Response to Astor's Paper

Astor's paper has important implications for theory and technique of impasse. His paper considers the possibility that Fordham's own personality might have contributed to the impasse described in his paper, Defenses of the self, and that this might in particular have impeded the processing of affect. I am writing this comment without, alas, the benefit of having read K's own response.

I do not think that it would be impertinent to suggest that the sort of difficulty with sensation and emotion which Baynes (1940) describes in Fordham is likely to have its roots in his earliest relation with his mother, and that these might also have contributed to his sister's tragic suicide in her 20s. From here it is only a step to say that Fordham and K might have shared something in the experience of mothers who were unable to respond to their mind, or rather to their bodies, sensations and affects in such a way as to facilitate their becoming mind. There is evidence that sensation and emotion had to some extent not been mentalized in Fordham at least, but that they instead expressed themselves somatically at times of great anguish—literally as a broken heart.

In these circumstances, it is arguable (Ferrari 2004; Lombardi 2003, 2004a, 2004b) that to look for ‘understanding’ which K found unsatisfactory rather than to ‘receive’ in the way that K was wanting is obstructive to the business of mentalizing emotion (Fonagy et al 2004), and that in particular it is counterproductive to insist on the transference or on the source or direction of projective processes. What is needed is a language into which affect might be translated. Hugh Gee observed at the Analytic Group meeting at the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) during which Astor's paper was discussed on 6^th November 2006 that Astor's ‘extroverted’ affective style would have facilitated this process in a way which Fordham's might not have. As Astor described it, Fordham would feel his affective response very deeply, but with