Heterogeneity of Memory Representations: Action and Thought in Contemporary Psychoanalytic Clinical Practice

This paper addresses, from a theoretical and clinical point of view, the concept of action as representation on the analytic stage of memories of object relations whose mnemic inscription is of a non-verbal nature, and which find their first opportunity for elaboration through the analysis of repeated affective interactions in which both patient and analyst are unconsciously involved. In this perspective, the Freudian notion of agieren is expanded from its initial definition as a phenomenon of transference to encompass an intersubjective dramatised performance on the analytic stage of a dynamic of mutual influence – transference–countertransference – contained in the contemporary notion of enactment. The paper proceeds from an initial review of Freudian passages that anticipate the notion of an unrepressed unconscious – in which traces of experiences inaccessible to ideational representation are deposited – to an overview of similar concepts advanced by authors of object-relations theory and by current intersubjective theories.

KEY WORDS: Agieren, enactment, intersubjectivity, presymbolic representation.