Clinical identification of a specific psychic envelope in families with anorexic symptoms.

Our clinical experience in psychoanalytic family therapy with families where one member has anorexic symptoms has shown that the therapy space is often invaded by the deathly dimension, by an absence of family historicity, and by a lack of autonomy. These different elements appear as "voids," missing pieces of a family puzzle, and reflect a psychic container damaged by the weight of inherited intergenerational trauma. Rather than disappear, these elements are passed down from one generation to the next, their effects weakening the current group whose psychic envelope develops "holes" and becomes "elastic." This paper will focus on the changes in this psychic container, which shift according to the rhythm of family functioning, oscillating between activation of the deathly toxic function within the group, on the one hand, and tension between the isomorphic and homomorphic mode, on the other. We will show how this clinical identification around the quality of the psychic envelope and its changes is valuable for family therapy.

Beyond the death drive: Entropy and free energy.

In this paper I offer an overview of the possible links between psychoanalytical metapsychology and contemporary work in neuroscience concerning entropy and the free energy principle. After briefly describing the theory of living systems put forward by the neuroscientist Karl Friston based on the notion of entropy, we sum up the use of the notion of free energy by Friston and Freud. I then analyze how these notions improve the intelligibility of psychic functioning and can be associated with several psychoanalytical concepts, in particular the death drive. I approach from the same perspective the regulation of free energy associated with psychic envelopes and early intersubjectivity. It thus appears that the psychic apparatus can be considered at its different levels, from the most primary to the most secondary, as having the essential function of reducing entropy and free energy. Various forms of "failure" of this process of linking, regulation and transformation of energy within the psychic apparatus could be considered as the origin of different psychopathological manifestations as suggested in the last part of this paper.

"The Skin is the Cradle of the Soul": Didier Anzieu on the Skin-Ego, Boundaries, and Boundlessness.

Didier Anzieu's notion of the skin-ego builds on a long psychoanalytic tradition that began with Freud's idea that the ego is first and foremost a body ego, a projection in the psyche of the surface of the body, or, in other words, the idea that psychic phenomena are always embodied. An interface, a container for the ego, but also its origin: thus did Anzieu conceptualize the skin's psychic function. The baby's fantasy of having a common skin with the mother is the concrete starting point for a development that, through the prohibition on touching, leads to the experience of being a separate and individual person. Psychoanalytic work with severe mental disorders makes it necessary to investigate deficiencies in the skin-ego's containing function before the patient's psychic contents can be explored. In the psychoanalytic situation, the analyst's words replace tactile contact and thereby contribute to healing injuries to the skin-ego. The clinical implications of Anzieu's theoretical model are illustrated by examples from psychoanalyses of children and adults. The close connection between touch, psychic envelopes, and thinking opens a wider perspective on the necessity of setting limits to violence, against both nature and human beings.

Envoltório psíquico, envoltório onírico: a função do grupo na instituição Projetos Terapêuticos / Psychic envelope, oneiric envelope: the function of the group in the institution Projetos Terapêuticos / Envoltorio psíquico, envoltorio onírico: la función del grupo en la institución Projetos Terapêuticos

Partindo da perspectiva teórico-clínica psicanalítica de que o grupo pode ser instrumento de intermediação paradoxal e fecundo no tratamento das psicoses, pretendemos neste artigo apresentar a clínica de grupos desenvolvida na instituição Projetos Terapêuticos. Para tanto, ao longo do texto, trabalharemos as ideias de Didier Anzieu e René Kaës sobre os envoltórios psíquicos e oníricos grupais, bem como sobre as funções constitutivas e reparadoras desses envoltórios para psiquismos em que os contornos são imprecisos ou fragmentados.

Starting from a clinical and theoretic psychoanalytical perspective that the group can be a paradoxical and fruitful instrument for intermediation in the treatment of psychoses, we intend to present in this work the clinic of groups developed in the institution Projetos Terapêuticos. To this end, throughout the text, we will develop the ideas of Didier Anzieu and René Kaës on the psychic and oneiric envelopes of the group, as well as on the constituent and repairing functions that the envelopes represent for psychisms where the contours are vague or fragmented.

A partir de la perspectiva teórico-clínica psicoanalítica de que el grupo puede ser instrumento de intermediación paradójico y fructífero en el tratamiento de las psicosis, en este trabajo nos proponemos presentar la clínica de grupos desarrollada en la institución Projetos Terapêuticos. Para ello, a lo largo del texto, trabajaremos las ideas de Didier Anzieu y René Kaës sobre las envolturas psíquicas y oníricas grupales, así como sobre sus funciones constituyentes y reparadoras para las psiques donde los contornos son vagos o fragmentados.