On: Incorporation of an invasive object

Dear Sirs,

Williams (2004) offers us a detailed presentation of early incorporative processes that influence the emergence of the infant's nascent ego. In his case reports, he provides ample evidence of the abilities of psychoanalytic technique proper to deal with these clinical manifestations. I believe that Williams's paper is one of a series that broaden the range of indications for psychoanalytic treatment, extending it to severe personality disorders and psychotic states.

Although not the focus of his paper, Williams places particular emphasis on the role of the body in furthering the understanding of primitive anxieties, which are inherent in the process of incorporating an invasive object. His analysand, James, transgressed the limitations imposed on his body by the analytic setting when the disillusionment with the analyst enhanced his fear of abandonment by his girlfriend. The initial writhing of the analysand's body on the couch led to an active repositioning of his body towards that of the analyst. The analysand got off the couch and stared full of narcissistic rage through the analyst's body at his phantasised brawling parents. The annihilation of the psychoanalyst's body by the penetrating glance of the analysand followed the psychoanalyst's interpretation that provided the analysand with the comfort of understanding. Simultaneously this interpretation reached deep down to levels of psychic functioning which precede the differentiation of psyche-soma, where even the desirable, i.e. the comfort of understanding, could under certain circumstances produce an undesirable somatic reaction. It resembles the reaction of the gut of man dying of thirst who drinks some sips of water. The water produces a reflex reaction to expel something that has become hostile, exactly because it is desperately needed.

To paraphrase Williams's words, the body took over when the overwhelming feelings of the analysand exceeded the boundaries of the concepts assigned to contain them