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International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76, 1215, 1995
In this paper the author develops the hypothesis that for some patients there is a core phantasy in their violence that is related to their beliefs about their own procreation. Drawing on her experience of trying to understand and treat psychoanalytically one such patient, the author illustrates how it may be possible to apprehend that there is a pattern in which violence is exercised, a plot or narrative that allows the underlying phantasies to be identified. The violent act tells a story, which is a personal myth of creation and contains both pre-oedipal and distorted oedipal theories. These ideas are then discussed in the context of Freud's writings on violence (Heftigkeit) as well as in relation to a second particularly violent patient.
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76, 1083, 1995
The author examines the narcissistic and relational aspects of the preconscious functioning of the analytic couple in order to bring out the drive-related, developmental and structural elements of the infantile in their relationship. She considers that any disruption of the specific tone of an analysis indicates a change in the level of drive excitation, which is experienced unconsciously in the transference and countertransference as the loss of a significant internal object and gives rise to a representational deficiency. Where this is due to the impact of the infantile-in-the-patient on his own preconscious, the analyst suffers a blind spot. As long as he can desist from using ‘blocking representations’, the effect will be to repress the unrepresented wish and at the same time to create a framing and containing preform beneficial to the treatment. In the author's view, the analyst deals with his blind spot by a ‘work of the negative’ a la Andre Green, through denial of his fantasy of seduction by the infantile omn