A Reply to Dr. Nachmani

DR. NACHMANI'S DISCUSSION CONSTITUTES what I believe to be a complementarity in its own right to the formulations I am employing. Fundamentally, I believe that all psychological phenomena have to be seen from a dual-track principle, not unlike the double helix of the gene, which contains the disparate strands emerging from a common vertex. This common vertex is designated by Bion mathematically as the "O" of the experience itself ("at-one-ment"). Our transformations of "O" into "K" (knowledge about the experience) occupies two tracks, the sensual (externally real) and intuitive (internally real), corresponding to the bilaterality of the data-processing of the cerebral hemispheres, the sense organs, etc. Thus, from the psychoanalytic point(s) of view, we must consider experience ("O") as having two transformations in "K", one the realistic "impingement" of the external world upon our senses and the other the preconceptions, inherent and acquired (the inherent instinctual organization) which subjectively "greet" this data according to its phylogenetically-honed programming. This "greeting" of the data by the subjective, holistic, right brain organization is in the preliterate form of narrative known as phantasy.

Psychoanalytically, we must explain "O" from the vertices of internal and external reality. When we are able to "binocularize" both these points of view, we have conducted a mind expansion via interpretation of a transformation of "K" into "O", the realization of the significance of the experience. Yet psychoanalytic technique seems limited to the interpretation and formulation of phantasy alone since external reality, both past and present, is unanalyzable. Only accommodation or action in the form of alteration or flight are appropriate to external reality.

Dr. Nachmani's thesis is that interpersonal factors are of utmost importance in the formation of psychopathological entities, especially the ones I have herein discussed. My answer to him is, "Yes, D