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Joseph Sandler has contributed immensely to our understanding of the representational world, bringing together the views of the object- relational and ego-psychological viewpoints. In this chapter, I will seek to expand that vision to include what we know about the rules of translation by which we formulate the representational world into language or personal idiom. Since our desired contacts with our patients are through words, we should see how words enable and facilitate movement away from senseless repetitions and enactments of the past, and whether the mental constellations can be translated into meaningful new statements or interpretations. A case example will serve as a vehicle to describe the translation from action to language and the move towards change.
Joseph Sandler’s larger contribution to psychoanalysis cannot be summarized in one brief piece, but his specific interest in the representational world has been a persistent theme of his work. In his 1988 plenary address to the American Psychoanalytical Association (Sandler 1990), he distinguished his point of view as following a consistent thread that addresses how patients present themselves and how their inner worlds dictate their behaviour. His unique modification of Kleinian theory, and his adaptation of ego psychology, provide us with an amalgam of the important ways people represent their experiences. This body of work forces us to see the role of memory storage of experience on action and interaction, as well as the effect of significant past interactions on intrapsychic life.
Sandler (1990:866) writes that there are four areas concerning the relationship of memory and thought to conscious and unconscious fantasies that relate to self- and object representations:
the wish for interaction with an object;
concern for the way wishes are fulfilled with guiding drives of instinctual wishes,
safety, reassurance, affirmation, narcissistic gratification and the wish to do away with pain or anxiety;
seeking