Abstracts from other Journals

International Review of Psychoanalysis of Couple and Family (aipcf.net) (ISSN 2105-1038) 8 - 2010/2 - Suffering in the links and its transformations through couple and family psychoanalysis

Anne Loncan

Summary: According to the author, if the birth of the link is under the auspices of the object investment, its effects do not depend on mere presence, which would involve a simultaneous disappearance of the link and of the object invested. A link that would apply only in the presence of the other would be weak and its effects corollary labile. During mourning, the libidinal investments in the link are ‘recycled’, including those made of hate. Ultimately, it remains a ‘vestige link’ whose economic thickness decreases while the qualitative aspects remain. In some pathological situations marred by mystery, shame and fear, a ‘ghost link’ may appear, which exercises an occult but harmful control over the survivor of the link. Psychoanalytic family therapy finds there a prime indication to take over, mend, repair and bring the link to a position of ‘vestige’.

Key words: family psychoanalysis, intersubjective link, vestige link, link topology.

Narcissism and Otherness in the Link

Martine Vermeylen

Summary: The author starts from the hypothesis that undifferentiated ties in couples and families originate from primary narcissism, while differentiated ties are built in a relationship with the object originating from secondary narcissism.

In a parental couple, an unconscious conflict between the other and oneself culminates in cases of neuroses by a repression of fantasies in order to protect the psychism. In this type of couple, unfortunately, the relationship with the child often enables this conflict to be diverted on to ‘an other’ that is represented by the child, carrier of the parental conflict.

The story of Juan comes to illustrate this hypothesis, illustrated by A. Eiguer in 1998, where a couple decides to ‘make’ a child for fear of one partner's un