Peter Pan, Wendy, and the Lost Boys: A Dead Mother Complex.

Melanie Klein and André Green offer competing descriptions of primitive mental development. The former emphasizes the need to control internal objects through splitting and projective identification, while the latter emphasizes a narcissistic retreat from objects through progressive deadening of the self. To bridge these theoretical differences a spectrum of fantasies is proposed ranging from reanimation (bringing deadness back to life) to reparation (healing damage caused by paranoid attack). Clinically, alternations between these two defensive patterns occur, acting together to avoid painful anxieties. The interplay of these defenses is illustrated by a dream drawn from clinical practice, from the life of James Barrie, and from his fictional creation Peter Pan.

O luto no complexo da mãe morta / Mourning in the dead mother complex

ABSTRACT: We review the concept of mourning, first as conceived by Freud and Klein, and how it relates with the contemporary "clinic of the void" as described by André Green. The clinic of the void is part of a series of modern manifestation of psychic malaise called "new symptoms". To illustrate, we present the case of Roxana, a Mexican woman whose psyche reflected the dynamic of the dead mother complex. Through an analysis of her interpersonal relationships and past experiences, and comparing with psychoanalytic literature, we conclude that the dead mother complex might become a common condition in our society.

Resumo: Revisamos o conceito de luto, primeiro como concebido por Freud e Klein, e como este se relaciona com a "clínica do vazio" contemporânea, como descrita por André Green. A clínica do vazio é parte de uma série de manifestações modernas do mal-estar psíquico chamado "novos sintomas". Para ilustrar, apresentamos o caso de Roxana, uma mulher mexicana cuja psique refletiu a dinâmica do complexo da mãe morta. Através de uma análise de suas relações interpessoais e experiências passadas, e comparando com a literatura psicanalítica, concluímos que o complexo da mãe morta pode se tornar uma condição comum em nossa sociedade.

Algunas consecuencias de lo negativo en el desarrollo emocional infantil / Some consequences of the negative aspect of emotional development in childhood

El presente artículo profundiza en los efectos que tiene la depresión materna en el desarrollo emocional temprano. Un primer enfoque estadístico reúne los datos que la investigación exploratoria sobre depresión de la OMS proporciona. A continuación, se detallan las investigaciones que las disciplinas humanísticas y el psicoanálisis han realizado hasta el momento sobre el tema para describir y explicar el síndrome. El nudo teórico es la articulación entre los conceptos de "duelo blanco" y "complejo de la madre muerta" teorizados por André Green con el de "vacío" de Donald Winnicott y el de "posición depresiva" de Melanie Klein. El valor pragmático del recorrido teórico reside en la posibilidad de resignificar los diagnósticos en la infancia con la herramienta diagnóstica que la CFTMEA - R - 2000 y la categoría de lo "límite" en psicoanálisis ofrecen. También las adecuaciones técnicas imprescindibles para una dirección de la cura tendiente a contrarrestar los efectos de lo negativo en el desarrollo emocional infantil surgidas de la experiencia clínica con estos niños

In this article, the impacts of postnatal depression on emotional development in childhood are studied in depth. A first statistic approach gathers the data provided by the exploratory research on depression according to the WHO. Next, research on humanistic disciplines and psychoanalysis carried out up to the present is described in detail on this topic in order to define and explain the syndrome. The theoretical knot serves as the articulation between the concepts of "white grief" and "dead mother complex", both of them theorized by André Green based on Donald Winnicott's notion of "vacuum" and Melanie Klein's notion of "depressing position." The theoretical path's pragmatic value lies in the likelihood of resignifying diagnoses during childhood making use of the classifying tool offered by psychoanalysis: CFTMEA-R-2000 and the "borderline" category. Likewise, the essential technical adaptations towards a cure that might counteract the negative effect on child emotional development that emerge as a result of the clinical exploration on children are addressed

FROM PRIMARY MATERNAL PREOCCUPATION TO DEAD MOTHER.

Ferenczi (1929) writes about the unwelcome child who is not ushered into this world with care and grows up in the grip of the death instinct, with a depressive streak and a weakness in the capacity for life. Andre Green's (1986) concept of the dead mother describes a similar phenomenon, by which the image of a loving mother is transformed into an inanimate, dead parent. The absent mother becomes the negative, which will then take up a central position in the child's psyche. Winnicott (1956) describes a different maternal participation, and proposes that towards the end of her pregnancy the ordinary devoted mother develops a psychological condition which he calls primary maternal preoccupation, the main feature of which is the mother's heightened attunement to her baby at the expense of all else. I suggest that there is a potent and clinically relevant connection among these concepts: a depressed or damaged mother can still provide temporary devotion before reverting back to a state of depressive absence and that, conversely, even the devoted mother will eventually recover from the state of primary maternal preoccupation and begin to tend to other matters, and the mother's reclaiming herself can be traumatic for the child even under the best of circumstances. The connection among these concepts is illustrated with clinical material, including transference and countertransference implications, from the treatment of a young woman who grew up as an unwelcome child.

