The murder of the dead father: The Shoah and contemporary antisemitism.

It is suggested in this paper that in the Shoah one is confronted with the abolition of the Law of the Dead Father and the re-establishing of the tyranny of the narcissistic father. In the extermination of the Jews of Europe in the Shoah, the aim was the destruction of the rules of genealogy and filiation to both mother and father that establish the social and give rise to personhood and are at the core of the oedipal structure. The rule of absolute power - the destruction of any sense of maternal care and paternal rules - leads ultimately to the creation of the abject.Freud distinguished between two different types of obstacles to psychoanalytic treatment that are expressions of the death drive. The first is bound and is related to the superego; it is connected to the negative therapeutic reaction, masochism, and the unconscious sense of guilt. The other manifestation of the death drive is unbound and diffuse. If the first is understandable, the second, he suggests, escapes any understanding. The paper makes use of this distinction to examine Hannah Arendt's notion of the banality of evil.

The empty couch: Love and mourning in times of confinement.

This paper describes the psychoanalytic treatment of a woman patient during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the setting was profoundly disrupted and was transferred from in-person psychoanalysis to telephone sessions. Drawing on Bleger's formulations on the construction of the analytic frame and on André Green's on the function of the framing structure in the construction and elaboration of phantasy life, the case study shows how, in the absence of the physicality of the setting, the most primitive anxieties about the symbiotic relationship with the mother were expressed and contained in the transference and countertransference in the analysis. The author offers some considerations about the notion of "background of the uncanny", derived from Yolanda Gampel, which draws attention to the challenges when both patient and analyst are inserted into the same traumatic wider context. It is suggested that the production of an art object by the patient during this period represents a step in the elaboration of the work of mourning and towards symbolization.

The riddle of anxiety: Between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

It is difficult to say what anxiety is, Freud tells us. This paper suggests various dimensions of anxiety. Anxiety evokes the original experience of helplessness; it is an affective state that is accompanied by physical sensations and bodily symptoms-expression of an excess that it is not possible to process psychically. Anxiety is also linked to the fear of loss of the imaginary integrity of the body, as well as of primary objects. Furthermore, anxiety marks the passage from the world of the narcissistic father and/or mother, in which the individual is alienated from his own history, to the dead father configuration that inserts the individual into his subjective temporality in the après-coup of an analysis. A detailed narrative of an analysis that gave rise to these ideas is presented. In this analysis the transsexual emerges to give shape to something that had not previously reached representation.

Love and melancholia in the analysis of women by women.

This paper suggests that in the analysis of women by women a melancholic core may be encountered at the centre of the transference/countertransference situation that is an expression of the loss of the primary maternal object that has never been mourned. The attachment to the primary, lost object may be preserved in a melancholic, invisible way, and the longing that it is connected to might only reach representation in the après coup of the analytic process. The links between this primary love, melancholia and the unrepresentable in the analysis of women will be explored. These analyses powerfully evoke the relationship to the somatic. The internalization of the body of the mother, which is a requirement in the development of a woman, can take on frightening, fragmented, part-object qualities. An example of a five times a week analysis is discussed.

Negative hallucinations, dreams and hallucinations: The framing structure and its representation in the analytic setting.

This paper explores the meaning of a patient's hallucinatory experiences in the course of a five times a week analysis. I will locate my understanding within the context of André Green's ideas on the role of the framing structure and the negative hallucination in the structuring of the mind. The understanding of the transference and countertransference was crucial in the creation of meaning and enabling the transformations that took place in the analytic process. Through a detailed analysis of a clinical example the author examines Bion's distinction between hysterical hallucinations and psychotic hallucinations and formulates her own hypothesis about the distinctions between the two. The paper suggests that whilst psychotic hallucinations express a conflict between life and death, in the hysterical hallucination it is between love and hate. The paper also contains some reflections on the dramatic nature of the analytic encounter.

On excess, trauma and helplessness: Repetitions and transformations.

Freud's work establishes a link between an excessive amount of excitation, the infant's experience of helplessness, and trauma. The idea of excess emphasises a quantitative element, not reducible to the field of representation. In this paper I explore the notions of excess and closure in relation to two clinical examples. A patient who lived through experiences of excess and flooding is contrasted with another patient whose experience of excess is expressed through withdrawal. The complex process of elaboration and working through in their analyses takes place by bringing together affect, representation, sensorial and somatic experiences, dreams, associations and enactments as they are gathered and given meaning après coup through analytic work. Two concepts were central to the understanding of what took place in the analyses: excorporation and figurability. The paper emphasizes the place of temporality in creating a triadic space in an analysis as it relates the here and now with the there and then in the work of après-coup. The paper also traces the roots of this modern approach that relates the analyst's work of regression, time, and the creation of a triadic space to Freud's metapsychology.

