious" states.

L'irrappresentabile ombelico del trauma. Sul dibattito scaturito dall'articolo di Howard B. Levine

Freud, pur passando dall'ipotesi del trauma psichico accaduto a quella della mera interpretazione soggettiva, manterrà sempre la tesi di eziopatogenesi traumatica delle nevrosi. Da qui l'importanza del trauma, concetto rispetto al quale Howard Levine (2021) segnala un'esigenza psicoanalitica condivisa di maggiore coerenza. Simile necessità, insieme clinica e teorica, passa dalla rinnovata attenzione al registro simbolico, al trauma del linguaggio e alle dolorose parole originarie che han-no generato il soggetto. Fuori dalle sterili contrapposizioni immaginarie fra trauma davvero acca-duto o solo interpretato dal soggetto, oppure tra affetti, corpo e parole, un trauma è reso tale dall'esito distruttivo sulla trama simbolica. Il ritorno del trauma infantile nella forma di avveni-menti attuali rinvia all'inadeguato trattamento simbolico della vicenda traumatica. Occorre allora che il lavoro clinico, ove possibile, si concentri sulle parole, pur dense di affetti, affinché l'antica vicenda cessi di ripetersi per diventare definitivamente passato.

Al di là della rappresentazione? Alcune osservazioni metapsicologiche: commento all'articolo di Howard Levine

A partire da una riflessione epistemologica sulla necessità di una metapsicologia per la psicoanalisi, viene evidenziato come l'ipotesi rappresentazionale avanzata da Levine (2021) circa la questione del trauma richieda di ripensare soprattutto alla sua dimensione economica alla luce degli ultimi sviluppi teorici freudiani di tale concetto e delle difficoltà tecniche insite nel trattamento basato sulla sola ricostruzione storica. Viene evidenziato come il trauma, in quanto connesso a processi di slegamento psichico, richieda soprattutto di sviluppare una tecnica atta a riparare e ricostruire le capacità simboliche dell'Io del paziente in ragione della gravità della sua compromissione strutturale. Tale riflessione porta con sé interrogativi essenziali circa la validità degli approcci che, enfatizzando ora la componente rappresentazionale ora quella affettiva, si limitano a perseguire solamente finalità ermeneutiche o catartiche.