Foreword

I have known Jean-Michel Quinodoz since 1978, when he was a member of a clinical postgraduate working group which I conducted in Geneva till 1984. Since then I have on several occasions discussed with him various clinical and theoretical concerns. During those years I developed a respect for Quinodoz’s commitment to psychoanalysis, the seriousness of his work and his capacity for ideas. This book shows the qualities I noticed in him.

He addresses himself to the topic of separation anxiety in clinical practice. There is a vast literature on separation anxiety, starting with Freud, but very little has been written on the crucial role that separation anxiety, and the defences against it, play in the psychoanalytic process. Freud speaks of the analyst’s Monday crust, but not of that of the patient. Quinodoz shows convincingly, in detailed clinical material, the various forms and varying contents of separation anxiety and the work that has to be done on defences to uncover it and enable the patient to work it through.

In the second part of the book he examines the principal existing psychoanalytic theories on separation anxiety, starting with Freud and including Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Balint, Anna Freud, Spitz and Mahler. Throughout the book he makes references to a number of other writers as well.

The last part of the book is concerned with termination of a psychoanalysis, and here he introduces an original concept of his own, portance. He quotes the dictionary definitions of the two nonidentical meanings of the word. The first is the strength of the material needed to support a structure—for instance, the foundations of a house; the second, used in physics, is the vertical force which in combination with speed gives the uplift—for instance, in a plane taking off. Quinodoz considers that a good resolution of separation anxiety results in the patient acquiring portance, a combination of both a firm basis in the internal world

and the capacity for uplift. He describe