A multiplicidade das configurações sexuais / The multiplicity of sexual configurations / La multiplicidad de las configuraciones sexuales

Joyce McDougall afirma que a sexualidade humana é na sua origem traumática, traumatismo que está ligado ao reconhecimento da diferença entre os sexos. A configuração edipiana, seja na sua dimensão homossexual ou heterossexual, confronta o indivíduo com a impossibilidade de possuir os dois sexos, como também de possuir seus pais. Este artigo sugere que a distinção entre "pai assassinado" e "pai morto" é crucial na internalização da diferença sexual. A fantasia de "um pai espancado" e suas transformações emergem na análise de certos pacientes homens e expressam a apropriação do pai morto (pai simbólico). Quatro casos clínicos são descritos. A autora formula a hipótese de que alguns casos clínicos demonstram a incapacidade de elaborar a perda do pai simbólico e apresentam erotização desta perda.

Joyce McDougall states that human sexuality is traumatic in its origin, a trauma which is related to the acknowledgement of the difference between genders. The Oedipal configuration, whether in its homosexual or heterosexual dimension, confronts the individual with the impossibility of possessing both genders, as well as that of possessing his parents. This article suggests that the distinction between “murdered father” and “dead father” is crucial in the understanding of gender difference. The fantasy of “a beaten father” and its transformations appear in the analysis of certain male patients and express the appropriation of the dead father (symbolic father). Four clinical cases are described. The author formulates the hypothesis that some clinical cases show the incapacity to elaborate the loss of the symbolic father, and show erotization of this loss.

Joyce McDougall afirma que la sexualidad es traumática en su origen, un traumatismo que está relacionado con el reconocimiento de la diferencia entre los sexos. La configuración edípica, ya sea en su dimensión homosexual o heterosexual, confronta al individuo con la imposibilidad de poseer los dos sexos como también de poseer a sus padres. Este artículo sugiere que la distinción entre “padre asesinado” y “padre muerto” es crucial en la interiorización de la diferencia sexual. La fantasía de “un padre golpeado” y sus transformaciones aparecen en el análisis de ciertos pacientes hombres y expresan la apropiación del padre muerto (padre simbólico). Se describen cuatro casos clínicos. La autora formula la hipótesis de que algunos casos clínicos demuestran la incapacidad de elaborar la pérdida del padre simbólico y presentan el erotismo de esta pérdida.

Paternal function and thirdness in psychoanalysis and legend: has the future been foretold?

This paper examines the Akedah, the biblical narrative of the Binding of Isaac, and suggests that this story may be interpreted as inaugurating paternal function and thirdness. It marks the passage from the narcissistic father to the symbolic, dead father, and the institution of the Law that forbids all killings, opening up the succession of the generations. The author suggests that time is an essential element in establishing thirdness, creating a link between the here and now and the there and then in the après coup of the psychoanalytic process. The author also briefly reviews the psychoanalytic literature on thirdness and indicates this paper's contribution to it.

'A father is being beaten': constructions in the analysis of some male patients.

I will suggest that the phantasy of 'a father is being beaten' and its transformations emerges for certain male patients as a result of the work of analysis and becomes a potential appropriation of the (symbolic) father. The symbolic beating of the father takes place at the threshold between an anal-sadistic organization and the oedipal situation. The phantasy of the 'father being beaten' does not necessarily mean that it is the father who is explicitly being beaten. It is a construction derived from the free associations and dreams, in the analytic encounter, reached through the work of interpretation. Detailed material of sessions of the five times a week analysis of one of my patients will be presented. This will be contrasted with material from four other analyses of male patients where the 'father being beaten' phantasy was not achieved. The common feature in all these other configurations is a foreclosure in the relationship to the father and a lack of an internalization of the paternal function as a symbolic capacity. It is my suggestion that this absence of the father in its symbolic function is then sexualized in a fusion between life and death drives. A final contrasting example is derived from Karl Abraham's classic paper detailing the analysis of a patient where one can interpret a dream as expressing 'a father is being beaten' phantasy; however the dream's repetitive nature and its links with a current dream in the analysis points out to a lack of differentiation between the sexes and an anal-sadistic organization.

Space and time in psychoanalytic listening.

The analytic situation is by definition traumatic because it evokes hilflosigkeit, the state of helplessness of the newborn infant, which is the prototype of the traumatic situation, and at the origin of the experience of anxiety. The author addresses the chain of associations between the state of helplessness, repetition compulsion, trauma, infantile sexuality, pleasure and displeasure, which lie at the core of the transference experience, and which find their ultimate expression in the analyst's listening. The discovery of the compulsion to repeat instituted a paradigmatic shift in Freud's formulations, emphasizing the process of repetition of trauma, and instituting a link between the network of concepts indicated above. In the clinical example discussed, the author defines the psychoanalytic process by the primacy of sexuality, the erotic passivation in the transference that evokes the traumatic childhood sexual scene. Sexuality and sexual phantasies are at the centre of the elaboration of meaning. Furthermore, the author distinguishes between two types of interpretations, namely 'open' and 'closed'.