Beating phantasies: Mourned and unmourned.

This paper intends to explore the organizing function and fate of sado-masochistic phantasies in their fixed form, in the psychic life of patients who have suffered early traumas, due to environmental vicissitudes and maternal psychopathology. The theoretical starting point is provided by the Novicks' research into transitory and permanent beating phantasies in adult and child patients, their onset and their psychic function, based on an examination of Freud's paper 'A child is being beaten'. In this text Freud achieves an unprecedented syncretism, locating the phantasy at the intersection between the oedipal complex, which is a vertical structure organizing sexual and generational differences, and the fraternal dimension, which is horizontal and organizes the lateral relationship with that similar but different other who is the sibling. Reporting in some detail material from the analyses of two young women, whose clinical presentation and early traumas show some similarities, the author puts in the context of the analytic work the emerging of the sado-masochistic phantasies, emphasizing their use and function in the transference-countertransference interplay. The beating phantasies shore up a precarious sense of self, threatened with psychic depletion and death, in identification with the absent mother of early infancy. An overly close relationship with a sibling, experienced as a narcissistic double, compounds the clinical picture, to establish the triangle formed by the parent(s) and two children which features in the beating phantasy. Finally, the author explores the contribution of ameliorating factors, such as alternative identificatory figures, constitutional endowment and capacity for sublimation, to account for the different fate of the fixed beating phantasies.

A mãe morta: um ponto de cruzamento teórico-clínico entre narcisismo, estadolimite e negativo / La madre muerta: un punto de cruce teórico clínico entre narcisismo, estado límite y negativo / The dead mother: a theoretical-clinical crossing point between narcissism, borderline state, and negative

O complexo da mãe morta constitui, na obra de André Green, um ponto de cruzamento teórico-clínico entre narcisismo, estado-limite e negativo. Este núcleo traumático precoce constitui-se por um movimento único de duas vertentes: o desinvestimento do objeto materno, principalmente afetivo, mas também representativo, que constitui um assassinato psíquico do objeto, e a identificação inconsciente com a mãe morta. Ele se manifesta no tratamento analítico pela atualização, na transferência, de uma depressão infantil primária, frequentemente depois de anos de análise. Este luto branco manifesta-se, no tratamento, por uma depressão de transferência que pode ter várias modalidades. As sequências de um tratamento analítico permitem identificar duas modalidades: uma se manifesta por um câncer da tireoide no quarto ano de análise e a outra, por um momento de transferência lateral, ocorrendo no sétimo ano de análise e realizando-se por um envolvimento brusco numa paixão amorosa homossexual. Essas sequências permitem identificar as relações entre essas duas modalidades de atualização de um núcleo de mãe morta e o papel da dinâmica transferência/contratransferência e do processo interpretativo na elaboração dessa depressão infantil primária. As duas modalidades remetem à oposição, à complementaridade, ao quiasma entre a mãe morta, a depressão essencial e a depressão psicótica.

The complex of the dead mother is, in André Green’s work, a theoretical-clinical crossing point between narcissism, borderline state, and negative. This early traumatic core encompasses a single movement of two sources: the disinvestment of the maternal object, especially affective, but also representative, that constitutes a psychic murder of the object, and the unconscious identification with the dead mother. It manifests itself in the analytic treatment by surfacing, in transference, a primary childhood depression, often after years of analysis. This white mourning manifests itself, in the treatment, by a transference depression which may have different modalities. The sequences of an analytic treatment render the identification of two modalities: one manifests itself by means of a thyroid cancer in the fourth year of analysis, and the other by means of a moment of lateral transference, in the seventh year of analysis, by a sudden commitment to a homosexual passion. Those sequences allow for the identification of the relations between those two surfacing modalities of a dead mother and the role of the transference/countertransference dynamics, as well as of the interpretative process in working-through this primary childhood depression. The two modalities refer to opposition, complementarity, the chiasm between the dead mother, essential depression, and psychotic depression.

El complejo de la madre muerta constituye, en la obra de André Green, un punto de cruce teórico clínico entre narcisismo, estado límite y negativo. Este núcleo traumático precoz se constituye por un movimiento único de dos vertientes: el desinvestimiento del objeto materno, principalmente afectivo, pero también representativo que constituye un asesinato psíquico del objeto, y la identificación inconsciente con la madre muerta. Se manifiesta en el tratamiento analítico por la actualización, en la transferencia, de una depresión infantil primaria, frecuentemente después de años de análisis. Este luto blanco se manifiesta en el tratamiento, por una depresión de transferencia que puede tener varias modalidades. Las secuencias de un tratamiento analítico permiten identificar dos modalidades: una se manifiesta por un cáncer de la tiroides en el cuarto año de análisis y la otra por un momento de transferencia lateral, ocurriendo en el séptimo año de análisis y realizándose por una involucración brusca en una pasión amorosa homosexual. Esas secuencias permiten identificar las relaciones entre esas dos modalidades de actualización de un núcleo de madre muerta y el papel de la dinámica transferencia/ contratransferencia y del proceso interpretativo en la elaboración de esa depresión infantil primaria. Las dos modalidades remiten a la oposición, a la complementariedad, al quiasma entre la madre muerta, la depresión esencial y la depresión psicótica.

