concepts which inspire the work of couple and family psycho

Transcription

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CONCEPTS WHICH INSPIRE THE WORK OF COUPLE AND FAMILY PSYCHOANALYSTS
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF A SURVEY
A. Eiguer (Paris) and E. Grinspon (Buenos-Ayres),
With E. Darchis (Paris), E. Tixier (Amiens), M. Porto (Lisbon), R. Sefcick (Lille),
J. P. Sequeira (Lisbon) and N. Cotralha (Lisbon)
REPORT
INTRODUCTION
DIRECTION, OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY OF THIS RESEARCH
This document lays out the first results of a survey of members of the International
Association of Couple and Family Psychoanalysts (IACFP). The aim being to try and
identify which concepts couple and family psychoanalysts personally refer to. So, a
questionnaire was sent, asking each member which concepts they follow.
Another aim is to study the theoretico-practical sources of these concepts and how
they are used in clinic and in practice.
A questionnaire, in tabular form, was e-mailed to all and was to be filled with a maximum of 5 concepts per cell. Each row (vertical) shows a different discipline: the first
three had to be filled with the concepts of individual psychoanalysis (PI), intersubjective (PI-S) and groupal (PG). The next two with concepts specific to family psychoanalysis (PF) and couple psychoanalysis (PC). These rows have in cross section three
horizontal lines: theory, clinic and practice and technique.
Therefore there are 15 cells altogether. To make what we asked easier to understand, we gave an example for each cell.
Individual
Psychoanalysis
Theory
Clinic
Practice
and techtechnique
Intersubjective
Psychoanalysis
Groupal Psychoanalysis
Family
Psychoanalysis
Couple
Psychoanalysis
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Table 1. Grids sent to the people surveyed
The questionnaire is in French, English and Spanish.
Studying these answers should enable us to draw out the evolution of some concepts
from individual psychoanalysis to how they are put into practice in CFP, an evolution
which could not only confirm the validity of these notions, but also how they were
adapted or even modified through use. This evolution would follow in this case « a
horizontal direction »: This is the case for interpretation, which needs to be adapted
to analytic, intersubjective, groupal, family or couple contexts. In the letter attached to
the questionnaire, we mention the example of the self, which is the source of the family self and couple self.
But this evolution can also follow a « vertical direction », from theory through clinic to
practice and technique. For example, the notion of dream-work (general theory of
dreams) enables an understanding of the mechanisms of nightmares (clinic) and then
it can be applied to interpretation of dreams during the treatment (practical and technique).
If we intersect both evolutions, vertical and horizontal, we can understand dreams in
the various types of analysis (individual, intersubjective, groupal, family and couple)
and this for theory, clinic and practice-technique. These viewpoints were obviously
not mentioned to the members surveyed, so as to let them express their preferred
option.
We received the replies between March and June 2013. From about 700 questionnaires, we got back 22, roughly 3 %. The answers were given in French, English,
Spanish or Portuguese.
This is certainly a very small sampling, what’s more it represents the point of view of
these experts. Is this representative enough? Furthermore, these 22 clinicians were
not selected according to a statistical method. However we took it upon ourselves to
present these results here, because we thought they were interesting enough and
they show, in spite of the small numbers, that extremely varied trends of thoughts are
being followed.
PART 1. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
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This analysis was conducted by a Committee whose members were E. Grinspon
(Buenos-Ayres) and A. Eiguer (Paris) (persons in charge), E. Darchis (Paris), E. Tixier (Amiens), M. Porto (Lisbon), R. Sefcick (Lille), J. P. Sequeira (Lisbon) and N. Cotralha (Lisbon). The Committee took the necessary measures for the survey to be
done blind. 5 out of 22 grids were completely filled in.
We obtained the following results by country of origin : Argentina : 7, France : 6, UK :
3, Portugal : 3, Italy : 2, Belgium : 1
For the quantitative study, we have looked at each cell by regrouping the sets of
terms in the grid. The account of this analysis looks at each cell by column from top
to bottom and left to right.
1. The whole of the concepts in each cell was set out in alphabetical order and with a
dedicated colour for each, to regroup the concepts and determine their frequency.
2. The statistical analysis of the concepts was completed by studying how relevant
they were to the question asked, etc.
3. Comments taking into account the degree of filling of the cell, the amount of terms
per cell, the frequency of these terms, the regrouping of similar terms, the amount of
non-relevant concepts and those proving to be original and that we shall call neoconcepts.
4. At the bottom of each column, we suggest a first summary, highlighting amongst
other elements, the comparison between cells in the same column. And eventually,
we compare the results of different columns.
5. General conclusions and next stage of the research.
The readers will see words, terms and sentences which refer to ideas. We shall call
them concepts. This needs to be made clearer: a concept is an idea which takes on
an abstract characteristic and gives rise to a psychic presentation; its merit has been
widely proven. Otherwise, we can talk of notion, less complete, perhaps less precise.
So, for ease of use, we will on the whole write the word concept (s), hoping that the
research will help confirm some of the most recent concepts. In some cases, the
Committee has been in touch with the members surveyed to ask for more detailed
explanation of the term used.
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COLUMN 1 : INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOANALYSIS
1. THEORY/ INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOANALYSIS
RESULT FOR EACH CONCEPT FROM ALL THE ANSWERS IN THIS CELL AND
THEIR FREQUENCY
Total amount of concepts in this cell: 119
Amount of people who filled this cell in: 18
Amount of non-relevant answers: 8 = 7%
Examination and comments
We noticed a large range of concepts. Their number is quite high, which would show
a strong commitment to the fundamental analytical concepts (119) in the group studied. Few concepts would have an implementation limited to Couple or Family Psychoanalysis. Having said that, their relative frequency gives clues to the orientation of
the members surveyed (in bold are the words as they appear on the forms we got
back):
Instinct/Drive, mentioned 9 times, represents 7,5 % of all the concepts in this cell.
Which means that half the questionnaires have this word in: 9 out of 18.
Narcissism : 7
Trauma, Fantasy : 5 times
Defence, Double, Œdipus complex, Superego : 4 times.
Three times : Unconscious, Identification, Object relations, Sense of Self, Structure.
Twice : Attachment, Attachment on negative, Protective shield, Request, Internal world, Origin Myth, Ego, Repetition, Dream, Transference.
We might be tempted to bring out a few ideas: the importance given to Instinct/Drive
and to Narcissism, this latter concept being even more favoured inasmuch as Double is found 4 times. Double must be understood in this theoretical context as the
narcissistic double, a common literary figure, and this brings the analyst to be associated with the narcissistic double, the imaginary twin in clinic, the partner of the couple
in some fusional links, etc.
For 5 colleagues, Trauma proves to be a very strong reference which can be applied
to various situations!
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About topology: If Unconscious is not mentioned often (3 times), Unconscious fantasy is mentioned a bit more often (5). Among the agencies or the topology, Superego (4). Ego is found 3 times and Protective shield, Structure is found 3 times as
well.
Psychic apparatus, I, Ego, Preconscious, Ego ideal, Three psychic agencies,
once each. One grid mentions Limit Structure: is this as a general model of psyche?
We can also include Symbolic-Imaginary-Real : This gives us 29 concepts mentioned for topology. When we compare, referring also to the viewpoint of economics,
Drive is found 9 times! Topology seems to dominate economics.
However, we should add Instinctual Spring (2) in the economic, and this would introduce the notion of the source of instinct in the other, an idea to which couple and
family psychoanalysts are not indifferent. Cathexis could also be included in the
terms from an economic point of view. Could Drive be one of the concepts which
highlight the tie to psychoanalysis?
To notice: Object relationship, plus Internal Word are found 3 times in all. And also, Partial Object, Object and Good enough object, once each. They belong to the
same category; objectal relationships, 6 mentions.
Attachment (twice). Sense of self (3 times). SIR (Symbolic, Imaginary and Real),
Symbolic murder or Analyse of speech (twice). Work on the negative (1) and Attachment to negative (1) : This confirms, and especially if we add other mentions of
the wide range of references used by IACFP members: Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bion,
Kaes, Bowlby, Lacan, Green… that British Psychoanalysts are quite keen on what M.
Klein and her followers brought to the field.
Projective Identification is a defence mechanism, which appears useful for understanding CFP and which creates a bridge between individual psychoanalysis and the
other psychoanalysis.
Interesting : Somatic compliance (1).
An evocative reminder of a concept which is unusual without being exceptional:
Mind. We would link it with Soul, concepts which have had a certain luck outside the
analytic field and that some authors have wished to rehabilitate, more or less successfully, but the question still remains topical (B. Bettelheim ; S. Lebovici).
Some concepts are not mentioned at all in the theory, such as repression, castration,
libido and neurosis: Could this show an evolution with colleagues moving away from
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individual psychoanalysis? To explain this, some analysts say that neurosis is not the
theoretical-practical model of analysis. Some add, humoristically, that the only neurotics who undergo analysis are those who want to become analysts (B. Brusset,
2013).
Finally, some ideas strongly bring up the family and can be applied to CFP, even
though any therapy uses them: Origin myth and Paternal and maternal functioning or even Family Romance.
A small number of terms would be better placed in another column or another cell in
the same column (non- relevant or exogenous). Request (2), Framework, Mourning, Limits, Symptom, Transference = 8 mentions. They represent 7 % of the sampling. As for Transference, to be more precise, we think it has its place here because, except in practice, transference spreads in any link, in any object relation and
relation to the object, from the other and to the other. Transference is itself a mechanism which links, which bonds. And the word transference can be seen more or less
everywhere in the forms.
Let’s go to the next cell.
1.CLINIC/ INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOANALYSIS
RESULTS FOR EACH CONCEPT FROM ALL THE ANSWERS OF THIS CELL AND
THEIR FREQUENCY
Amount of non-relevant answers: 14 i.e.22 %
The whole shows a wide range. When we look more closely, few of these notions are
truly clinical. However, some deserve a bit of attention: 4 mentions of Transference
and 2 of Dream, and one of Countertransference.
Trauma (5 times), Acting (3 times, 4 if we add Enactment.
Twice : The Traumatic, Thought disorders and Violence, les violences.
The defences mentioned are Denial/disavowal) (3 times), Projection, Splitting (3
times), and this latter mentioned once as a survival mechanism. Blind Spot (2) can
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be linked to Denial/disavowal. At least according to Mélanie Klein, who quotes Lafforgue and his idea of Scotomia.
On the other hand, few colleagues have mentioned symptoms or psychic illness like
Psychosis, Autism, Somatisation, or even Deprivation (once each). Would our 22
members surveyed prefer concepts coming from dynamic
psychopathology :
Thoughts disorders (2), Predestined “extra”, Fantasy non fantasy, Blind spot,
(2), Symbolic: confusing inside/outside, various defences ?
2 mentions of Parapraxis must be noticed, alluding to neurotic symptomatology. And
three times Anxiety, of which one with the added tag : neurotic. But generally the
main ones are heavy pathology and the effects of violence, or traumas. On the other
hand, neither addiction nor eating disorders nor sexual problems were mentioned! By
the way, one to highlight is: Infantile sexuality disorders (1).
We notice that terms from the most regressive clinic prevail (defences like denial,
splitting, recalling deprivation) to the detriment of neurotic clinic (repression, lapsus
are not there) : is this a tendency of our members surveyed which is linked both to
their theoretical orientations and a specific focus on psychosis or pervert links ?
The concept Affective contamination presumes an understanding of the direction of
our research, which is to point out analytical concepts CFPs. One concept appeared:
Ill-being. That would make René Kaës (2012) happy.
The non-relevance of some concepts is debatable: for some colleagues, the field of
clinic may seem non analytic ; They favour the notion of request. This is suggested
by the frequency of the word Transference: it can be said that as soon as there is
transference, there is indication and healing can be considered.
Having said that, 14 out of 64 could be non-relevant terms = 22 %.
1.TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE/ INDIVIDUAL P.
THEIR FREQUENCY
Amount of non-relevant answers: hardly any
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The answers enable us to easily bring out the prevailing tendencies.
Interpretation (13 times = 16 %), Transference (10) and also Countertransference
(5). Constructions is a surprise with 7 mentions and introduces once an interesting
differentiation between Construction of meaning and Construction of the Ego.
This is maybe the proof that our colleagues think about it more that they would admit.
The word Interpretation is the most mentioned of all the sampling, pro rata : 16 % !
Here it is found in 13 cells out of 17 answers. If we add to it Speech (twice), Interventions, Clarifications, Analysis of transference and countertransference
(once each), which puts into play interpretations said by the analyst to the patient, by
the supervisor to the analyst, by themselves to the analyst and to the patient, technique through words is by far at the forefront (25 ; 31 %).
Countertransference (5) is to be found, but not as much as we could have expected, (in our opinion). But we have to highlight Figurability of the analyst (2) and
Commitment of analyst (1), « modern» notions which are not without interest for
CFPs .
Differed Action (1), Perlaboration (1) and Figurability (3) suggest an effect of the
treatment. We would add Resistance (1) and Elaboration (1).
Framework (4), Evenly suspended Attention (2), Free Association (2), Neutrality
(1), Rate once or twice a week (1). It is important to think about these aspects of
technique.
Dream twice, if we add Interpretation of dreams, more targeted. Dream is also
mentioned in the two upper cells of this column.
Temporality-process (1), Phases of transference (1), our singularities. Subjectivation (1) and Symbolisation (1) appear to be objectives for a treatment… We presume for CFPs too. Other objectives are mentioned: Differentiate affect/psychism,
Differentiate body/meaning, Differentiate mind/sense.
As for the word Couch (4), it should be seen « horizontally », in the right hand cells
by equivalent and in the same grid. We shall come back to that.
To notice : one answer specifies Face-to-face as an individual analytic technique.
Analytic third, deserves to be mentioned also, as a notion applied to the intersubjective patient-analyst link, which was set out by Thomas Ogden (2005). In the same
idea, another colleague speaks of Transference-countertransference link.
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There are hardly any exogenous concepts unless in relation to the cells in the column, although it is possible that colleagues wished to highlight the fact that they use
these as much in individual Psychoanalysis as in CFP.
