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June 27, 1961. RECONSTRUCTION IN PSYCHOANALYSIS. PANEL DISCUSSION. Rudolph M. Loewenstein, M.D., Chairman.
This meeting was devoted to a series of reports from Dr. Loewenstein's section of the Kris Study Group. Dr. Loewenstein emphasized that the papers presented by the panel members represented contributions as modified and elaborated within the Study Group discussions, and that actually many other members of the section had made important contributions throughout the year.
Dr. John Donadeo presented a summary of the report (originally prepared by Drs. Burness Moore and Edward Joseph) of the group's proceedings on Reconstruction and Recall (1958-1959). The emphasis during the 1958-1959 seminar was on the function of memory and recall, with memory considered the ego function most frequently involved in conflict situations; the phenomenon of forgetting was felt to be related not only to repression but also to other defense mechanisms such as denial or isolation. It was suggested that infantile amnesia may derive in part from the accelerated change from primary to secondary thinking that occurs at the time of superego development. In dealing with the technical aspects of reconstruction, it was recognized that a reconstruction is apt to leave much implied, but that this is not only necessary but probably desirable, leaving a considerable task to the synthetic function of the patient's ego and thereby encouraging a shift from passivity to activity. Finally, the sense of conviction, considered the sine qua non of the validity and effectiveness of reconstruction, was discussed. It was felt that a 'true' sense of conviction represents a condition of structural harmony of the personality in which id drives enter the ego with the sanction of the superego.
Dr. David Rubinfine focused on a particular formal aspect of the analytic process of reconstruction—those alterations in ego functioning which make possible the cognizing of archaic data. Ordinarily such archaic mate