Violence and Mental Space

In this paper I argue that violence can cause a breach in mental space, leaving it collapsed or damaged, and this can lead to further violence. I will discuss this idea in relation to two issues. The first is how mental space is constructed. To look at this, I will draw on Rey's (1994) ideas about space as well as Britton's (1989) discussion of the Oedipus Complex. I will also discuss the ideas of Fonagy et al. (1993) regarding the development of the psychological self in relation to the construction of mental space. I argue that mental space is an internalization of the witnessing of one's primary objects moving independently in space and therefore outside of one's body and one's control. It is this perception of movement in space that breaks the illusion of sameness and ownership of the mother's body and that permits the birth of mental space in the inner world.

I describe a particular kind of object relationship that was linked to violence in two patients in analysis. In this relationship there are two objects, one of which, A, acts as if it owns the other, B. The phantasy underlying the idea of ownership is that B is part of A's body. What is needed to sustain the phantasy is the preservation of the illusion that B has no independent movement. Distortions of reality are needed to preserve a phantasy like this, as ordinary perception would dispel the illusion and confirm the reality that B moves and exists independently of A's control. This is a two-person universe, since the perception of a third object interacting with B would dispel the illusion of bodily merger and ownership. Brenman (1985) has written about this type of object relationship and has discussed Freud's (1917) description of melancholia in these terms, where the superego of the melancholic ruthlessly treats the self as if it owns it. Freud's account of melancholia is the classic