To be noticed : Nobody mentioned the Effect of Presence.
preliminary interview or mediating techniques. Not here, anyway.
Moreover, no hint whatsoever of the silence of the analyst in session or his/her ascetism…
All in all, the answers are focused, giving a sharp analysis. Our colleagues have taken into account the framework, the psychoanalyst’s attitude, the methods used in
treatment, highlighting the word, transference and countertransference, the process,
the effects of the treatment and have focused on what each of them saw as the
strong points.
Summary of the column Individual Psychoanalysis and comments
When summarizing the three cells of this column we come across some surprises or
semi-surprises : theoretical concepts are more numerous compared to those of clinic
and practice : 119 ; practice concepts (80) come out as the most relevant and concentrated in this column; clinical concepts (64) are the least numerous and probably
the least adapted or relevant of the whole section. The word Interpretation represents
16%. Non-relevant words are quite frequent in IP Clinic: 22%.
Two attitudes can be identified,
1.- Either, the concepts mentioned are tied to the idea our colleagues have of psychoanalysis in general. (Non-targeted)
2.- Or our colleagues enumerate the concepts they think are useful for their CFP
work. (targeted)
3.- Less commonly they may have sometimes one attitude, sometimes the other.
The members surveyed mention mainly adult psychoanalysis, but really exceptionally
that of the child, adolescent or older person. Nothing that could remind us that they
have their particularities. On the other hand, here and there we find some very original ideas. Is this the reflection of personal work?
Let’s go on to the next column.
COLUMN 2 : INTERSUBJECTIVE PSYCHOANALYISE
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Preliminary Note. Proposing a column for intersubjective psychoanalysis gave rise
to a few questions. This was certainly justified. Some colleague wondered that all of
psychoanalysis may be intersubjective, so, why single it out? Others thought that it
can be differentiated. A few did not give it a distinct status. The answers should shed
light on these doubts. Here they are.
We placed it between fundamental psychoanalysis and three variant applications to
the following sets: human, group, family and couple, inasmuch as intersubjective
psychoanalysis brings an answer which is both practical and theoretical to CFPs and
it is the movement of unconscious productions between the subjects, their interfunctioning. We could of course have called on Ferenczi’s mutual analysis, to Sullivan’s two person psychology, Kohut’s psychology of the self, Anzieu and Kaës’s
transitional analysis, etc. but none of these has been able to pass the test of time and
prosper, and, in the end, intersubjective psychoanalysis has integrated these theories. This is also the case for Bowlby’s attachment theory. The model he originally
used agrees with reciprocity as was shown by P. Fonagy (2001) and GC Zavatinni
and others.
One reference helps us to make clear the place of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis.
Axel Honneth, who strongly bases his thoughts on mutual acknowledgement, « emphasizes that an intersubjective approach taking its inspirations from the most recent
research on the first moments of individuation and socialisation is right to renounce
the instinct/drive theory but this does not imply in any way supporting intersubjectivism without any distortion. Because some incomplete elements still remain
in the subject’s formation process even if he benefits from apparently smooth communicational and intersubjective relations. These elements constitute then, according
to Honneth, the base of a critique intersubjective psychoanalysis showing that this
very lack of completeness is at the beginning of a lasting and inexhaustible desire to
achieve this intersubjectivity », in Préface d’Olivier Voirol from the book Un monde
de déchirements, by Axel Honneth, Paris, 2013, p. 15, La découverte (collected papers to the French Edition). Honneth’s developments allow the conceptual challenge
posed by negativity to be solved, notably when it takes on the shape of rejecting an
other, wishing to withdraw and be on the fringe in co-relation with destructivity and
primitive omnipotence. But they will still contribute to the configuration of primary narcissism, the feeling of self, the subject and subjectivation. We should try and avoid
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considering these acquisitions as being in opposition with mutual acknowledgement.
This latter needs to have the differentiation with others admitted. Let’s see now the
reaction of our surveyed members.
2.THEORY/ INTERSUBJECTIVE PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Amount of non-relevant answers: rare
The amount of answers is smaller than in Theory in the previous column: is this due
to the facts that this is a new form of analysis and that many of the intersubjective
concepts are included in other columns? But the list of those which are there, reveal
an in-depth knowledge of this analysis: to illustrate this, the most common words:
Link, if we include Unconscious threshold of the link (5), Acknowledgement (3).
Twice : Affect attunement, Accordages, Narrative, Interfantasmatisation, Resonance, Rhythm, Alpha Function, Intersubjectivity.
Once : Reciprocity, Shared daydream, The other as a subject, expression which
can be associated to Internal object-external object, notably to the second one of
these terms.
From the point of view of S-IP and CFP, the difference between internal object and
other as a subject has to be highlighted: this latter is not only an internal representation in the first subject, but a being whose internal functioning influences, interferes
with and creates that of the first subject, and the latter’s functioning is also influenced
back. The whole (underscored by the line-) becomes a third psychic reality.
Renoncement is very evocative inasmuch as it seems to allude to the notion of responsibility towards the other and more generally to the place given to the other in
Levinas’s philosophy.
Psychic transmission is noticed twice, if we add transgenerational transmission.
Notice as well : Transgenerational mandate (Cf. Lebovici).
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The allusions to Bion’s various concepts are to be noticed: is this a wish to identify
this author as an inter-subjectivist analyst? We shall see further on how Bion, Winnicott and even Lacan could not help becoming intersubjectivists eventually.
Same reasoning for Survivance of the object, a notion created by Winnicott. Communication theory is mentioned once : one of the sources of Intersubjective P ?
2.CLINIC/ INTERSUBJECTIVE PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Amount of non-relevant answers: 56 - 2%
The most remarkable fact is the rarity of repeated terms, apart from Narcissism or
narcissistic disorders (4, 10%). We should really notice how varied the answers
are. However the range of these clinic expressions could still be widened.
Some of the concepts placed in this cell seem very interesting to us: Community of
disavowal, Lapse in containing, Speech effects, Projective identification, Entourage incapacity, Flawed environment, Abuse, Perverse actions, Unrecognizing, Paradoxility, Resistance, Narcissistic seduction, Symbiosis, Abandonment
experience and excessive proximity experience...
Notice the symptoms are presented as Disorders or as Experienced. And from another viewpoint, like a « Not enough », an inhibition: Inadequacies and incapacities
or like a « Too much »: violence, a hold, emprise, seduction, massivity.
Notice also the importance given to pathogenic productions of perverse links : Incest
Incestual, Rejecting-abandonning links leading to insecurity, Abuse, Maltraitance, Perverse actions.
An equivalent observation: the deficiencies and neglect of the entourage. Why should
this be more interesting from an intersubjectivist perspective? We can say that it actually is so in several cases currently being seen.
A small amount of terms do not correspond to intersubjective clinic or maybe they are
criteria to be worked through a clinic evaluation (5 = 12 %). Cf. Defences, Mytho-
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poïesis. Or is this asserting the need to consider them as being already included in
intersubjective clinic?
2.C.PRACTICE AND TECHNIQUE/ INTERSUBJECTIVE PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
A large amount of the precisions mentioned in the study of the preceding cell can be
reproduced here. We notice a few new things and also some originality.
Three times: Interpretation. Obviously.
Twice, Framework, Chain of associations, Deposit, Empathy, Transitional
space, Forbidden to touch, Transference.
Once, Co-construction, Transactional space, Paradoxical transference. Psychic
transmission is relevant even if it has already been mentioned.
The presence of Psychic suffering (1) in this cell is very odd, but it is probably
thought of in a Tr-CTr situation.
The intersubjectivist agreement: Adjustment, adaptation, Mother-baby dyad deserves our attention, because, unless mistaken, it is the first time in the grids that
primary links are mentioned, and without forgetting the father as it often happens.
Well done!
Suggestive : The therapist’s alpha function.
Deposit appears here for the first time; it is a concept eminently intersubjective: the
three Ds according to Pichon-Rivière and Bleger : Depositary, Depositor, Deposit.
We should also mention Framework, Figuration and Interpretation: probably a reminder of unavoidable technique concepts
Why should Transitional space (2) find a singular place in this column? We asked
the question to one of the colleagues who put forward this concept. Here is her answer: « Transitional space is strongly intersubjective and enables the differentiation
of psychic spaces to be made (notably internal, external). The opening out of a transi-
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tional space by the therapist gives onto the intersubjective (or intersubjective space
with a transitional quality within Winnicott’s meaning). But we can also find this intersubjective meeting in group psychoanalysis (i.e. with psychodrama…). »
It is interesting to recall that on this point, Anzieu and Kaës had wanted to create a
« transitional analysis » referring to Winnicott and to the theory and practice of intersubjective links (R. Kaës (dir.), Crise, rupture et changement, Dunod, 1979). Finally,
we should highlight that Transitional space is an idea though up by Christopher Bollas (1993), who noticed the interfunctioning between the subjects of the link. The
term means exchange and also compromise (!).
Non-relevant: rare.
Summary of intersubjective psychoanalysis
On the whole, some originality in the answers on intersubjective psychoanalysis. And
some talented theoretical propositions to be studied by our Committee.
COLONNE 3 : GROUP PSYCHOANALYSIS
3.THEORY/GROUP PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Amount of non-relevant answers: 5
The concept group illusion scores the most: 9 mentions (14 %). Other concepts are
seen:
5 times, Internal group, Psychic groupality, the group as an object, groupal
psyche (these are concepts close to one another that we chose to put together),
4 : Groupal psychic apparatus.
3 times each : Unconscious alliances, Anaclisis, Identification (we shall include a
variant : Divers identifications), Interfantasmatisation, Organisors.
2 :Link, Ego-ideal, Psychic springboard.
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On the whole we observe two things: they are mainly concepts specific to GP (40 ; 64
%) and they refer back to the French School developments, Anzieu and Kaës (33 ;
slightly more than half). 5 of these concepts were thought of by Bion. Others : 10.
A few unknown but still quite interesting notions: Doubles, Psychic springboard (2),
possibly Support or Non-help attitude, Containing Function, or Common body,
Archaïc/Egoïc/Differentiated third party, [Levels of functioning for which our colleague would like to establish a progression].
We can ask the following question: does the person surveyed consider these situations as being useful to interpret the group’s functioning, or/and s/he thinks that they
are a remainder of the contact between each human being with a group (such as his
family) and which would remain in his individual psychology?
The mention of Protective shield deserves to be highlighted. Do Anaclisis and
transcription refer back to Anzieu’s developments on the two layers of the ”moipeau”?
As for the mentions Anaclisis, Ego-ideal, Omnipotent narcissistic Imago, Diffraction (a defence mechanism put forward by Kaës), they can be interpreted thus: they
are analytical concepts useful to understand how the group functions, but they are
not particular to the group.
There is one curious fact: Link appears only twice. We could have expected it to be
mentioned more often.
Otherwise, very few exogenous concepts have permeated through (5). All in all, very
relevant and original.
3.CLINIC/ GROUPAL PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Not many answers in this cell: 8 only and therefore very few terms. One concept appears 3 times : Regression.
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6 others twice : Speech effects, Breakage fantasy, Identification, Interfantasmatisation, Resonance, TranferenceS.
The limited amount of terms seems to indicate that our colleagues have had difficulties finding specific concepts.
This is confirmed by the fact that few of these notions are linked to natural groups.
The reasons could be very varied. Let’s try to interpret this: Maybe
1.
Only the members of the International Association who are considering CFPs
as a GP had any vested interest in filling this column in.
2.
Among them, only some of them may be GP trained and are practicing GP.
3.
We can think that many members surveyed have a particular preference for
theory, and are a lot less interested by technique, and that generally speaking, they
don’t acknowledge easily a specifically group clinic. However we think it may be possible to identify this. We shall come back to that.
On the other hand, the presence in this set of allusions to perversion in natural
groups (once each term), to pathologies and symptoms of this type is to be noticed
(just like the Inters.P column) : Sexual abuse, Perverse hold/influence, Incestuality, Narcissistic perversion, Sects, Narcissistic seduction,.
Other signs are to be seen in perverse links as well as in other pathogenic links, such
as : Shared Denial.
We would also like to highlight Breakage fantasy (2) which is one of the rare concepts which is specifically groupal, as well as Speech effects.
Lacan puts an emphasis on the effect of discourse, thus showing himself close to the
ideas of intersubjectivity. By centring his metapsychology on language, he highlights
communication and places the focus on the dividing function of the signifier. This latter is situated « in the language at the intersection between speech and tongue, intersection that Lacan calls ‘‘lalangue’’ » (Chemama and Vandermersch, 1995, p.
182). The subject finds himself « deeply reorganised by the effects of retroaction of
the signifier implied in speech » (op. cit., p. 183). We could remind ourselves that
language gives a status to the tongue, but that speech puts it into practice, makes it
real. Between the subject of the enunciation and the statement, there is room for manoeuvre. Speaking enables articulations, nuances, and mobility, which contribute to
the redefinition of the subject of the enunciation. That’s why the effects of speech
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affect the speaker as well as the listener, the analyst as well as his patient, and even,
significantly between the patients within a group.
It is strange that so few concepts are typically groupal :no mention of indications and
counter-indications of GP, of pathological forms of leadership, or scapegoat, for example ; of fundamental hypotheses, which configure regressive drifts during the GP
process, such as messianism.
2 mentions de dysfunctional collective fantasies during a group treatment: Breakage
fantasy. But there could have been others… We would have liked to see, for example
clinic concepts proposed by D. Anzieu (1975), notably: fantasies of group machine, of
seducing –persecuting group and self-destructing group. Or even clans, leader,
threat to the individuality (mentioned once) and confusion, in differentiation… groupplace of dreams and immediate gratification, and oral fantasies (of devouring
mouths), etc., or even the group members taken by imago, superego or archaic anxieties... And in theory: the group as a place where desires can be fulfilled.
3.TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE/ GROUPALE PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Total amount of concepts in this cell: .41
Intertransference and Transference appear 5 times.
The word Work, is seen 4 times. It is followed by an enumeration of specifically
groupal tasks.
3 times : Framework.
We could notice more relevance in the answers than for GP clinic. For
ex. :Resonance (2), Associative chain, Co-construction, Deposit, Transference
diffraction Transitional space, Forbidden to touch, Intertransference, Neogroup (Granjon), Unconscious transmission, this latter concept being interesting
in more than one way.