Contratransferência e transferência em seminário clínico / Countertransference and transference in a clinical seminar / Contra-transferencia y transferencia en seminario clínico

Este trabalho ilustra, por meio de um caso apresentado em seminário clínico, como o analista disponibiliza sua matéria psíquica viva para dar forma e vida ao objeto primário que um paciente melancólico convocou na/pela transferência. Dessa perspectiva, contratransferência não é apenas a reação emocional do analista, mas principalmente a posição identificatória a partir da qual "alguém" nele se dirige a um aspecto da criança-no-paciente. Sendo inconsciente, esta posição será captada pela escuta analítica nas brechas do relato do caso. Uma exclamação espontânea da analista, altamente carregada do ponto-de-vista emocional, foi o ponto de partida para entrarmos em contato com seu sofrimento narcísico e ambivalência com relação ao paciente. Com a ajuda de uma articulação teórico-clínica em torno da noção da "mãe morta", pudemos reconstruir as vicissitudes não simbolizadas da relação da criança-no-paciente com seu objeto primário. Esse percurso nos levou, por fim, a propor um caminho possível para esta análise.

This paper describes, through a case presented in a clinical seminar, how the analyst makes available his "living psychic material" to give shape and life to the primary object that a melancholic patient summoned in /by transference. From this point of view, countertransference is not only the analyst's emotional reaction but, mainly, the identificatory position from which "someone" in him addresses an aspect of the-child-in-the-patient. Unconscious as such, this position will be captured by analytical listening in the gaps in the narration of the case. A spontaneous exclamation by the analyst, highly charged from an emotional point of view, has been the starting point to get in touch with her narcissistic suffering and ambivalent feelings towards her patient. With the aid of a theoretical-clinical articulation of the notion of the "dead mother", we were able to reconstruct non-symbolized vicissitudes of the relationship between the child-in-the-patient and his primary object. Finally, this trajectory allowed us to propose a way to conduct this analysis.

Este trabajo ilustra, a través de un caso presentado en un seminario clínico, como el analista pone a disposición su materia psíquica viva para darle forma y vida al objeto primario que un paciente melancólico convocó en/por la transferencia. Desde esta perspectiva, la contra transferencia no es apenas la reacción emocional del analista, y sí principalmente, la posición identificadora a partir de la cual "alguien" en él se dirige a un aspecto del niño-en-el-paciente. Siendo inconsciente, esta posición será captada por la escucha analítica en las brechas del relato del caso. Una exclamación espontánea de la analista, altamente cargada desde el punto de vista emocional, fue el punto de partida para que pudiésemos entrar en contacto con su sufrimiento narcisista y su ambivalencia con relación al paciente. Auxiliados por una articulación teórico-clínica en torno de la noción de "madre muerta" pudimos reconstruir las vicisitudes no simbolizadas de la relación del niño-en-el-paciente con su objeto primario. Este trayecto nos llevó, finalmente, a proponer un camino posible para este análisis.

'Sobreadaptación' y 'complejo de la madre muerta': dos hipótesis acerca de la dificultad en el proceso de simbolización / 'Over-adaptation' and 'dead mother complex': two hypothesis about the difficulty in the symbolization process

Este trabajo intenta comparar dos hipótesis dinámicas clínicas: la teoría de la “sobreadaptación” de Liberman y el “complejo de la madre muerta” de André Green, en términos de procesos que remiten a experiencias vinculares tempranas fallidas que inciden en fracasos (parciales) de la capacidad de simbolización. Se revisan algunos conceptos de Winnicott y Bion acerca de la construcción del aparato psíquico, el desarrollo del “self ambiental sobreadaptado” en los planteamientos de Liberman y la identificación con aspectos muertos de la madre en la teoría de Green, concluyendo que se trata de experiencias traumáticas encapsuladas que pueden “re-presentarse” en la relación transferencial para ser analizadas

This paper tries to compare two clinical dynamic hipothesis: Liberman´s theory about "over-adaptation" and André Green´s idea of the "dead mother complex". Both are processes linked to failure in early bonding experiences which affect (partially) symbolic ability. Some concepts of Winnicott and Bion are reviewed about psychic construction, environmental over-adapted self, who are beneath Liberman´s exposition. Also states that the identification with the dead mother aspects is an important issue in the development. Concluding that there is a failure in the object task that disturb the psychic constitution which are settled as encapsulated traumatic experiences that could be "re-presented" in the transference relationship to have the opportunity of being analyzed