The controversial discussions and après-coup.

The author suggests a distinction between what is descriptively named après-coup, and what is dynamically identified as après-coup. This parallels Freud's distinction between the descriptive unconscious and the dynamic unconscious in the topographical model of the mind. The descriptive après-coup refers to the way in which the concept has found a use, especially but not only in the French literature, to refer to retrospective signification in the moment-to-moment progress of a session. The author outlines dynamic après-coup and she suggests it is at the core of Freudian metapsychology. Dynamic après-coup establishes a link between trauma, castration, repetition compulsion, sexuality and temporality in the context of the transference.

Narcissistic configurations: violence and its absence in treatment.

'On narcissism: An introduction' constitutes a turning point in psychoanalysis. Although narcissism is a concept which has not been explicitly referred to by many important thinkers for decades, it could be said that there is no paper written in psychoanalysis since Freud that does not implicitly take into account the modifications in thinking that the work brought about. In this paper, the author contrasts two types of narcissistic configurations: in the first, the intolerance of the other is dealt with by expulsion and violence; in the second, by withdrawal. The author contrasts patients who express manifest violent behaviour with patients for whom the violent behaviour is absent but who, nevertheless, present similar background histories, which might have led to a prediction of violence. They are also profoundly different in terms of what they provoke in the countertransference. In addition, this paper argues that the treatment of narcissistic personalities has allowed in recent years the understanding of a modality of depression. Following Green, the author argues that, instead of a fruitless debate that involves evolutionary issues around the concept of narcissism, it is necessary to distinguish the narcissistic aspect in any analytic relationship, to identify the narcissistic transference in different types of psychopathologies.

Full and empty spaces in the analytic process.

In this paper the author discusses two categories of patients which differ in terms of the impact they have in the countertransference. On the one hand, there are patients who create an empty space in the analyst's mind. The response they provoke is a kind of depressive feeling that remains after they leave. The patient may bring dreams and associations, but they do not reverberate in the analyst's mind. The experience is of dryness, a dearth of memory, which may--at times--leave the analyst with a sense of exclusion from the patient's internal world. At the other extreme, there are patients who fill the consulting room. They do that with their words, dreams and associations but also with their emotions and their actions. The experience is that the analyst is over-included in the patient's world. They have dreams that directly refer to the analyst and the analyst feels consistently involved in the patient's analysis. The pathway through which the analyst can understand both these types of patients is via the countertransference or, to put it another way, the analyst's passion. In 'Analysis terminable and interminable' Freud suggested that the bedrock of any analysis is the repudiation of femininity. The author believes this statement may be viewed as lying at the crossroads of the discussion about the limits of the theoretical and clinical psychoanalytic formulations which she refers to. In the examples presented the author relates the repudiation of femininity in its connections to the gaps implicit in psychoanalytic understanding.

Espaços cheios e vazios no processo analítico

Neste trabalho a autora discute duas categorias de pacientes que diferem quanto ao impacto que têm no analista. Esta distinção foi inspirada pelo trabalho de Pontalis. De um lado existem pacientes que criam um espaço vazio no consultório. A experiência é de aridez, de ausência de memória, podendo provocar no analista sentimento de exclusão do mundo interno do paciente. No outro extremo existem pacientes que enchem o consultório. Fundamentalmente, deixam o analista com o sentimento de um excesso de representações dominando o consultório e de uma excessiva inclusão do analista no mundo interno do paciente. A autora discute a modernidade teórica do conceito de pulsão para a conceitualização do impacto que estes pacientes têm no analista, na medida que é um conceito que refere-se aquilo que encontra-se no limite da representação (AU)

Violencia e fantasia: o caso Karl

Neste artigo, a autora desenvolve uma hipotese de que alguns pacientes tem em seu amago uma fantasia de violencia que esta ligada a suas crencas em relacao a sua propria procriacao. Tomando a sua experiencia em tentar compreender e tratar psicanaliticamente tal paciente, a autora ilustra como e possivel apreender que ha um padrao no qual a violencia e exercitada, uma conspiracao ou narrativa que permite que fantasias subjacentes sejam identificadas. O ato violento conta uma historia que e um mito pessoal a respeito de criacao e que contem teorias distorcidas, tanto pre-edipicas como edipicas. Estas ideias sao entao discutidas no contexto dos escritos de Freud a respeito da violencia [Heftigkeit] bem como em sua relacao com um segundo paciente particularmente violento.