The total amount is 41, slightly above those found in the practice of intersubjective P,
18
which makes us think that those who have answered hold a GP practice.
One colleague mentioned his various groupal practices and a mediating technique
(Psychodrama) : Care or training group measures: Group dynamic and Supervision: Group dynamic, Supervision.
We might be tempted to think that Transitional space is not very relevant here, but it
being mentioned makes us think that, even if D. Winnicott did not associate it to
group analysts, the group is implied in the reasoning. Watch this space.
The concept Forbidden to touch becomes even more evocative because our colleagues put it on the same line as treatment on the couch in Individual P.

Is this a reference to couch therapy where the patient remains immobile
and where the law of not touching is applied? To the technique of group Psychodrama as seen by CEFFRAP France ?

What happens then to Psychoanalytic Group Relaxation? Remember,
the classic treatment advocates two prescriptions, to not touch nor see, whereas here
it is only touching which is forbidden. We can imagine an interesting discussion then.
The repetition of certain technical terms in the various columns should be interpreted:
persistence of this practical dimension in any framework? Ex. Figuration. Same for
Resonance in intersubjective and group psychoanalysis.
Finally, we would like to point out that Transference phases and Neo-group are
concepts which were elaborated from CFPs practice.
COLUMN 4 : FAMILY PSYCHOANALYSIS
4.THEORY/ FAMILY PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
This is the most filled in cell and the one where we find the same concepts several
times. The award goes to the word Transgenerational, Transgénérationnel mentioned 15 times !!! (12 %). It appears in practically every grid : 15 out of 17 (88%). It is
19
associated three times with Transmission ; once with Generational. Moreover, the
term Intergenerational is mentioned twice (these grids do try to differentiate it from
Transgenerational). We must add that Genealogic Envelop often linked to TransIntergenerational appears once. The concept Psychic Transmission (1) must be
pointed out. If we add these two latter terms, the total goes up to 18.
A specific notion of FP, Myth is mentioned 8 times, often as Family Myth and once
as Myth of origins.
Unconscious alliance is mentioned 9 times, Contract (once with the precision Filiative and affiliative contract) is seen 6 times, Unconscious Pacts, 5 times, of which
once Alliance as stand alone. They are associated on the same line (different types
of analysis).
5 times : Familial psychic apparatus.
4 times : Continuity of identity, Function (with a few variants), Inter-defensive
balance. Link of which once with addition giving details on family link, the words
various and Filiation (2).
3 times : Ego-ideal with Familiar twice).
Some concepts belong more accurately to Individual Psychoanalysis : Complex (1),
Protective shield 1), Superego (1). Repetition and novelty (1) deserves our attention : stressed allusion to the notion of repetition compulsion. But would we like to
accentuate in this the emergence of previously unknown elements in family treatment, mobilised by the process dynamic?
Are they assuming that using them in FP implies some adaptation which would lead
to a proper transformation of its fundaments? We can think of family protective shield,
but how would it be organised? How does it work? We shall come back to this in the
last part of this document.
Other terms come from Group Psychoanalysis : Group illusion (1), Interfantasmatisation (1), Mythopoïesis (1), Roles (1, even though this latter can refer to family functions), all concepts which are frequently used by Family Psychoanalysts.
But on the whole, the concepts mentioned are specific, in other words, they belong to
the theorisation of FP : Decherf Omega function (2), Family myth (2) or Filiative
link, for ex. Those which are there only because they’re borrowed represent approximately 10 %. This is quite a contrast with the other columns where exogenous words
20
are proportionally more frequent: a high concentration of concepts, often reproduced,
and this is different from Individual P-Theory and Intersubjective P-Theory.
According to our hypothesis, in Lo transgeneracional, the addition of the word Lo
which in Spanish is a neutral article and used preferably for abstract thoughts may
mean that our colleagues have wished to talk about an idea which would go beyond
the framework of clinic: can they see there a proper metapsychological concept?
We should mention some rare and original concepts: Moving instinct economy (1),
Worth of the absentee/not-there in the framework. This is a FP practice concept:
did our colleague wish to point out the interest of taking into account the real absence
of a family member in our theoretical train of thoughts?
Fabric, family net (1) : allusion to the incidence of an intersubjectivity particular to
the family and to the «tangled nature » of its links?
Other more common expressions reveal an in-depth knowledge of FP: Affect attunement (1), Neo-group (1), Family dreams, Familial onirism (1), Intimate, Private,
Public (Dialectic of) (2), for ex. One colleague has wished to remind us of the
changes in contemporary families: Recomposed families (1). Well done !
Some colleagues have focused on the specificity of family functioning and its function: Psychic cradle (1), Familial continent (1). Phoric functions (1), Status of the
Other (1), Original family and current family (1), Oedipal family (1). Family history (1).
We find hardly any exogenous words, 2 or 3.
All in all, Out of a total of 128 (the highest), a wide range of significative concepts
showing a diversity of ideas and a following of various trends: we’ll recognize there
notions elaborated or invented by Decherf, Granjon, Ruffiot, Anzieu, Kaes, Tisseron,
Eiguer, Puget, Berenstein, Daniel Stern, Carel. Transgenerational and associated
notions represent nearly 12 % of the sampling. Myth, Alliances, Pacts and Family
Psychic apparatus, are also quite prominent.
4.CLINIC/ FAMILY PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
21
Amount of non-relevant answers: 18-14%
There are 102 concepts mentioned in FP clinic, this is the highest number among the
five columns in the clinic cell. However, we notice a scattering of data:
4 times : Family (with the precision psychopathological), Link…, Incestuality or
Incestual, Trauma.
3 three times: Acting, Comeback of which twice Denied/disavowed comeback,
Interfantasmatisation, Relation (psychopathologic, with precision), Secret¸ Violence.
twice: Narcisstistic abuse, Historising/history, Alienating identification, Mythopoïesis, Neo-group, Narcissistic seduction, Incest, Transference).
Notice also the frequency of exogenous words: Countertranference, Historising,
Limits, Neo-group, Transference, The similar, the different and the foreign,
Speech effects, Empathy, Inter-subjective topic and Instinctual moving, Mythopoïesis, 18, 14 %, even though some of them are closely linked to the family but not
to its clinic.
What is also interesting is the privileged situation accorded to notions tied to abuse,
and even to perverse abuse, as we can see in the Intersubjective Psychoanalysis
and Groupal P. clinic column : Violence, Narcissistic abuse, Incest, Incestuality,
Narcissistic-perversion, Toxic links, Paradoxality, Narcicistic seduction, Attacks on links, State of tyrannical dependency, Predestined “extra” (a cinema
actor), Aliening identification. Usually associated to violence, deprivations are also
listed here in a singular way:
Fantasing deprivation, Abandonment, Containment difficulties (excess, inadequacy and alternation, see Decherf) and Family abandonment.
If we add abuse and neglect, they make up 22 % of the sampling. Even more if we
add trauma…
Notice as well the many classic expressions from psychopathology or specific family
pathogenesis and not from individual clinic, which could show an indication of FP
(once or twice): Self-generation, Denial/disavowal community, Affective contamination, Anaclitic family, Depressive family, Psychotic family, Symbiotic family,
22
Fantasy of dismembering the family, Rough objects, Denial pact, Filiation disorders, Unclear parentality, Operative thought, Symptom carrier, Toxic links.
And Incorporation : is this a subject mechanism or a family group mechanism? A
few attractive examples:
The similar, the different and the foreign. Manifestations of the imaginary symbolic linkage.
Other indications mentioned: Adoption, Conflict, Mourning, Narcissistic relations,
Depressive families, Rivalry, Family suffering.
4.TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE/ FAMILY PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Here we can see the highest number of technical words on the grid: 100.
The award goes to Transference (11 ; 11%) if we include details on the type of
transference : family, paradoxical, transferential framework on the neo-group,
Transference phases.
This term is followed by Framework, 6 : Questioning the link in a family framework. Another colleagues writes and/or which could mean that he can hold sessions
without all the family members being present.
5 times : Countertransference.
4 : Neo-group, Constructions, Inter-transference.
3 : Drawing + 2 (Swiggle), Figurability, Genograma, Interpretations, Mediation,
Psychodrama. Family interview, Link.
2 :Narration developing subjectivity (Historisation subjectivante), Forbidden
touch, Play, Associative chain, Deposit, Inter-transference, Process.
Notice the nods towards several mediation techniques (more than elsewhere) :
Genogram (2), Mediation, Mediators, Drawing, Play, Swiggle, Psychodrama,
Physical activities : Relaxation. Family tree even though it is different, should be
23
associated to Genogram: both these techniques are used to explore the generational.
Unlike the technique in Individual Psyc., here the technique of words is less frequently pointed out: besides the three mentions of Interpretation, we should add Constructions (4), Clarifications (1), Call to dreams (1), Anticipations (1), Associative chain (2) even though this latter classically refers to groups, including the family.
Group practice as inspiration for FP appears 5 times: with Neo-group and Groupal
Technique. Analytic act (2) alludes to French trends.
It is important to note, because they are interesting: Forbidden touch (1), Figurability (1), Weekly sessions (1), Narration developing subjectivity (Historisation
subjectivante) (1), Reverie and onirism (dream-related) (1), Family Romance (1).
The rules or equivalent notions like Taboo/Forbidden are mentioned more or less
often. Regression is also mentioned. It is necessary to add that the rule forbidding
physical contact during session is difficult to apply when an analyst is working with
children and joins in play.
Countertransference brings to mind Concerned analyst, and this term describes a
way of understanding the function of the analyst: this attitude comes within a contemporary perspective which reformulates the notion of « neutrality of the analyst ».
The term neutrality appears only when talking about practice of couple psychoanalysis where it refers to the position of the analyst who takes side neither for one nor for
the other partner. Some analysts like Ogden (2005) have solved this by showing that
the analyst’s level of fantasy is the one essentially in play; without suggesting anything to himself, the analyst is brought to « dream these dreams that the patient cannot manage to dream », to elaborate them , and then interpret them. But doesn’t talking about involvement suppose a reformulation of the traditionally abstinent attitude
of the analyst?
We would be tempted to also differentiate these concepts on technique like thus: the
measures, the tools and mediation, the work and process.
Non-relevant : 4
We can completely legitimately wonder why Regression or analysis of the family
history are not mentioned more often (they were in Narration developing subjectivity (Historisation subjectivante) and maybe in Family romance, genogram and
family tree. We can think of two reasons why:
24
1.-Maybe our colleagues think that regression and history go without saying and
therefore it is not necessary to mention them?
2.-May be they are not attracted as much by regression towards the family past
events, preferring to work on its current dynamics which they see as major factors of
dysfunction, and which could be more important to analyse? Are these colleagues
the same who are interested by Construction?
Summary of family psychoanalysis and a few comments
We find ourselves in front of a fine selection, with technique specificities. The whole
shows a good mastery of the subject. Even if this appears to be obvious, it is right to
point it out: The three cells in this column are well filled and with a high degree of relevance and originality. This is slightly different from the GP column, where we find an
large amount of terms as for theory, but quite a lot less on the two other lines (Clinic
and Practice).
COLUMN 5 : COUPLE PSYCHOANALYSIS
5.A.THEORY/ COUPLE PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
In this well filled cell, the terms Couple link and Contract prevail : 8 times (8 %), although often mentioned in relation with other notions : for example (once each), Subject of the link, Marriage or link as a psychological container, Origin, constitution and dissolution of the link, Specifities of the link, including perverse ones.
This does not wipe out the prevalence of the word Link ; on the contrary, it is being
confirmed as a working tool ; our colleagues want to point out that it has been elaborated, broadened, and nuanced by them. Notice : in FP, Link ,pro-rata, comes up
less often: twice.
Contract (8) is in turn mentioned with narcissistic, filiative or affiliative.
25
6: Pacts. 5: Unconscious alliances. These latter notions reveal the interest given to
Kaës’ studies, which are applied to the couple by our colleagues. Notice: Pact is often together with the word denegative.
4: Choice of object. Interdefensive balance.
3: Community of denial/disavowal and Other.
2: Shared phantasy (twice) deserves comments: they are classic concepts which, in
another time, may have been found more often. Are we looking at an evolution towards new theorizations? The word Community of denial/disavowal (3) is certainly
less well known and not « classic » because it was developed by M. Fain in another
context, but it is about sharing, in this case as a defence. Even if there is community,
each member of the family joins in his/her own way; for this member, denial has a
singular meaning. It is moreover the case for any type of defence.
Twice also ideas which suggest intersubjectivity of the couple: Doubles, Habitat,
Environment, Illusion, Disillusion, The language of eroticism, Common Skin,
Articulations…, Couple structure. Twice, as well : Protective shield.
Close to cosharing, the notion of crossing appears about crossed Fantasies and notably Projective Identification and Projection : Cross-projection identifications mutual projection (1).
About Other (three times, Alterity) it is included in the phrase Other as a subject (1)
or Status of the other subject of unconscious (1). This would suggest a break with
traditional psychoanalytic theories, even those of Objectal relations. This option is
within the proposition The balance between autonomy and belonging to the couple (once) or Love as a stage for difference (1). Cf. also Meeting of unconscious
desires (1).
Sexuality is not very present, apart from Feminine/Masculine (1), Gender theory
(1), The Language of erotism, already mentioned, Sexual drive (1), Sexuality (1),
Erotic articulations (1). With just a few exceptions, the answers tend to highlight
either
1.
The necessary differentiation between the partners of a couple,
2.
The intersubjectivity developing between them : Link, Mitting of uncon-
scious desires, Intersubjetive enigma, reciprocity, container or
3.
The common groupal denominators of the couple : Couple’s psychic appa-
ratus (1), Erogene Articulations ou Archaïc Articulations, Archaïc Joints, Ca-
26
pacité de rêverie in the couple (1), Collusion (1), Omega function (1), Habitat ,
Environment (2), Illusion, Couple’s ego-ideal, IncConjugal unconscious (1),
Couple-Object (1), Couple’s Moi-peau (1), Pictogram (1), Couple’s self (1), Couple’s structure (2). Etc. As such, see for example, the frequency of appearance of
the words: common, mutual, or Alliances.
