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Dear Sir,
Very many thanks to Dr von der Tann for his attentive reading and his comments. I do agree with him on certain points although I seem to have sometimes been taken too literally. For example, regarding the fractal objects, I share the same opinion that the notion of geometrical
objects cannot be applied as such to the unconscious fantasy. I believe that the regular structures we observe as psychoanalysts in the unconscious fantasies at different scales, like the oedipal configuration, can be compared to the phenomena of ‘self similarity’ described in the complex systems. However this constitutes an analogous model of functioning, and not a direct transposition of the same way of functioning of one field to another.
I am grateful to Dr von der Tann for having raised the question of the methodological status of such parallels we are tempted to draw between certain aspects of the psychic functioning as observed in psychoanalysis and recent developments of deterministic chaos theory: is it about mathematical models? About metaphors? About analogous models? I also agree with Dr von der Tann's suggestion that the creative process, among others, needs further investigation and I hope he will enlighten us with some of his own research.
Dr Jean-Michel Quinodoz
53 A chemin des Fourches
CH 1223 Cologny (Geneva)
February 1998