Le Celeste Et Le Sublunaire. La Construction De L'Espace Analytique, II. (The Celestial and the Sublunar. The Construction of the Analytic Space, Ii.): By Serge Viderman. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977. 470 pp.

This is the second volume written by Serge Viderman to deal with the relationship between theory and clinical practice. In his earlier volume1 he used a metaphor, the so-called analytic space, to describe the physical set-up as well as the forces at work and basic rules which allow the development of a uniquely psychoanalytic process. The present volume is concerned primarily with problems of epistemology. From other areas of knowledge, from history and literature, Viderman draws interesting analogies between interpretation in analysis and in other fields.

His basic postulate is that it is impossible to reconstruct a single historical truth in analytic work. Rather, the reconstruction becomes in fact a new creation which then has an organizing effect. According to this view, "Transference allows the coming together of manifestations of libidinal drives and their acquiring a meaning; the space in which the affects are experienced and are given birth by the interpretive word has literally created them" (p. 367). The American point of view on the other hand, would emphasize that while the transference neurosis (broadly speaking) is a re-creation brought about by the analytic process, it is always present in a latent way in the patient. Viderman's thesis is that the past is essentially a figment of the patient's imagination. Real events are reduced to "agents provocateurs." What is alive are only fantasies—themselves elaborations—and