Notice the high relevance of the concepts in relation to the question. However some
terms seem odd, on the subject of couples: Filiative Contract mentioned with Afiliative Contract. Is this a reference to the idea that the couple’s psyche is founded on
the flaws of filiation, according to Kaës and Granjon? Do the partners get together
with the unconscious fantasy of founding a family?
All in all, the important regrouping of concepts can mean a convergence of spontaneous viewpoints between colleagues, even more pronounced here than in the other
columns. We’ll notice, at the same time, a tendency to bring nuances and variants to
the concepts: is this the sign of a strong investment in and commitment to CP? Two
theoretical strong points come through: the link and the group.
5.CLINIQUE/ COUPLE PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEIR FREQUENCY
Amount of non-relevant answers: 23=27%
Relatively few concepts are repeated. And this is even more surprising because the
total amount is 96.
3 times : Violence, Abuse, Acting, Link (with pathogenic tag, toxic or omega), Return with mention of denied), Transference). The word Denial/disavowal appears
associated to other terms three times.
2 : Renewable alliances, Attack (associated with other words), Defensive Coconstruction, Speech effects, Hold and destructivity, Historisation, History, Alienant Identifications, Interfantasmatisation, Reading the Body, The secret, Expression of the imaginary symbolic linkage, Mythopoïesis, Emotionaly disturbed personality, Intersubjetive topic and Instinctual circle, Transference.
27
Secretado is a Spanish neologism meaning: the object of a secret, the content of a
secret. The neutral article Lo gives a wider sense to the idea (see above).
We find a wide range of concepts. Among them several are exogenous: 23 ; meaningful figure (27 %). The highest proportion of all the sampling. Is this due to difficulties in pinpointing the couple’s specific symptoms?
As we get to this point in the document, we are struck by:
1.
The repetition of some concepts in the various columns.
2.
The inclusion in this clinic cell of concepts from practice (for ex. Empathy, His-
torisation, Body reading), Transference, Countertransference.
3.
Or from general theory (for ex. Identity, Interfantasmatisation, Mytho-
poïesis, Unconscious joint, The similar the different and the foreign).
4.
On the other hand other clinic notions are very original, ingenious, even. Ex-
pression of the imaginary symbolic linkage, Love, Hatred, Tyrany, Attraction
repugnance, Defensive Co-construction, Anti-family couple or anti-family couple, From the fragmented to ambivalence to third party, Containing difficulties
(excess, inadequacies and alternation, see Decherf), Inoculation, Intrusion/Intimacy.
5.
Notice that the adjectives Narcissistic or Denied come up often. Among
these latter symptoms or syndromes, we can see than our colleagues have taken
care to add as connotations intersubjective notions: Attack on the link, Toxic links,
Shared denial, Being together is killing us, being apart is fatal, , Anaclisis of
victim attitude (victim mentality), Perverse links.
6.
Once more, clinic expressions are often linked to violence, abuse, attacks, in-
trusions, transmissions and dysfunctioning of perverse links: 34 if not more (39 %).
The affects Hatred, Rivalry and Jalousy can be found in the sampling but are not
mentioned often enough considering how frequently they are found in clinic
Incestuality : its presence here has to be clarified.

Is this incestuality between one of the spouse and his/her parent or child?

What is the family link?

Or is it incestuality between spouses?
5.TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE/ COUPLE PSYCHOANALYSIS
28
THEIR FREQUENCY
Even though 17 people have filled this cell in, proportionally few concepts are repeated. Transference (11 ; 16 %) is followed by Interpretation (7).
Transference is seen with complements such as Couple’s link, variants (on the
therapist, the framework or the process), or radial, horizontal and whole), which
represent that many interesting thoughts suggestions. Double transference and
phases of transference suggest various uses and fates for Transference in CP. In
other words, transference is often mentioned in the plural form. Is this a singularity of
CFPs and GPs? When comparing the 22 grids, the proportion of how many times
transference is found is 64%. Still comparing, the word Instinct/Drive in individual P.
appears in 50% of the grids and the word Transgenerational in FP, in 88%.
Interpretation is also nuanced and detailed; two variants come up: a) Shared Interpretation) and b) Individual interpretation and individual within a link framework.
Other types of verbal interventions are mentioned: Anticipations (1), Constructions
(5). Clarifications (1), De construction and reconstruction (1). We should notice
how important Constructions, with very interesting variations, actually is: Reconstructions, Historisation which subjective (2), Construction of meaning/ Construction of the ‘self’, Construction of the ’us’ for a couple . These techniques
have distinct goals, and can be heterogeneous together, meaning must be understood as looking for a reason, a cause, self and us, the construction or recovery of
the couple’s structural anaclisis. Do these propositions interpret Freud’s advice in the
Postface of ‘Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety’ and in « Construction in analysis »?
As for De construction, the reference to J. Derrida’s philosophy method is implicit.
Some psychoanalysts have drawn a parallel with interpretation. Therapists following
the social constructionist social trend use it regularly. But can we overcome the epistemic pitfalls between philosophy and analysis?
29
Countertranference is less mentioned than elsewhere, (2), but Shared analyst (2)
and notably Intertransference (2) must be associated to the term Countretransference.
Even though Framework is there 6 times, a nod towards framework can be found in
Weekly sessions, Transferential Frame and Countertransferential Frame and
also in several indications concerning the measures. As elsewhere, the notion of
framework is an extension of technique.
The attitude of couple Psychoanalysts is highlighted: Neutrality (1), Neo-group (1),
or in therapeutic objectives like Creating space to think (1).
The object of the work and the specifically groupal objectives are much in evidence :
The patient is the relationship, To reconnect so as to split-up, From the archaic
in between to the cultural third one, Analysis of transference on the framework
and countertransference on the group couple, Becoming independent. We notice that our colleagues wished to go beyond the word and have in fact put down
short sentences, some of which can be acknowledged as being neo-concepts.
Notice as well the allusion to Dreams (1) and to mediating techniques, such as: Psychodrama techniques (2). However they were seen slightly less frequently than in
FP.
Interviews (2). It should be noticed that for one of our colleagues surveyed, individual interview in CP is not excluded, but this would make us wonder how the rules of
neutrality are managed. How can the associations heard in individual session be
communicated in couple sessions?
Temporality has also its place : Narration developing subjectivity (Historisation
subjectivante) (2) or Process (2).
There are also some allusions to modifications of the framework: Mobility of the
framework as a one off, or Individual interpretations, Individual interpretations
in a link situation.
Apart from a few exceptions, no non-relevant words!
Summary of couple psychoanalysis
We have the feeling that our colleagues find themselves in their element in this one;
they dare to suggest, to invent. A strange omission, though: nobody mentioned gay
and lesbian couples. Nobody either said anything about homoparentality in FP.
30
Table 2 (attachment)
FIRST CONCLUSIONS
Even though the sampling was rather small, (22 reply), the whole of the quantitative
results is marked by variety and originality. We notice that various theoretical trends
are in evidence. Having said that, the concepts linked to FP and CP give the impression they are the most personal and well thought out. In these well filled columns, are
not just learned ideas but ideas which have been lived through and working through.
The practice of CFPs has, in all likelihood, led the people surveyed to wonder about
some questions, about the proposition of totally original notions as regard to the field
of psychoanalysis and, in some cases, about an unusual way of using well-known
notions. Cf. for example, Transgenerational, Family Myth, Family links, filial, Incestuality, Shared Phantasies.
We can glimpse a hint of modernity : instinct emerges from the subject or the other ;
the subject is not considered any more as an isolated being, but as a plurality of people ; filiation is not a preconceived notion but a function to be recreated in front of all
the people involved ;history or the past are admittedly interesting, but as an intersubjective experience for the analytical meeting; construction holds now an important
place ; violence and perversion in the links are not beyond the pale, encountered only in books, but are now seen in practice.
When studying theses grids, we learn as much from the absence of some terms as
the presence of the terms given, particularly in the clinic cells where, moreover, we
find the most non-relevant terms. Maybe our colleagues find clinic not really worthy of
interest? To understand this, we shall add to the propositions put forward above, the
fact that analysis is done with two therapists and that the study of psychopathology
has one unique object of study: the patient. A tree hiding the forest (the family and
the therapists).
If it appears in the answers that several of our colleagues refer to psychoanalysis
classic ideas, and that they are strongly tied to its fundaments (we find Instinct, Narcissism, Regression, Interpretation, Construction, Transference, Countertransference,) they can also differ in the interpretation of the same concept and they seem to
31
apply them with some nuances, or even important modifications to the original acceptation. Could time, distance, socio-cultural logics and particularly practice, modify the
meaning of the concepts to the point of turning them upside down? All this deserves
to be looked into further.
It is tempting to also remember the changes compared to previous epochs regarding
how couples and families are structured. The effects are felt when we wonder, for
example what is understood nowadays by filial or fraternal link, by parentality, incestual, genogram and in the very definition of these two institutions, what is today a
couple, a family faced with the reality of current couples just living together, denatality, late motherhood, multiple marriages, recomposed families and a longer life span?
And do children from different parents in recomposed families see each other as
brothers/sisters, cousins, friends? How do affects, attachments, and sexuality move
between them?
The study of the application of an idea from one field to another will bring further precisions; it will show the transformation of these concepts.
PART 2. QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
As we have already noticed, a significant amount of ideas have been entered in the
IP column; others, in the following columns. In the two CFP columns we note that a
good amount of these ideas are original.
Our qualitative study tends towards two approaches: A) the transformation of ideas
as soon as they are applied to different fields and B) the examination of neoconcepts.
A) The Committee has put to work 5 sets of concepts so as to study their evolution
between columns (horizontally). The grids were looked at separately and as a whole.
The survey was done blind.
1)Transgenerational, its source, its roots, the terms associated with it. In this case the
analysis is done from right to left (starting from FP). In charge of this are E. Darchis
and E. Tixier.
2)Traumatism and trauma, concepts with a noticeable omnipresence. In charge of
this are E. Darchis and E. Tixier.
32
3)Alliance, contract, pact, counting these and associated terms starting from group
psychoanalysis towards the left and the right. In charge of this are the members of
UCES laboratory.
4) Instinct/Drive and its derivations from left to right… In charge of this are A. Eiguer
and E. Grinspon.
5) The technique of the Couch in individual psychoanalysis individual and its adaptation to other frameworks. In charge of this are N. Cothrala, M. Porto, JP Sequeiras.
File to be given later.
B) As for neo-concepts particularly frequents in FP and CP, we have asked the
members surveyed personally to have more details. The transcript of their replies is
further below.
A) EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTS INTHE COLUMNS : ADAPTATIONS,
MODIFICATIONS
We wrote down the account of each group, which generally shows some definitions
and the location of the concept’s evolution in the grids: the terms themselves, close
and associated terms. Among these, we located psychic productions which enabled
these concepts, or what they in turn have produced, to come to light. Some examples. Transgenerational can be associated to transmission ; a family secret gives rise
to a transgenerational ghost ; and this one produces distress and disturbs operating
thoughts.
1.-TRANSGENERATIONAL
Elisabeth Darchis and Elisabeth Tixier
Looking at the 22 grids with answers we have, our attention went first to two concepts : transgenerational and traumatism, because they seem to be on one hand
used frequently by a significant number of couple and family therapists in their work,
and on the other hand, they gather around them a constellation of other theoretical
elements.
The concept of Transgenerational and some theoretical aspects
Our colleagues mention in their grids concepts associated to Transgenerational referring to authors who have worked on the generational and all its declensions. They
33
are, of course, references to the Works of group, couple and family psychoanalysts
like : A. Eiguer (Représentations transgénérationnelles, 1981 ; Objet transgénérationnel, 1991 ; Héritages transgénérationnels, 1995), E. Granjon (Enveloppes généalogiques, Héritage psychique transmis par les générations précédentes, Elaboration
dans le néogroupe du transgénérationnel…, 1987, 1990), R. Kaës (Transmission
psychique et alliances, pactes, contrats…, 1993), E. Granjon, R. Kaës et JJ Baranès
(Les transmissions du négatif), C. Nachin et S Tisseron (Influences générationnelles,
filiation des traumatismes, 1991), F. André Fustier et F. Aubertel (Transmission psychique en souffrance, 1990, 1993) A. Carel (Fixations et après coup générationnels,
1997), A. Ciccone
(Transmission psychique et identifications, 1999) and many
others...
As F. André Fustier and F. Aubertel, (1993) said: « The individual cannot totally build
his own history, he will anchor himself in a family history which comes before him and
in which he will draw the substance of his narcissistic foundations and take the place
of subject. A psychic inheritance is transmitted to him by the previous generations. »
Let’s highlight that there are two definitions, according to the authors, of the terms
« intergenerational and transgenerational », the first one being the most used:
Definition A expressed by E. Granjon (1989) and R. Kaës (1997)
- « Intergenerational transmission is a transmission from one generation to the
next of easily assimilated, easily elaborated, useful psychic elements which may be
vital to the psychic development (E. Granjon, 1989). The intergenerational inheritance is therefore made of elaborated psychic life-experience: fantasies, imagos,
identifications… which organise a family history, a mythic tale in which each subject
can come and draw the elements necessary for constituting his individual neurotic
family romance.
- « Transgenerational transmission is a non-elaborable transmission with unsaids,
crypts, ghosts, etc., which make up so many intrapsychic enclaves, causing suffering,
perturbations and repetitions, as long as they have not reached elaboration and
awareness » (E. Granjon, 1989). The transgenerational inheritance is therefore made
of rough elements, non- elaborated, transmitted as they are, coming from a history
full of gaps, marked by traumatic life-experience, by unsaids, by uncompleted mornings. Because they were not elaborated by the previous generation(s), these rough
elements burst in on the heirs, crossing their psychic space, without any possibility of
34
appropriation.
R. Kaës (1993) brings a few details on these prefixes inter and trans: « The intersubjective supposes the existence of a space where transmission would resume its
transforming ; between the subjects there are two stumbling blocks, the block of the
object and the experience of splitting. In trans-psychical transmission (the idea of
transmitting « through » the subjects and not by them anymore), the two stumbling
blocks vanish for the demands of narcissism and that only, and the limits are abolished. » The transgenerational inheritance includes also elements pending representation, without being for all that of a traumatic nature, the concept of relative negativity suggested by R. Kaës (1989) justify these aspects of non pathological transgenerational transmission.
