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Following the workshop-group discussions on the morning of the second day, the meeting continued in the afternoon with a further plenary session, this time chaired by Prof. J. Sandler. After the panellists' contributions, the Chairman invited a discussion from the floor. The Colloquium ended with a final statement and summing up by Professor R. Wallerstein.
J. Sandler: We have four distinguished panellists with us - Sam Ritvo, Jill Hodges, Bob Emde and Serge Lebovici, all of whom are known to you. There will be a short introductory statement from each of the panellists and then some interchange between the members of the panel. After that I will invite questions, statements and any general remarks from the audience.
S. Ritvo: In spite of the relatively new terminology introduced in the first paper in the concept of mental representations and mental processes, it seems quite clear from the case report of Sam, for example, that considerations of affect, impulse, conflict and defence are paramount in the analysis, and that bringing them to awareness is the main mechanism of change.
One thing that puzzled me in the precirculated paper was a footnote that read: ‘Mental representations cover both the experiential and the non-experiential domain. Recently it has become evident that all content, including the drives, affects, relationships and experiences, are represented in the brain according to a uniform principle, whether phenomenally accessible or not.’ If that is the case, I found it difficult to see what need there was to distinguish between mental representations and mental processes in relation to the technique of analysis. It seemed to me, if I understood the footnote correctly, that it was mainly a matter of the difference between mental representation and mental processes; matters, perhaps, mainly of type, severity and specific genesis of defences, let us say, in response to trauma and conflict. I think this is reflected also in the fundamental similarity of techni