The impact of intrusive identification in the analytic process: Some implications of real trauma and phantasy1

In this paper, the author aims to show a possible understanding of very primitive identifications, especially intrusive identifications, when associated with traumatic situations and expressed through current phantasies related to these experiences. At first glance, this understanding could be considered quite straightforward. However, the original contribution offered by the author is the participation of this special kind of combination in the formation of the primitive intrusive identifications and its association with the imprisonment inside the primitive object of identification, especially the mother. The author proposes the amplification of the clinical use of the concept of ‘life in the claustrum’, originally described by Meltzer, moving beyond persecutory claustrophobic situations. He illustrates the phenomenon with the analytic work carried out with a patient whose narcissistic and intrusive character was structured on the basis of primitive intrusive identifications and phantasies related to the claustrum inside the mother. The patient's imprisonment inside the maternal compartments has, as its background, the phantasies related to the infantile traumatic experience of the death of the patient's brother, which are reproduced in the analytic relationship.