Definition B of intergenerational and transgenerational : S. Tisseron et C. Nachin make this distinction
-
The intergenerational influences which happen between two following gen-
erations which are in a direct relationship and
-
The transgenerational influences which happen through succeeding gen-
erations: the children’s psychic contents can be affected by the psychic functioning of
grand-parents or ancestors they’ve never met but whose psychic life has affected
their own parents.
Transgenerational in the grids
THE THEORY GRID
The starting point is the importance of the concept Transgenerational in theory of
family psychoanalysis: indeed, Transgenerational appears 15 times on 17 grids.
We find it once only in Couple Psychoanalysis, 3 times in Intersubjective Psychoanalysis. Associated concepts: Transmission : is there in FP as well as in the theory cell of Intersubjective Psychoanalysis, and with added details even: Psychic
Transmission, Repetition and Transgenerational Transmission. We notice that Psychic Transmission, although dear to Freud’s heart, does not appear in the theory cell
of Individual Psychoanalysis, nor in that of Group Psychoanalysis.
Other associated terms: Genealogic Envelope, Transgenerational Object
Unconscious Alliances, pacts and Contracts play a dominant role in these theoretical references and can be found on several levels in Family Psychoanalysis, as
35
well as Couple and Group.
It is only in Family Psychoanalysis that Myth is mentioned, mythopoïesis; in Group
Psychoanalysis we can find the Group Organizers and internal groups. The notion of
Groupal Envelope joins that of Genealogic Envelope already mentioned.
Intersubjective Psychoanalysis shares with Family P the notion of a history in the
making in the family. It broaches also the question of intersubjective links and of interfantasmatisation; concepts we think we can link to transgenerational.
What is the link with individual psychoanalytic theory?
If transgenerational and transmission are not mentioned at this level, an important
place is given to Identification and Oedipus Complex as well as Primal Phantasies.
CLINIC GRID
On the « Clinic » line of the grid, we note that the concept of Transgenerational is
practically missing (mentioned only once in FP). Therefore it is truly, for our colleagues a central theoretical concept.
Associated Concepts: Splitting, Psychosis. We’ll focus on these two concepts
associated to transgenerational, because they seem to be the end result of a series
of disorders carried over several generations. Same thing for Operative thoughts.
We’ll focus on this concept associated to transgenerational, because it is often seen
in groupal and family clinic for the same reasons: the result of generational family
suffering.
We find several recurrent themes scattered through the whole of the clinic section.
Pathological or alienating identifications are also found in several columns, as
well as narcissistic seduction and its pathological derivative. There are few clinic
elements specific to the group.
How is the group affected by transgenerational? We can understand the generational
aspect in the history of a group which has ancestors, or in the crossed contributions
of individual histories which are redisplayed in identifications and groupal transferences. Attacks on the links or the theme of sects conjure up more specific aspects
of the Group, whereas incestuality and narcissistic seduction-perversion pepper
all the « Clinic » cells.
If we look more closely at the answers on the concepts associated to Transgenerational in the Intersubjective Psychoanalysis part of the grid, we can see that these
same colleagues have given us at the same time a grid on the whole very complete,
36
on the theme of Trauma. Could we suggest that there might be a common theoretical
frame of reference around these two key-concepts for Family Psychoanalysts?
The grid clinic Family is obviously well furnished in concepts associated to Transgenerational. Essentially: Incest and Incestual; Perversion and narcissistic abuse. The
grid clinic Intersubjective P is close here to that of Family: mainly on the themes of
abuse, mistreatments, violence and traumatic situations. We must also mention
Family Secrets in FP.
3.
GRID TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE
The theme of Construction Reconstruction shoots horizontally through the grid
« practice », from Individual Psychoanalysis up to Family and also Couple Psychoanalysis: we have there a direct inheritance.
In Group Psychoanalysis, we are talking here about construction of the senses, of the
common body, the group feelings. In Family Psychoanalysis, it is about a construction of « us », and it’s the same for the Couple.
Intersubjective Psychoanalysis puts forwards the transitional space dear to Winnicott
and Bion’s alpha function.
Notice that family and couple psychoanalysts do not hesitate to mention technical
means such as: Genogram, Psychodrama.
2.TRAUMATISM/TRAUMA
Elisabeth Darchis and Elisabeth Tixier
Theoretical References and definitions: Traumatism, Traumatic, Trauma
The trauma in Freud ‘s work (1895,1920) who discusses two successive aspects of
« Trauma ».
-First of all, in the theory of traumatic neuroses: the traumatism is sexual; the work
rests on restitution to the patient of a forgotten fragment, a seduction scene ; what is
traumatic is the internal drive being excited, this being repressed and revived as an
adult by a chance association.
-Then there are traumatic neuroses or war neuroses. This is when the economic dimension is taken into account: the traumatism is « an extensive break-in of the protective shield ».
The “traumatic” according to Janin (1996, 2004), who calls this economic excess
caused by intra-psychic excitation the traumatic. The traumatic is something beyond
37
belief, inconceivable, which, by this very fact, destroys the feeling of continuity of the
Ego. This experienced discontinuity happens also for life incidents « internal or external, as events or drive ». These accidents are characterized by the fact that « what
was representative is not any more, what was possible to symbolise is not anymore,
that resorting to causality as a constituent of the feeling of continuity and historicity is
not possible any more ».
Trauma according to Ferenczi. This author went deeper into the theoretical and
clinic consequences of trauma and narcissistic wounds: a true tearing apart of the
Ego, shock to the Ego or agony of psychic life, trauma conveys the inadequate or
missing answers from the object faced with the child’s distress.
Other authors after Freud and Ferenczi will develop this research on the attacks and
wounds on the Ego, particularly D. W. Winnicott (1974- Fear of breakdown), Bion
(1962- Catastrophic change), M. Balint (1968- The fundamental Default), A. Green
(1993- The work of negative), Janin and the Destinies of trauma, etc.
Treatment through the psyche of the very first reality perceived by the baby, with the
theory of a progressive acquisition of the notion of separate object, and inter subjectivation, has been widely developed afterwards (René Roussillon), and also
the role of « Affect attunement » with the mothering environment has been more
and more understood, as well as the risks for the primary narcissism when there is a
lack of adequate consideration by the people around of the potentially traumatic
effects of this experience of reality.
Trauma or Traumatism ?
Thierry Bokanowski (2005) suggested « that we keep the word traumatism to refer
to a rather secondarised level of disorganisation which would not cut into the object
relation not the instinctive fusion and which would refer to the sexual traumatism in
Freud’s theory of « seduction ». On the other hand the notion of trauma seems more
appropriate to refer to the traumatic logic at an earlier, more archaic level, which puts
at risk the narcissistic cathexis, and therefore the constitution of the Ego ».
The concept traumatism/trauma in the grids
THEORY
If we follow a « horizontal » analysis of the grids, we notice that 5 of them mention
trauma or traumatism as a strong theoretical element, which can be applied to Family
38
Psychoanalysis.
Intersubjective Psychoanalysis is here in agreement with FP when it suggests
« Trauma treatment». In Individual psychoanalytic theory, which seems to be an essential fundamental reference here, we find 5 times the term trauma as: « Trauma (s)
», « Theory du Trauma », and «Reality as a psychic Trauma».
In this theoretical part, it seems that our colleagues were thinking of Ferenczi type
Trauma. Indeed, we notice an association of concepts such as: Narcissism- primary
Narcissism, in Couple and Family Psychoanalysis as well as in Individual Psychoanalysis.
We also found the following concepts which can be linked to trauma and traumatism :
Protective shield, alpha containment, alpha function(Bion), affect attunement, psychic
envelopes and skin, Limits of the Ego, group object, familial common body, The other subject, object-relationship, Disillusion, alterity, difference, good enough object,
depressive position, object survival, Reciprocity-Subjectivity, Intersubjectivity, intersubjective Link, Mourning (mourning is located in the theory of Ind P.).
Notice that it is essentially the intersubjective psychoanalytic theory part which has
inspired a certain amount of references to concepts which would have a relevant
connection to the question of primary Trauma.
Comments. The interest shown by the analytic family therapists for the concept of
Traumatism is not surprising. They are, as is demonstrated by this survey, particularly
interested by primary narcissism, the problem posed by the object, emergence of
subjectivity, therefore by intersubjectivity psychoanalysis. They refer to the theory of
Trauma and how it is taken into account in metapsychology, or when referring to experienced traumatisms, in individual or family clinic.
Two fates are possible for traumatism: either positive or organizing, through repetition, remembering and elaboration; or negative and disorganizing when the traumatism creates an enclave within the psyche (« a State within a State » said Freud),
helped by splitting. The traumatism then makes a trauma (in destruction, early attack
on the Ego, narcissistic wound, etc.) while preventing any transformation. Our colleagues thus have referred to the early period and to the failure of this primary containment and to working on primary containment.
GRIDS CLINIC
It mainly the traumatisms Family clinic which brings about very productive develop-
39
ments with our colleagues: mentioned several times are: Traumas and Traumatic Situations. And in Couple and Family clinic, the subjects are violence or mistreating.
Some grids develop associated items, such as: Abuse, despotic hold, manipulation,
perverse ploys, traumatic situations. We are here more in the Traumatism, even
though other items call Trauma to mind: Secrets, family secrets, toxic links, mourning
clinic, pathological mourning, crypts, ghosts, narcissistic deficiencies, helplessness,
survival mechanism, splitting, psychotic pathologies, anaclitic, abandoning families,
Defence through acting…
However, we notice an agreement with Individual clinic where the term Trauma is
also mentioned, with the addition of sexual Trauma. Associated Concepts: violence,
intra family violence. Incestual, which is widely mentioned. Narcissistic abuse and
narcissistic seduction. The same associations are found in couple psychoanalysis,
next to perverse hold.
Comments. The traumatic experiences which originally constitute organisation and
psychic functioning can lead to early attacks on the Ego and create wounds of the
narcissistic type (S. Ferenczi has pointed this out at the end of his work). The traumas, described by Ferenczi, do not have just a disorganizing effect on the secondary
and secondary process, but, because of the psychic shock they bring about and the
important recourse to the defence mechanisms they put into play (splitting, projection, projective identification) they seriously disturb the very organisation of the instinctual economy, symbolisation and autonomy of the Ego.
Our colleagues go even further by clearly showing in clinic the suffering in the links
(perverse links, toxic links, deficient links, violence, abuse...). They also highlight narcissistic and survival defences which are mobilised in the groups, couples and families to the detriment of the other and others.
GRIDS PRACTICE and TECHNIQUE
We notice there the importance given to transference and countertransference,
phases of transference, as well as interpretation.
The notion of « empathy » has here an unquestionable place which needs to be highlighted.
We
should
associate
« the
analyst’s
commitment»
and
« co-
constructive emotional dialogue » to it.
Themes such as: containment, adjustment, framework adaptation, go with the idea of
a « transitional space », mentioned many times. Daydreams, creativity and collective
40
play, also echo Winnicott.
Here, just as for Transgenerational, our colleagues do not hesitate to develop techniques: Psychodrama, family tree, drawings.
Conclusion
In the concept of primary traumatism, therefore of trauma, psychoanalytic family
therapists recognise family situations: they are confronted to what is unprocessed, to
potentially pathogenic split; whether it is linked to avatars of the primary interaction
with the other, to inflicted traumas, to sexual traumas, to mourning, war or expatriation situations, concerning either the current generation, or the previous ones. Therefore, it is always about psychic traumatism, however the focus is strongly on the experienced history and the effects of deprivation or aggressions. Family psychoanalysts feel the necessity to adapt their framework to become more available and empathetic, for families caught in repetition and operative thoughts.
Family therapists interested by the concept of psychic traumatism are also interested
by intersubjectivity psychoanalysis and the effects of the Transgenerational, thus the
emphasis is given to the family therapist’s commitment, the fantasing movement in
the therapeutic « neo group » (E. Granjon),and the construction of a transitional
space with the help of mediations.
3.CONTRACT, PACT, ALLIANCE
Group from UCES, Buenos Ayres, comprising Eduardo Grinspon, Nilda Neves,
Liliana Alvarez, Susana Casaurang, Manuel Liss, Beatriz Burstein
This is the preliminary report of a research we are conducting for a clinico-theoretical
links Forum at UCES. This research is part of a more general project, trying to define
a set of specific to couple and family psychoanalysis.
Various disciplines (sociology, anthropology, social psychology, etc.) develop and
use the terms alliance, contract and pact. In this work we will broach the same concepts from the specificity of psychoanalysis, by referring to their unconscious dimension.
Therefore, we began with the concepts of unconscious alliance, narcissistic contract
and denegative pact, theories developed by René Kaës and other authors; we decided to organise our reasoning on the basis of a horizontal reading of the answers in
the grid, assuming that each concept in family and couple holds and goes beyond the
41
concepts from intersubjective, individual and groupal psychoanalysis. We begin the
reading from right to left, that is to say from family dimension to individual [1].
We can see thus the Alliances, Contracts and Pacts; they can be structuring or pathogenic, defensive or offensive.
Unconscious Alliance
The concept of unconscious alliance refers to an intersubjective psychic formation
built by the subjects of a relation and which, once it is set up, acts in turn on these
subjects. By their structure and function, unconscious alliances also produce some
unconscious and remain unconscious.
In the functioning of the link move various types of alliances, founded on various defensive functioning. The way the defensive operatives of repression, disavowal, forclusion (reject) and splitting do function, defines the formation of unconscious alliances.
In a personal message, Alberto Eiguer drew our attention to the fact that R. Kaës
leans noticeably on the psychoanalytic notions of connection between agencies, representations, libidinal tendencies and on the compromise which set themselves up to
be repressed, among other motives, that is to say that they remain unawares. From
there, he suggested that the association with the notion of formation of Freudian
compromise frees the « alliance » from its socio-anthropological reference: like symptoms and dreams, it is part of the unconscious’s productions; it is the result of psychic
work; therefore it can involve the productions from each member of the group.
