The paternal function in Winnicott: the psychoanalytical frame

Tove Jansson's Moominland Midwinter: Closeness and Separateness in Psychoanalytic Work

A research adventure on closeness and separateness in psychoanalysis is presented. The theme is explored through the author's daydreams evoked by clinical encounters. These are analyzed and metaphorically illustrated with psychoanalytical theories in dialogue with Tove Jansson's Moominland Midwinter. Closeness is likened to "mother's house" and separateness to "midwinter." Vacillation between and balancing of "mother's house" and "midwinter" following the patient's and the dyad's unique needs are suggested as pivotal for psychic development and creativity. A conclusion is that the author's practice can be enhanced by letting the cool winds and the mysteries of "midwinter" in.

THE MISSING FATHER FUNCTION IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY AND TECHNIQUE: THE ANALYST'S INTERNAL COUPLE AND MATURING INTIMACY

This paper argues that recovering the "missing" paternal function in analytic space is essential for the patient's achievement of mature object relations. Emerging from the helpless infant's contact with primary caregivers, mature intimacy rests on establishing healthy triadic functioning based on an infant-with-mother-and-father. Despite a maternocentric bias in contemporary clinical theory, the emergence of triangularity and the inclusion of the paternal third as a separating element is vital in the analytic dyad. Effective technique requires the analyst's balanced interplay between the paternal, investigative and the maternal, maximally receptive modes of functioning-the good enough analytic couple within the analyst-to serve as the separating element that procreatively fertilizes the capacity for intimacy with a differentiated other. A clinical example illustrates how treatment is limited when the paternal function is minimized within more collusive, unconsciously symbiotic dyads.

RECOVERING THE FATHER IN MIND AND FLESH: HISTORY, TRIADIC FUNCTIONING, AND DEVELOPMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

This paper aims to restore the father and paternal function to their rightful place alongside the mother and maternity in order to counter the prevailing matricentric, dyadic bias in psychoanalytic theory and technique. The author contends that both the symbolic and the actual, flesh-and-blood father are necessary to optimize his child's development. The paternal function inevitably operates in a triadic matrix; thirdness is always psychically in existence-with the father ever present in the mother's unconscious mind-and the paternal third is necessary to open up symbolic space. As an embodied other, the actual father, both as a separating agent and an attracting object, is called upon to recognize his child's otherness throughout the inescapable father-child rivalries, neglect, and desire.

RUPTURES IN THE ANALYTIC SETTING AND DISTURBANCES IN THE TRANSFORMATIONAL FIELD OF DREAMS

This paper explores some implications of Bleger's (1967, 2013) concept of the analytic situation, which he views as comprising the analytic setting and the analytic process. The author discusses Bleger's idea of the analytic setting as the depositary for projected painful aspects in either the analyst or patient or both-affects that are then rendered as nonprocess. In contrast, the contents of the analytic process are subject to an incessant process of transformation (Green 2005). The author goes on to enumerate various components of the analytic setting: the nonhuman, object relational, and the analyst's "person" (including mental functioning). An extended clinical vignette is offered as an illustration.