Some thoughts on the psychoanalytic situation.

This article develops ideas set out in a previous study on the "archaic matrix of the Oedipus complex" versus the fully developed Oedipus complex (their similarities and their differences), applying these to a study of the psychoanalytic situation. The central hypothesis is that there is a correspondence between the psychoanalytic situation and the structure of the mental apparatus. The author supposes that our perception of the world is intimately linked to the primary maternal relationship, to our wish to fuse with the mother once more, and to the accompanying fear such a wish inspires. To deal with this we create enclaves where the regressive wish can be satisfied without fear of ego dissolution. The author suggests that the psychoanalytic situation is one such enclave. She examines its specific features in the light of the structure of the mental apparatus as she defines it.

Sadomasochism in the perversions: some thoughts on the destruction of reality.

The author summarizes and develops some of her viewpoints on the perversions (outlined in several of the books and articles she has written). For her all the perversions, whatever their content, develop against an anal sadomasochistic backdrop. Their aim is to destroy reality. Reality, from a psychosexual perspective, may be defined as resulting from the existence of the father separating the mother and the child. This may be formulated in another way: reality is recognition of sexual and generational differences. Or, yet again: mother and father have a procreative sexuality, whereas the child does not. This leads to the idea that the destruction of reality is equivalent to destruction of the paternal universe. Clinical case illustrations are provided, one of which centers on the assassination of an old man who, besides representing a paternal oedipal image, also represents reality itself. This case illustrates in concrete form the murder of the father, and hence of reality, accomplished by the pervert when he eradicates the paternal dimension of psychosexuality by regressing to the anal sadomasochistic dimension.

On acting out.

The author sets out to compare her own ideas on the archaic matrix of the Oedipus complex, as opposed to the fully developed Oedipus complex, with Glover's conception of the different developmental stages of the mental apparatus in which historical priority is given to what he calls 'psychosomatic reactions' over later psychoneurotic symptoms. These former result in pure discharge, whereas the latter are characterized by meaningfulness. She also briefly tries to connect some of her views with those of Melanie Klein and Bion.

The bright face of narcissism and its shadowy depths. A few reflections.

The author summarizes some of Grunberger's ideas on narcissism and certain of her own views on the subject. She stresses the fact that narcissism is almost always considered as being a hindrance to psychoanalytic treatment and a severe disorder. Without underestimating the dark and lethal face of narcissism that may lead the individual to hatred, aggression, destruction, suicide, and toward groups that attempt to annihilate the universe, she, following Grunberger, emphasizes the positive aspects of narcissism, especially in treatment, but also in other realms.

From the archaic matrix of the oedipus complex to the fully developed oedipus complex. Theoretical perspective in relation to clinical experience and technique.

The opposition between the "archaic matrix of the oedipus complex" and the fully developed oedipus complex leads the author to compare two distinct types of patients: those who do not conform to the neurotic model (patients who probably witnessed and were the victims of disintegration of the family and the effacement of the father's image) and the neurotic patient for whom Freud's discovery was intended. The consequences of differences of organization specific to each type of patient are numerous. This study restricts itself to examining the different mode of interpretation in each case, although the choice of this does not depend solely upon the analyst, since interpretation is the product of the encounter between patient and analyst.

A woman's attempt at a perverse solution and its failure.

The Programme Committee of the Montreal Congress asked the author to present a case of perversion connected with traumas. Rather than speak about erotization of the effects of the trauma (death or castration anxiety transformed into a source of pleasure) the author relates the first 18 months of analysis of a young woman whose important narcissistic trauma, the result of an inadequate early relationship with her mother, is camouflaged by an avidity for sexual excitations. The aim is to transform narcissistic pain which cannot be worked through into sexuality for which release is possible. Sexuality becomes a means of expressing feelings of hate, revenge and triumph over the primary object. The ensuing perverse solution--an attempt to slip into the primal scene by identification with the sadistic penis--does not succeed. The author advances certain hypotheses concerning the mother-daughter relationship which seem to explain this failure and to explain too the absence of a stable perverse organization in women. There follows a longing to return to the womb, in the shape of the fantasied destruction of the contents of the mother's belly, expressed as the fantasy of the end of the world, and which the author labels as 'the archaic matrix of the Oedipus complex'.

[A few remarks on Freud's attitude to the Nazis, "Jo as Jew"]. / Quelques réflexions sur l'attitude de Freud durant la période nazie, "Jo, comme Juif".

My aim is to put the question of Freud's attitude to Nazism in historical perspective, that is to get the facts straight. From the study of some documents it can be established that from the very first symptoms of Nazism, Freud tore up his Germanic roots in order to base himself essentially on Jewish values. His advice is to give up fighting "the spiritual currents of the Germany of today". He says of the Germans: "Let us give them up" (1923). "Should we not leave to itself this people abandoned by God" (1932). Reproaching Freud with having been indifferent towards or even acquiescing in the fate of German psycho-analysis overlooks the concrete situation of Freud and European Jews in general during the "brown years". As for those, few in number one hopes, who today regard Freud's jubilant humour when, on the eve of his departure from Vienna, he was ordered to state that he had been correctly treated and is supposed to have written: "I can warmly recommend the Gestapo to everyone", as genuine support for the Gestapo, my word are not addressed to them. They have passed a barrier beyond which my ticket is no longer valid.

The femininity of the analyst in professional practice.

The author puts forward the hypothesis that the wishes concerning genitality are present from the beginning, and especially the wish to make or to have a child. From this follows that pregenital sexual satisfactions would be mainly substitutes for genital satisfactions, which are not available because of the human fundamental prematurity. Woman's maternal aptitude enables her to fulfil, in displacing it, her dual incestuous wish, i.e. to keep her father's penis inside her during pregnancy, to recover the stage of merging with her mother by means of the fusion with the foetus. This would explain why women are less often murderers than men: an archaic matrix of the Oedipus complex would exist which aims at finding an access to the mother's belly, which means to make it perfectly smooth after getting rid of all its contents, that is of all obstacles. This need leads to a destruction of reality. The disposition to maternity is common to both sexes (through identification to the mother). The author wants to describe the disposition to maternity of the analyst in the treatment. The analytic situation would correspond to the triangle schema of the Oedipus complex: it favours the regression to the foetal stage, but, at the same time, the psychoanalytic framework constitutes a limit which cuts the child from the mother.

Some thoughts on the ego ideal. A contribution to the study of the "illness of ideality".

Man searches continuously for the time when he was his own ideal--a time that is coincident with primary fusion with the mother. The fantasy of this fusion underlies the incest wish. Because of his helplessness, the child must postpone the realization of his incest wish and project it forward into the future. However, if the subject chooses the pathway of the oedipus complex and identification with the father to realize his incestuous fantasy, circumstance may lead him to circumvent the oedipal shpere and, through the mechanisms of regression, return to the mother of primary fusion. As in Aesop's adage, the ego ideal is at the source of the best and the worst of things.