Narcissistic Contract
The narcissistic contract which can be seen in couples and links originates from Piera
Aulagnier‘s origin contract. It justifies the place of a subject in the world. It is established thanks to the narcissistic pre-cathexis from the whole towards the child as a
future voice which will take the place assigned to it; it gives the child, in advance, the
role of subject of the group. The narcissistic contract is a theoretical concept which
runs through all agencies from individual to relational, whether groupal, family, couple, etc.
Piera Aulagnier mentions an original contract founded on self-preservation cathexis
and defines a transgenerational filiation contract of what is at the service the whole
and the subject. This shows the interlinking between narcissism, cultural and family
ideals, and belonging.
42
The Secondary Narcissistic Contract, on the other hand, is based on secondary narcissism. It is an affiliation contract which redistributes the cathexis of the original narcissistic contract and which comes into conflict with it, especially when the subject
establishes links outside the family. These two types of contract are at the service of
life
David Maldavsky shows the notion of link as an intersubjective mesh of drive and
defence. He considers that any defence has two functions: to reject something outside the Ego, and maintain or increase narcissism, the feeling of self. From this point
of view, the narcissistic contract in a couple or a family is the result of a combination
of various desires with non-pathogenic defences, which implies a super-cathexis of
some substitutive formations as representation of instinctual motions. Even as this
author differentiates the functional and pathogenic defences, he also considers that a
difference should be made between a denegative functional pact, which complements a narcissistic contract, and a pathogenic denegative pact which complements
a disturbance or threat against said narcissistic contract.
Denegative Pact
This is what is necessary for any link to devote itself to regression, disavowal, forclusion, encysting, in the space of one or several subjects. It is an unconscious agreement on the conscious. Establishing a denegative pact makes the frame of a link in
interaction with the narcissistic contract possible. The denegative pact necessary to
consolidate a link shows two polarities, one is an organizing one and the other is defending the intra as well as intersubjective space. It constitutes an unconscious
agreement so that the link can organise itself and aim, on one hand towards the impossible, towards the necessary questions excluded to create links and on the other,
to the unconscious pacts and agreements which make possible and further relational
links.
1)In family psychoanalysis, contract, pact and alliance appear either directly or implicitly, for
example, when we see the concept of family psychic apparatus and we think about its specificity : multi-psychic, multi-narcissistic and inter-instinctual implications. In this respect, we
note the prominence of the transgenerational dimension and its derivative  Transmis1
sion . These are in most likelihood maintained by unconscious alliances  affiliative and
filiative contracts  unconscious pacts  functional and pathogenic denegative pacts.
1
We have decided to use an arrow “” to set out a possible type of derivative.
43
These ideas are implemented when a common family body and its pathogenic derivatives
are being defined  anti-family protective shield  narcissistic family identity continuity
linking narcissism and identity in terms of family economy  instinctual economy of the
family link  interfantasmatisation  inter-defensive family equilibrium communion of
functional and pathogenic disavowal  wavering of this equilibrium in positive terms
wavering of splitting  possibility of a comeback of what is split and of what is « not yet
subjectivised ».
Similarly, in clinic and technique, the possibility of adapting the framework to the emergence
of suffering in the family is to be noted. This can refer to families in which prevails, for example, the derivative narcissistic- perverse and an atmosphere set by the presence of secrets.
For our part, we highlight: a) the pathogenic interdefensive dynamic equilibrium which is
constantly readjusting and its possible wavering, b) the prop supported by the common narcissistic formations. These latter unveil strategies of psychic survival where denegative pacts
were established, supported by the family and the transgenerational. The pact guarantees in
many if these families the continuity of their narcissistic identity.
2) In couple psychoanalysis, we find again the concepts set out in the FP columns, but this
could have spurred to suggest a specificity for the couple, meaning that it singular filiative
contract, its own problems, including the differentiation between childless couples and couples with children, and the possibility to put the presence of the children and their questioning to the service of a maintenance of the secret pathogenic agent through the establishment of an alliance. In this column we find the couple’s psychic apparatus  the couple’s
common body  unconscious alliances  disavowal or pathogenic communion  various
possible defensive splitting  filiative and affiliative contract, although we still have to define the specificities of the filiative contract in the couple  narcissistic contract  denegative pact  common skin  continence difficulties either through excess or inadequacies
 defensive co-construction, inasmuch as it refers to a specific type of inter-defensive equilibrium in the couple.
3) In the group psychoanalysis column, there are several concepts on which we will focus to
detail what is specific to couple and family psychoanalysts. Among them, we find: alliances
 interfantasmatisation  unconscious alliances  narcissistic contract and alliance 
44
protective shield  denegative pact  shared denial or communion of denial or pathogenic
denial  common body  functional and pathogenic narcissistic seduction  incestuality
 perverse hold  narcissistic-perversion.
4) As for intersubjective psychoanalysis, we‘ll highlight the importance of the meeting of a
subject animated by instinct and an unconscious psychic life with an « object other subject »,
this one being also animated by a psychic life, a part of which is unconscious. This applies at
the same time to the intra-session space and the way to think the intersubjective dimension
in the link. In this column, the dimension of a specific synthesis in the transition of some
concepts from individual to intersubjective psychoanalysis remains open. For example, defences  communion of denial  splitting in the link and subjectivity  incestuality 
failure of the continence function that we tie to the protective shield. The dimension of witness is indicated here for the first time.
5) In the individual psychoanalysis column, we are struck by the formulation of some ideas
which will thrive in the FP and PP columns: defences  state of defences  protective
shield, and even pathological and trophic alliances. When reading the grids we wondered if it
was a mistake or if it was a prejudice from analysts responsive to intersubjectivity.
In short, the notions of alliance, pact and contract prove to be working tools for a large
amount of our colleagues. It would be useful to understand how these productions work I
other collective psychic formations. But we can already assume that they will bring them
certain efficiency.
4.Instinct and its derivatives
Alberto Eiguer, Eduardo Grinspon
A study of the answers going through the grids from left to right enables us to verify
that instinct/drive is a term which holds an important place in the IP column, but it
becomes less interesting in the following columns with fewer applications, even
though these remain interesting. Our colleagues seem to give it the status of fundamental concept to show their strong support for psychoanalysis. It may be useful to
interpret these two occurrences as the expression of a difficulty in finding equivalences and references outside any application to the field of IP. That’s why when it appears in the other columns, we sense that a laudable effort has been made.
45
Source of the drive, Cathexis, have been placed in this IP cell Source of the drive
suggests that these colleagues may have thought of the opening enabled by J.
Laplanche (1987), the idea of a drive which would not originate only from a subject,
but also from others ; for the child in particular, from its mother. This « roots out » the
drive from the soma and lets us imagine that this other intervenes with his own drive
to demand work to the first subject’s psyche. The definition of drive as work demanded by the psyche comes from Freud himself. It’s as if the mother’s drive would require a certain elaboration of her child’s psyche. At the same time, drive doesn’t show
itself only as a propulsion force but also an attraction force.
Protective shield is an idea linked to drive, this has been highlighted in IP, GP, FP
and CP.
In FP we find examples of direct applications of drive: Moving instinctual Economy
in the theory part, Instinctual Circuit in clinic. These ideas appear like an extension
of the preceding viewpoint, drive of one of the subject can have an exciting, even
stimulating and revitalising influence on the other members of the family.
Leaning on the work of D. Maldavsky (1991), N. Neves and E. Grinspon ties the instinctual movement to the inter-defensive equilibrium, another notion mentioned in
FP. We have consulted our colleagues about their suggestions. Their answers help
clarify several points. Therefore, here they are as follows:
1)“Moving instinctual Economy by Nilda Neves. It corresponds to the instinctual
quantum which is deployed in the mutual libidinal cathexis between the members of
families or groups and which lead to transactional formations such as alliances.
Maldavsky D. Procesos y estructuras relacionanales. Ed. Nueva Vision, 1991.”
2)”Inter-defensive Equilibrium and erogenous linkage (instinctual) by Nilda
Neves. The distribution of instinct and intrapsychic defences enable us to understand
the logic in relational exchanges in couples, families and groups. With each patient,
each drive combined with a certain defence leads to establishing a set of specific
links with another. The differences depend on the distribution of drive and the central
and complementary defences and the state of the defences, because, sometimes a
defence succeeds or fails for both and in other case it succeeds for one and fails for
another member of the configuration. Pathogenic defence has two functions: maintain or increase the illusion of being all-powerful, reject something, a desire, an affect,
a reality, a criticising judgement. If the defence succeeds, while maintaining the illu-
46
sion of being all-powerful, it rejects (foreclose) something outside the Ego. If the defence fails, the narcissistic wound and the return of the foreclosure appear simultaneously. Thus, we can say that narcissistic pacts are a derivative of the prevalence of
some pathogenic defences in the version which is successful for both partners.
Maldavsky D. Langage, pulsions, défenses. Nueva Vision, 2000."
Eduardo Grinspon explains in his turn: «The family inter-defensive equilibrium configures a network system with some degree of stability (equivalent to the immune
system). A state of stability of an open system is not balanced, but almost balanced,
it’s a dynamic balance and this enabled us to refer to progressive and regressive
moves. Life, both psychic and somatic, maintains the unbalance, constantly adapting
to internal and external situations and progressively getting through to a higher level
of freedom. In this persisting unbalance, the disorganisation of its functionality tends
to go towards stability, and this would allow for a reorganisation on a different level. It
is self-organisation (A. Fine ; I. Prigogine).
One of the line of thoughts we used as a starting point as regard to psychosomatic
economy, that from now on we think of as family dynamic, is the capacity of transformation of drive, which permanently link the progredient tendency towards representation and the regressive tendency towards hallucinatory perception.
This function shows the non-reversibility of instinctual direction which always tends to
go towards a « to come ». Through understanding psychosomatic economy in this
monism, it is possible to support the splitting psyche-soma. (...) The psycho  somatic effect is the result of construction or deconstruction of the instinctual play, a
singular possibility to maintain an adequate level of« primary endurance », like a level
of primary endurance (Daniel Rosé), in the inter-instinctual equilibrium, which, when it
is thought of as multi-narcissistic family dynamic, keeps itself in a dynamic balance. »
Grinspon keeps on his questioning on toxic links following his thoughts on psychosomatic disorders « How could we think in this toxic elaboration, from the point of
view of psychosomatic instinctual family economy, the outcome of an organic situation or a somatic expression (R. Debray) in a family member? Going from a conception which connects economy and drive in terms of link and intersubjectivity enabled
us to broach the perverting trans-subjective and trans-narcissistic movements appearing in incestuality and to think about possible therapeutic means when faced with
them. From the dynamic of the inter-defensive balance of a pathogenic family, mani-
47
festing itself in these family bodies and a possible transition through soma in one of
the family members, it is useful to think of the concept of instinctuality according to
psychosomatic monism.
The recourse to the somatic route is a possibility available to a singular subject, in
our case to respond to conflicts, because he finds himself confronted to his psychic
apparatus which is overloaded and incapable of elaborating excitations or to call on
the hallucinatory, in accordance with the principle of pleasure-displeasure. Which
means that the possibility to access the hallucinatory manifests itself in the interphase, after the last psychic recourse or mentalization, and before being precipitated
in a “beyond", in the soma as a space to reach a biological solution. »
We discussed (AE and EG) the application of the concept of drive in couple and family psychoanalysis which led us to broach the fundamental principles of the concept of
drive. Some differences in opinions appeared. For EG, drive is a fertile tool applicable
to CFPs, as we have just seen. AE puts this interest into perspective and even criticises the place normally given to it in metapsychology. In this debate, A. Eiguer said :
« From my point of view, instinct/drive is immediately associated to the object, in the
way that when we fall in love, for example, this feeling echoes with the one we received through the primary link. You quote P. Denis when he mentions that the point
of fixation represents a stop to regression, but I shall remind you that the point of fixation is an elaborated configuration where desire, representations, fantasies, affects,
object relationships and a link have intervened. To reduce this to a localised expression of the emergence of instinct does not seem convincing to me (...)
« The question of drive cannot remain as a theoretical theme, without any practical
application in practice. (...) When we say that psychosomatic symptoms help the detachment of the subject from an overbearing link, I see in the subject a call towards
another link. Becoming ill implies a request to another, as if it was the partner of a
former link. The other subject of the primary link?
« For me psychic content is never unpopulated, never totally untied, even in the most
regressive situations it is populated by fear of collapse, explosive emotions, resentment, hatred, the wish for revenge, and odd proto-representations. In traumatic neurosis, we can’t manage to tie them with more evolved affects. However, these elements usually relate to one sense or several: Where could we find, how and with
whom a psyche which can think them? A soul which listens and recognises despair?
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And anyway, how is it possible to survive? (…) Several years ago I wondered if we
shouldn’t differentiate an intra-agency conflict and an inter- agency conflict as they
are traditionally listed (vg. ego-superego) ; for ex., an intra-agency conflict would pertain to the fight between opposite tendencies, one for the preservation of the Ego and
one for its fragmentation. »
« It is for these reasons that the objective of self-preservation proves to be universal;
we fight and we are stirred in its name: it greatly mobilises our functioning. Remember that B. Grunberger puts narcissism and instinct on the same level. Selfpreservation has many facets, self-protection, looking for well-being, for security
which all are objectives dependent on our primary and trophic narcissism, and if need
be with the help of somebody else, even while trying to push the latter to the limits
with projective identifications. If instinctuality appears to be in conflict with narcissism,
it nonetheless means that we all try to experience pleasure « in peace », and what is
nice, joyful and agreeable without getting hurt. »
B) NEOCONCEPTS
We have received some replies mentioning recent concepts, not very well known and
sometimes formalised by the members surveyed. Here they are in alphabetical order
(for the original French text).
Psychic Cradle. Elisabeth Tixier
Psychic Cradle. The notion of « familial psychic cradle» was conceptualised by
Françoise Aubertel , an used by various other family therapists since 1990: Is it a
« neo-concept »?
