32nd Winter Meeting*: On the Opening Session: “From Ideology to Intrapsychic Reality”

This presentation by Fred Pine centered around a hypothetical case, a discussion of developmental movement, and the presentation of an actual clinical case. These three examples were used to discuss the utility of different psychological approaches to formulating a theoretical and clinical understanding of patients. The four systems used were those of drive, ego, object relations, and self-psychology. To some extent, the title of this presentation is actually an answer to the conference theme of how psychoanalytic theory has changed and where it is going. The next generation of students are expected to utilize a multimodeled view of human behavior encompassing aspects of the above theories in consideration with the impact of cultural experience. The discussion emphasized respect for the diversity of phenomena of different theorists. Particular stress was placed on the fact that “The nature of life varies from moment to moment.” For example, the issue of symbiosis in the infant was discussed, from the perspective that in “one moment” the infant can differentiate from the mother and is therefore not symbiotic, but in another may not be able to do so.

The “four psychologies” were evaluated regarding their place in development and personality maturation, and discussed from the perspective of both the interpersonal and the intrapsychic.

In a hypothetical clinical example, four interpretations were presented of sexualized behavior in the transference. In a discussion of developmental movement, psychological experience was noted to be organized in different ways at differing moments. An example of an infant who is hungry, puts his thumb in his mouth, cries, and then elicits a response from the mother in speech and eventual physical contact, was examined from the perspective of ego functions, in terms of the visual and vocal apparatus, the psychology of self-experience, in terms of “just being—the self,” the psychology of drives, in terms of urges and tensions, and the psycho