Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

DISCUSSION: Dr. Edith Jacobson felt that Dr. Peto's term 'fragmentation' described a vicissitude of aggression directed against introjects. She felt that something similar to these concepts is most clearly observable in the adolescent modification of the superego. The term may be too concrete and require greater clarity when applied to introjective-projective mechanisms. It can best be understood when related to the revival of repressed memories and experiences.

Dr. Walter Stewart suggested that the paper offered two contributions: closer examination of the analytic process and fulfilment of the need for a study of the nature of the dream work, which Freud, in a footnote to The Interpretation of Dreams, described as too often absent. As a metapsychological concept, after reviewing our present theory including primary process, identification, introjective-projective mechanisms, and ego regression and its effect on the synthetic function, he questioned the need for a fragmentizing function of the ego.

Dr. Rudolph Loewenstein suggested that the regrouping phenomena as described by the author might come from the id rather than from the superego. He also felt that one must recognize the fragmentizing function of the observing analyst, who can only describe one facet of an hour at a time.

Dr. Victor Rosen raised the question of the appropriateness of the term 'fragmentation'. It implies a haphazard breaking into parts, rather than a disorganizing function which would describe a reduction into original units.

In conclusion, Dr. Peto restated his belief in the need for the theoretical concept. In response to Dr. Jacobson's question, he referred to Irma's injection dream. It illustrates two regressive or archaic phases of the superego. The first obeys the law of talion; at a deeper level, Freud, in dreaming of the white patches in the throat, punishes himself for introducing Fleischl to cocaine. The dream illustrates the breaking down of the ego under the superego.