Definition : « Psychic Cradle» is a metaphor. The psychic cradle represents the
whole of the qualities characteristic of the mothering family circle which prepares to
receive the new-born; It precedes the birth and has to ensure the functions of containment and portage, not only physical ones, but also psychical ones. It is close to
the notion of family psychic apparatus, but more colourful and corresponds somewhat better to this moment of family psychic life. It is also close to Bion’s alpha transformation, but focuses on all the aspects of physical mothering with the fact that the
maintenance of vital functions is ensured. The image of the « cradle », in my view
helps us avoid the idea of an intellectual process, and speaks of regression in the
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family’s psychic apparatus, around the baby. It indicates that an adequate family participation to the birth of the baby is particularly coloured by sensori-affectivo-motor,
which will enable good quality primary exchanges to happen.
References
F André- Fustier, F. Aubertel : « La transmission psychique familiale en souffrance »,
in. Le générationnel-approche en thérapie familiale psychanalytique- A. Eiguer et Al.,
Dunod,1997, 2005
F Aubertel : « Le travail sur le lien indifférencié en thérapie familiale psychanalytique », Le Divan familial, n° 26 -2011, In Press.
JG Lemaire et al., L’inconscient dans la famille, Paris, Dunod (2007), F. Aubertel:
« Censure, idéologie, transmission et liens familiaux ».
Other references: Several FPT use this concept in their work like Evelyn Granjon who
wrote in 2005 : « The interconnection of the singular and groupal-familial psychic apparatus constitutes a kind of basket, a weft on which can be deposited, put into play
and transformed elements from each person’s psychic inheritance, which they can
benefit from. It constitutes a psychic cradle which welcomes, creates and feed the
child’s psyche. » (Conference APSYLIEN) And in 2010 E. Granjon also wrote : « The
child is born and develops in the family’s psychic cradle from which it draws its inheritance, in this protective basket-like source of its psychic life » (La famille, un lieu
pour s’approprier son histoire « Quelles transmissions autour du berceau, chez
ERES.) Elisabeth Darchis also mentions in 2002 in her work Ce Bébé qui change
votre vie (Fleurus) : « It is a specific psychic work of going back to childhood experiences which makes the new parent and opens the psychic cradle from which the
child will progressively emerge to become a full-blown being… ». E. Darchis adds in
2006 on the IACFP site « Anchorage in the common psyche will open the way to the
new group, shore it up and will enable it to build a new family envelop, a real psychic
cradle to welcome the child ».
Framework and meta-framework. Roland Sefcick
Technique and theory. Work through framework. The psychoanalytic framework
made of fixed invariants has for aim, through its containing stability, a therapeutic
regression, the deposit of the psychotic parts of the Ego (Bleger) and the transferential play. This classic framework, framing the psychic unit (PU, unit which can be: a
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person, group, couple, family, institution), demands “psychic skills" (staying the distance, frustration…) to fragile or weakened psyches, living in “the now", anxious and
needing action. For the PU’s reassuring containment to be optimum, it must be embodied by a therapist.
Definition. The meta-framework is the whole of the therapeutic frameworks overseen
by a referent therapist. He undertakes with the PU a therapeutic contract which gives
the patient(s) a framework-space set up as negotiable (reorienting and recontractualizing the process). A referent being part of the institutional team and his
colleagues therapists make up a bespoke therapeutic institution.
Explanation. Considering the notion of instituted (see Infra), my institutional practice
has led me to suggest various frameworks, simultaneous and coordinated, in the
case of patients whose regressed psychic process unties the instituted in the social
status of parent, couple or professional. De- instituted, their psychic process disturbs
their relation to the world. In therapy, they grapple with catastrophic anxieties (fallcrushing), showing through social anxiety and other symptoms. Without any third cue
to identity, they regress to dual or fusional link. This changes their relation to time: a
« borderline or depressive atemporality» invades the psyche (inaccessible past
/unthinkable future) ; life lived in the moment of a present marked by the rhythm of
the sensorial and factual urgency, now or never, life-death.
It is therefore essential to differentiate (through introducing or reminding of the
framework) truly psychic anxiety from existential anxiety of a life lived in urgency waiting for immediate action, unrealistic in its current regressive state. Contained by the
referent therapist’s framework, the subject is now able to put things off. The psychic
unit, thus freed from anxious urgency, has now the possibility to reclaim the time
needed to deposit psychotic anxieties in the various frameworks and ease the work
to be done. At the same time, the contract, which is still negotiable, would help find in
the therapeutic institution a symbolic social place to be.
With this aim in mind, a function has been set up, that of the referent. He does not
submit to hierarchy, but to internal (weekly) supervision. He is exempt from the rule
of abstinence and can talk with the patients of their progress or difficulties experienced in the therapeutic sub-frameworks (classic or with a mediator: psychodrama,
relaxation, play…). In family group therapy, he can represent the (grand) parents and
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sub-framework the parents in couple re-centring work if needed (for example, drive,
couple problems which overshadows parentality, strong groupal indifferentiation …).
By its reassuring effect, the instituted symbolic third party is formulated in the initial
contract, even with patients with strongly regressed PU. This prevents the families
from stopping therapy as they might when in the classic group framework, when this
one proves to be too fragile faced with their eruptive energy. The family is also an
institution which could find its transferential opposite through the meta-framework.
Emotional Contagion. Nilda Neves
An emotional contagion touches on the affective processes which are produced in
the patients and which lead to an identification with which the analyst ‘s Ego come
into conflict, contrary to empathy where there is a partial identification; here, the analyst has the possibility to effect an elaboration (Freud, 1890. « Traitement psychologique, le traitement de l'âme ». OC. Vol I.)
N. of R. This idea applies to other relational situations. In the link between patient (s)
and analyst (s), W. and M. Baranger have found a kind of complicity in resistance to
change they have called bulwark. This formation is furthered by an omnipotent narcissism and/or perverse tendencies, and re-affirmed by an ideology which nurtures
contempt for others. Emotional contagion constitutes a strong prop for bulwark. This
is what we can notice in crowd psychology, in sects, in marginal groups, in families
where perverse links prevail, in folie à deux.
Intimacy-Private-Public Dialectic, called IPP dialectic. Françoise Mevel
IPP dialectic sets out to reflect on family structure, in the same ways as Freud’s
topographical id/ego/superego or Lacan’s real/symbolic/imaginary register (RSI) do
with intrapsychic structure. Intimacy determines the subject’s singular side, its alterity,
in its structural difference with « the other ». This is intrapsychic life. The private
sphere defines the meeting modalities with « the other », caught in the links which
found it. These links are structured by linkage (grid): Organisers (Eiguer), which are
chosen by objects, the family self, and interfantasmatisation. Complexes, weaning,
intrusion, Œdipe (Lacan) which indicate the modalities of object relation. Alliances
(Kaës), which prop the psychic reality connection between the subject and the whole
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of the group of which he is a stakeholder. Intimacy, like the private sphere are dependent on a cultural public which structure and legislate them. (Cf. ethnopsychiatry).
Intimacy-Private-Public, thus defined, in its singular management and its infinite
variations, configures a kind of family structure, IPP, engaged in a dialectic process
articulating signifiers which produce contradictions, movements and changes. In IPP
dialectic, it is a processed exchange between the three agencies, Intimacy, Private
and Public and their reorganisation potential.
Psychoanalytic Family Therapies, through their groupal care system, update the
specificity of this dialectic for each family and create conditions for its re-elaboration,
meaning revisiting intimacy, adjusting intersubjective links and taking public space
into account.
Ventriloquistic listening, groupal and generational listening. Elisabeth Darchis
Ventriloquistic listening is a concept suggested by Elisabeth Darchis from
N.
Abraham and M. Torok’s theory regarding « the ventriloquistic expression of the
ghost ». Maria Torok suggests : « New skills will have to be invented, like, for example the ability to become a ventriloquist: parallel speech ; medium, through whom the
ghost talks ; spirit found beside the ghost; magician… » (Maria Torok, 1974-75,
Notes du séminaire, Institut de Psychanalyse ; Maria Torok, in Ecorce et le Noyau,
1978, p. 404).
Ventriloquistic listening would be this availability in the family or even the couple to
listen to ghosts effects from somewhere else, to the generational crypt where was
buried long ago a body foreign to the subject and the current group. This ventriloquistic listening hears the confusion beyond the words or beyond the gestures of a family
member or a couple, but it also shows itself in their dreams and nightmares, in their
beliefs, their phobia or their frights. The ghost can cause « weirdness, or even delusional actions… It is helped by occulted words, invisibles dwarves who try hard to
break the coherence of sequences. It carries on in silence its work of disconnection…
It is the source of undefined repetitions which more often than not cannot be rationalised. It cannot be abreacted, it can only be named. » (Abraham and Torok, 1978, p
431).
The return of the ghost, « periodic, compulsive, and escaping from even the formation of symptoms (in the sense return of the repressed called by Freud a familiar
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stranger) functions like a ventriloquist, like a stranger in relation to the subject’s topography », and like a stranger in the family or couple. It is about a past, « a parental
or family secret» said Nicolas Abraham (in Etudes freudiennes, 1975, in l’Ecorce et le
noyau 1978, p 430).
The ghost comes back to haunt, in fear (hantise) (idem, 1978) or in a returning2,
(revenance) with spectral effects, as Jacques Dérida would also say. This latter adds
that in analytic practice you need another type of listening to hear « this ventriloquist… back from the other’s unconscious… and according to the laws of another
generation ». (Introduction de J. Dérida, « Fors », 1976, Le Verbier de l’Homme aux
loups, Abraham and Torok, Flammarion p. 43).
Elisabeth Darchis suggests that this listening to a body foreign to the current group,
should be a « ventriloquistic or generational listening». « As soon as we have an ear
to detect the ghost… we can start formulating likely hypotheses » (Nicolas Abraham,
1978, p. 432). Here, the analyst does not call the family in session into question. But
with this ventriloquistic listening, he can flag up the apparition of the stranger, enabling a generational de-confusion, because, then, the patient is in alliance with the
analyst to reject this bizarre foreign body. It can be secrets, mourning not done,
traumas or illicit pleasures, etc. that the ancestors have encrypted in the past.
Effects of speech. Françoise Mevel
The effect of speech happens through polysemy of subjective appropriation inherent
to the situation. How each word, image, affect, signifier, echoes in the other, including
the analyst? Then, of course, occurs an associative chain, an interfantasmatisation,
but when each person’s voice can reach everybody’s ear, the word as an instrument
of the unconscious, « an other speech » is happening underneath the obtrusive
speech. It is about, as Bion used to say « the expansion of the psychic universe »
and for a family, the expansion of the family, meaning taking into account the other’s
psychic universe. And then there is also the belonging to a public space, engineered
in the light of social belonging and which is more of an operational speech. The subject, singular as well as group, is alienated from the code proposed to him by the
public space: its mother tongue. He often looks there for a refuge which blocks a true
2
Hantise and revenance are play on words impossible to translate from French to English, hantise meaning fear
but linked to haunt, revenance is a neologism meaning returning but “un revenant” is a ghost in French. (Translator’s note).
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word: the explicative, the descriptive are at work there. This family discourse which
objectifies rationalises, linking cause and effect, often in a somewhat frenzied way, is
nevertheless an integral part of the therapeutic process. This is what we have defined
as deposit time, the moment when the subject, stuck to language, has to refer to it in
order to « communicate ». However, the effect of speech enables to go beyond this
discourse.
Anti-couple family. Couples anti-family. Elisabeth Darchis
Concepts suggested by Gérard Decherf and Jean Pierre Caillot in 1989, in La psychanalyse du couple et de la famille, A.PSY.G, p. 119. See also Decherf, Darchis,
Knera, Souffrances dans la famille, 2003, p. 83.
Anti-couple Families: « These anti-individual families abrade the generational difference, the difference between group and individual. They function in a mode familysibship and call on narcissistic defence mechanisms, particularly splitting and idealisation… They organise a collective ante-separative and anti-separatist psychic functioning, which ends up in fantasies of a common psyche or body. A. Ruffiot observed,
in several of these, if not in all of them, the fantasy of collective death, as the ultimate
defence against separation. » (Decherf, Darchis, Knera, 2003). In the anti-couple
family, a brotherly style of relationship between all the family members reduces the
couple’s cathexis, and married life is put aside if not inexistent. JP Caillot and G.
Decherf mention the example of the narcissistic couple mother-baby which, when this
dyadic unit mother-baby is done in a defensive and too tight way, is also « antiparental couple » in the way that the parents ‘sexuality is undermined (JP. Caillot, G.
Decherf, 1989, p. 123).
It is the opposite in anti-family couples. « When the couple occupies the main narcissistic phallic place… the couple goes before the family », (J.-P. Caillot, G. Decherf,
1989, p. 124). « The couple’s cathexis takes precedence on the family cathexis. The
parents carry on having a narcissistic couple relationship the children mustn’t disturb.
This phenomenon will even more intense, if, for example, a child has died, as this
helps the fusion of the parents in a denied mourning » (Decherf, Darchis, Knera,
2003, p. 83).
In couple and family transference, the therapeutic neo-group can then represent either « A fantasised family including the psychoanalyst and the couple as object » or:
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« A fantasised couple including the psychoanalyst and the members of the couple. »
(JP. Caillot, G. Decherf, 1989, p.125)
Crossing the threshold. Françoise Mevel
The beginning of an analysis is full of events. « It is moving. » It is what we call transference, a glorious word to qualify this move. We transport, in another, what we have
in our head, what we used to say to ourselves. It’s an act of transmission, of communication. We share the most intimate part of ourselves. Of course, some of it had already been said to this one or that one, but on a regular basis, is said what had never
been said to anyone. It is therefore a crossing of some sort, anyway it is never indifferent.
Historisation. Françoise Mevel
We call historisation the transformations of facts into history, an abandon of the operational to enter the symbolic. Thus happens the transformation of rites or myths into
historical narratives. Historisation calls upon reconstruction of the past, looking for
knowledge and evolution according to past present and future, then the way goes
through various phases and narration takes over. From another point of view, historisation makes something « historical » in the
scientific sense. In this way
http://www.linternaute.com/dictionnaire/fr/definition/ainsi/ one does a historisation
when we date and checkout a legend, which then becomes a proved scientific fact
(La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, Ricœur). The ressources of narrativity, tale and fiction,
have an incidence on accounts from time past. « What happens to the enigma of an
image […] which gives itself as the presence of something absent, struck by the seal
of what was » (Ricœur, Histoire et Vérité, op. cit., p. II). This process is inflected by
truth as a counterpart: from an ambition of history’s truth and a pretention of
memory’s faithfulness.
