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Jacques Press is a critical and intelligent thinker who in this paper uses a clear methodology to guide us through his theoretical developments, enabling us not only to engage in a dialogue with a colleague's ideas, but also to review our own positions on theory, clinical practice, and technique. His contribution obliges its readers to reconsider the conceptual instruments used in their clinical work and their points of agreement and disagreement with the author.
I shall base my commentary on Dr Press's statement that his emphasis will be ‘on the epistemological and clinical issues arising in the process of theorization in the psychosomatic field’ (p. 1).
One of the matters raised in his paper is the relationship between psychoanalysts, their theories, and the institutions where they train. The work of all analysts is shaped by their theoretical baggage, the differences between the various conceptual schemata, and the specific context in which they practise.
Dr Press's description of the theory of Pierre Marty and his school is in my view highly pertinent. Having trained at the Paris Psychosomatic School (EPP), he is well placed to give a clear account both of Marty's concepts and of the aspects which he does not accept. He writes that whereas Marty's theories can be taken as a closed system, they must be opened up so as to embrace concepts due to other, non-EPP authors. It is noteworthy that in his essay the author considers and engages in a dialogue with the ideas both of his mentors and of other psychoanalytic thinkers.
A number of themes that constitute the pillars of his theory will be discussed below - namely, Marty's postulated inverse correlation between the level of mentalization and somatization; Freud's introduction of the concept of the compulsion to repeat, as initially proposed in Beyond the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920), with particular emphasis on the repetition of trauma; and the ‘residue’, together with formlessness and the fear