« Time becomes human only inasmuch as it is articulated as a narrative » (Lacan,
TRI, 17). The narrative, first, summarises time: from a succession of unremarkable
moments, it creates a meaningful story. Furthermore, it give a voice to the time of the
soul and the time of the world, for which it appears as « third type of time » (TRIII,
354). Finally, it opens to man doomed to certain death a perspective that death itself
shall never exhaust.
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The dimension of fiction, of narrative necessary to dialectic of sense is in any way
unavoidable. Historisation of what has been reach in solitude, assumes – as long as
it is addressed to other, that we gather the scattered bits of a story (Historisation, Lacan : “lie actor under his story”) ; it’s a « translating » or « interpretation »work.
Institual. Roland Sefcick
Theory. Definition. The institual (from institution), a psychic agency, is the result of
the contributions of the Superego and Ego Ideal, and engages in the social agencies
instituted by man (culture, institution). It gives stability to the subject through a double psychic flux : towards the interior, narcissistic (« We are good and we complement each other »), it feeds, values and reassures; towards exterior, genital, idealising, desiring, libidinal, objectal, with a dynamic self-esteem (« I’ve got a worth I can
share »).
Explanation : This double flux stabilises the subject’s place in its groups (affective),
stable basis of it symbolic instituted cathexis, which will form its psychosocial identity.
The institual’s dynamic has to, in this vein, be considered from an economic viewpoint (Freud). The fantasy viewpoint is not changed and the clinic is enriched and
broadened. At an economic level it becomes tension of the Ego, a psychic energy in
cohesive tension of the Ego, attractive, interiorised, reassuring (ex-Superego), enabling the subject to regulate its limits in his group; individuating tension, source of
choices and desire, invests the valorised, idealised external objects (ex-Ego ideal).
Cohesive and individuating tensions mobilise loads inherited from the archaic and
which have become values which will enable the child to go from the fusional relationship of the baby to a child in groupal duality, and finally third party, œdipal, symbolic. Its thoughts will be instituted in line with a world identified by generational places and parental pre-institution founded on regulated values (tradition, moral) and valorised rules (laws). On the other hand, regression leads to disinvestment of the symbolic third, to the resorption of the institual in the archaic and the strengthening of the
Ego ideal.
Toxic links. Nilda Neves
In some forms of instinctual moves in the link, a kind of toxic process can develop,
which corresponds to the one described by Freud within the context of current neuro-
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sis, these hypotheses were later extended to other situations. Freud pointed out that
intellectual toxicity ensues from not treating a defined endogenic organic and psychic
request and that this stagnation leads to a lack of qualification of affective states, replaced by apathy and torpor sometimes interrupted by violence.
A.-Eiguer. Such a definition of toxic links refers to Freud’s vision ; he thought that
excessive excitation, accumulated for lack of release, is a source of internal poisoning and a new source of displeasure. The end of the 1800s and the beginning of the
1900s, were a time when people thought that neurosis has a toxic origin, there was
something which intoxicated from inside. The Freudian theory proposes an answer
through this idea of these excitations deprived of release.
I suggest that we can propose another possibility: toxic links between two subjects
are overburdened by internal tensions, mutually stimulated, which supports resentment finally inciting people to avenge themselves or they could be unbridled ambitions, jalousies and envies, hatreds, vengeance or death wishes, imaginary pleasures. They infect by creating discomfort. In my definition, I wish to highlight the emotional and representative content of this contentious interdependence.
I make a link with Cervantes’s Exemplary Novel « The hospital of the rotten ones». At
this time, in the Castilian tongue, to be a rotten one was an expression with the connotation of a kind of "madness", as if the subject was corrupted, or damaged inside.
In fact to be rotten means “to be saturated, to be overwhelmed". I think that the expression represents very nicely the vision we have of « toxicity »: it is produced by
resentments, source of symptoms and conflicts between the members of the link... I
will also associate to it the term "to be bitter”; « to feel bitterness ». More than being
disappointed, it is maintaining a corrosive state of mind, while keeping some resentment towards somebody or a group. The terme « rancor », « rancune (French)
grudge » means literally« sous le cœur (French) under the heart », the place where
one considered in the past that this affect built up. It has the same origin as « rancid », attributed to a decomposing product, particularly lipids. Rancor leads to thinking about orality. We can say « I can’ swallow what’s been said, » or « it makes me
sick to my stomach (under the heart) ». Curiously, it is the same notion of rottenness
than the version used in Spain in the 17th Century. We can’t manage to digest, to
elaborate, and metaphorise the emotional situation because of the conjunction of the
edible and indigestible.
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The idea of toxic links is applied with some success these days to the meeting of
somebody with somebody else whose company is considered as harmful to the individual. It is another way of talking about somebody who manipulates, corrupts and
who’s pitiless. This option does not mention the implication or complicity of the person.
Confused Parentality. Elisabeth Darchis
Confused Parentality (1999) is a concept proposed by Gérard Decherf and Elisabeth
Darchis based on their FPT practice and especially in perinatality when the generational confusion disturbs the construction of links in the family. This concept describes the confusion for the parent between its internal baby and its real child. When
during childhood, the parent was not « able to interiorise a good family containment
with a good internal group, he then finds himself with a lack of internal parentality to
manage infantile anxieties which violently overwhelms him. He places himself in a
narcissistic relationship with the other and has very little distance with his « baby »
side which get mixed up with his own self and which, above all tend to get mixed up
with his real child… He will show a confused parentality through lack of discernment
between the internal and external elements of parentality. » (Decherf G., Darchis E.
(2000), « Aspects cliniques de la fonction paternelle/ Télémaque à la recherche du
père », in Rivage, « La fonction paternelle », n° 12, Groupe haut Normand de Pédopsychiatrie Rouen, p. 86.) In confused parentality, we are talking about the organisation of a survival link aiming to fight against an ancient family suffering; for example
closeness so as not to be separated anymore or distance, so as to not risk reliving
the loss. Confused parentality is not conducive to the development of the child’s psychic life and own desire.
Like the example of this mother who was an orphan in her own childhood, and who,
when she hears her child cry, expresses a generational confusion in her confused parentality saying «he is afraid I will abandon him; it’s terrible! Maybe I should
let somebody else calm him down or I will have to keep him in my arms at all times
so he doesn’t get too sad ». See by extension: confused generation, confused family
or confuse grand-parentality.
Psychoanalytic Relaxation. Roland Sefcick
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Technique. In individual, couple or family therapy, when the psychic work and the
ability to elaborate are still a bit shaky, a mediating third person is often useful. In this
vein, I use a relaxation adapted to each group and age group. The archaic can be
worked then, especially for anorexia, alcoholism, primitive traumas (abuse, incest). If,
on top of that, the work is done as group, we get double access to the archaic.
Secondly, I use the Sapir method based on Autogenous Training by Schultz (1932).
Schultz, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, like Freud, starts with the framework of
hypnosis (couch, patient lying down), and suggests to the patient feelings, which, felt
under hypnosis (heavy, warm…), will put him in a deep state of relaxation, but without the sleep of hypnosis. From this state and the patient’s life experience, Sapir proceeds just like in classic psychoanalysis. The method I use, especially at the beginning, is Caycedo’s dynamic relaxation, which is done standing up. This difference of
position is decisive in this experience, because it directly confronts the balance and
the whole of the associated muscles, which sets a link between the catastrophic anxieties fall/crushing and breathing. The words that follow enable the patient to relate
surface effects (immediate symptoms he knows) with these anxieties, which are rapidly related by the patient to the parents, and above all, with the mother in the first
months of his life. (cf. Sensory solidity.)
Sensory Solidity. Roland Sefcick
Theory. This neo-concept comes directly from relaxation clinic. Sensory solidity corresponds to the capacity, during the regressive process in relaxation, to lean one’s
interior containment onto the current feelings. This corresponds to a double layer of
the Moi-peau interlocked in a field of undifferentiated awareness, both of them being
undifferentiated and experienced.
The external layer (D. Anzieu, 1985) is enveloped by the therapist’s voice (a subject
said after the exercise, « I could hear your voice disconnected from the words, I did
not need to understand them ») and the internal layer is in contact with the sensory
experienced (an alcoholic said, « I could feel what drives me to drink, in my throat, in
my belly, like a frightening emptiness, a tension which stops me from thinking », he
will then make an association with his mother’s limp arms). These moments are abreactive inasmuch as they link relived_thought with their archaic roots. When the subject lacks this sensory solidity, he must instead of these feelings either regain control
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and put into place mental defences, or dilute himself into confusion, with the risk of
unbalance. This phenomenon can be seen less often in group therapy, when confusion is stabilised in usual functioning mode (family, institution) in a collective delirium.
Application to adoption and filiation links. The ternarity (tripod) of the filiation link
is made up of the identifying basis of the subject : legal, situating each member of
the family in a regulated place : « I am your father, your daughter… » ; affective : « I
love you like my mother, my son… » ; biological, sensory : « born from my parents,
I have the “same blood”. » These basis imply: the instituted, the capacity to transmit
the symbolic third and the stability of the place: « I am/you are, here »; the envelop,
solidity containment: « we welcome you (archaic deposit) and we acknowledge you
(duality Ego-object). » But for the adopted child, one of these bases is missing, the
biological aspect, and this will lead him to question his "inclusiveness", lack he will try
to compensate for by other means. In psychoanalytic family therapy we talk of
"roman noir" (Ozoux-Teffaine, 2013), fantasies told by the child of current abuse by
the adopting parents or of past ones in the country of origin (cf. fantasme de
fustigation, Freud). Ozoux-Teffaine also mentions the " romance of origins" (2004)
where the adolescent describes ideal parents and an ideal country of origin, with
highly sensory qualities (cooking, colours, smells…). Could we consider this black
romance and this romance of origins as a quest for re-bonding in the present of an
absent sensory ? Black or pink (these romances are often unbearable for the
adopting parents), it would be for them a matter of “re-psychising" (psychologically
re-investing) the missing sensory root of the link and the identity. May not he
"sensory foreign elsewhere”, be it good or bad, be the body of this “foreigner” to be
adopted ? For the adoptee, it would be a matter of reintroducing the sensory in his
identity unit, by reactivating the archaic up to the genital. He shows his difference,
while avoiding "absorption" or "exclusion” from the adoptive family.
Adoption will take the way of Ego construction as soon as the family finds again this "
sensory solidity " compensated by the formation of " sensory romances ", containing
"inside" and open "outside" by the institual. A contrario, we observe that children
without pink or black romance have a tendency to function with actions and
excitation, in a perpetual quest for sensoriality in the present. This opens up an
interesting thought in psychoanalysis, when we reach the limits of psyche joined to
61
his bodily basis and to the transmission of a sensory filiation, foundation of affective
identity.
Anzieu D. Le travail psychanalytique dans les groupes. Dunod. Paris, 1973.
Anzieu D. Le Moi peau. Dunod, 1985.
Anzieu D. Illusion groupale, un Moi idéal commun. in Le groupe et l’inconscient,
1975, Dunod.
Ozoux-Teffaine O. La reconstruction d’un lien de filiation adoptive au péril de la haine
partagée. Le Divan Familial, 31, 2013, In Press.
Sefcick R. Cadre et métacadre in Le Divan Familial. Ed In Press. 1998.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
The quantitative data have given us an insight on how our colleagues surveyed appreciate psychoanalytical ideas. The affinity with these is indisputable. The qualitative study and especially the contributions on new concepts enable us to conclude
they are firmly rooted in the psychoanalytic field. At the same time, the analytical field
opens up. Some of these ideas can be seen as still not quite fully formed metaphors,
other appear to be relatively solid conceptual models. Sometimes they seem copied
from one domain to another, the only change being their denomination. But we also
observe syntheses highlighting original thoughts, especially when they get their inspiration from clinic and therapeutic practice. The discussion remains open. And in any
case, it is important to dare to think, risk to create. And this is absolutely possible: our
colleagues show here a remarkable independence of thoughts.
Psychoanalysis is already one hundred years old. A multitude of thoughts have been
produced; occasionally, the new was not correlated enough to the old. This means
that some approach, which may be basically divergent, stay side by side. What’s left
for us is to courageously consider these apparent contradictions. We can only gain in
knowledge and efficiency.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anzieu D. (1975) Le groupe et l’inconscient, Paris, Dunod.
Anzieu D. (1984) Le moi peau, Paris, Dunod.
Bollas Ch. (1993) Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience, London,
Ch. Bollas (publisher).
62
Brusset B. (2013) Au-delà de la névrose, Paris, Dunod.
Chemama R., Vandermersch B. (dir.) (1995) Dictionnaire de la psychanalyse, Paris,
Larousse.
Eiguer A. (2008) Jamais moi sans toi, Paris, Dunod. Tr. italienne, Roma, Borla, 2010.
Tr. portugaise, Porto, Parsifal, 2013.
Freud S. OC, Paris, PUF.
Kaës R. (dir.) (1979) Crise, rupture et dépassement, Paris, Dunod.
Klein M. OC, Paris, PUF.
Ogden Th. (2005) The art of psychoanalysis, London, Rudledge.
Winnicott D. (1971) Jeu et réalité, Paris, Gallimard.
CONTENTS
Introduction. Research direction, objectives and methodology, 1
Part 1. Quantitative Analysis, 3
Column 1. Individual Psychoanalysis, 4
Column 2. Intersubjective Psychoanalysis, 10
Column 3. Groupal Psychoanalysis, 14
Column 4. Family Psychoanalysis, 18
Column 5. Couple Psychoanalysis, 24
Table 2, 30
First conclusions, 30
Part 2. Qualitative Analysis, 31
A)Evolution of the concepts in the columns : adaptation, modification, 32
B)Neo-concepts, 48
General Conclusions, 61
General Bibliography 61

concepts which inspire the work of couple and family psycho

Transcription

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