Full text unavailable

You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.

PSAR 26(4):535-549 (1939)

The Psychoanalytic and Psychiatric Significance of Phantasy*

Authors: Jules H. Masserman MD, Eva R. Balken PhD

II. The Psychiatric Significance of the Phantasy Material

(Continued from page 379)

These case reports probably represent the most significant way in which the phantasies may be evaluated—namely, the psychoanalytic interpretation of their content in its relation to the unconscious mental dynamisms of the patient's neurosis.7 However, a number of corollary methods of interpreting the phantasy material suggested themselves during our clinical experience with the test and these may briefly be outlined in their various connotations as follows:

The phantasies are frequently of significance as to the state of the patient's transference to the psychiatrist and his reaction to the treatment situation at the time the test is taken. This may be indicated by
1. A frank inclusion of the psychiatrist in the phantasies or the construction of allegorical stories expressing the attitude of the hero or heroine of the phantasy to obvious surrogates such as “a learned man,” “a teacher,” “a healer,” or even “a priest.” Thus a wealthy, highly intelligent Jewish youth who applied for treatment of a neurosis that was predominantly anxiety-hysteric in nature indicated
  In this connection it will have been noted that although the content of the phantasy productions of most patients is, through conscious influences, comparatively coherent and rational, the phantasies themselves resemble dreams in two ways: first, in that they display the phenomena of projection, condensation, substitution, etc., and second, in that the phantasies are motivated by unconscious and frequently deeply instinctual wishes which, because of the subjects’ ego-defenses, can be expressed only in a symbolic, allegorical form.
  Page 535
  the concurrently passive and competitive origins of his deeply ambivalent transference to the psychiatrist in a series of long, ornate and yet taunting and ironic phantasies, one of which may be quoted in part as follows:
  - Phantasy N 5: “Events subsequent to the morning of October 8th had occurred in the li

PSAR 26(4):535-549 (1939)

The Psychoanalytic and Psychiatric Significance of Phantasy*

Authors: Jules H. Masserman MD, Eva R. Balken PhD

II. The Psychiatric Significance of the Phantasy Material

(Continued from page 379)

The phantasies are frequently of significance as to the state of the patient's transference to the psychiatrist and his reaction to the treatment situation at the time the test is taken. This may be indicated by
1. A frank inclusion of the psychiatrist in the phantasies or the construction of allegorical stories expressing the attitude of the hero or heroine of the phantasy to obvious surrogates such as “a learned man,” “a teacher,” “a healer,” or even “a priest.” Thus a wealthy, highly intelligent Jewish youth who applied for treatment of a neurosis that was predominantly anxiety-hysteric in nature indicated
  In this connection it will have been noted that although the content of the phantasy productions of most patients is, through conscious influences, comparatively coherent and rational, the phantasies themselves resemble dreams in two ways: first, in that they display the phenomena of projection, condensation, substitution, etc., and second, in that the phantasies are motivated by unconscious and frequently deeply instinctual wishes which, because of the subjects’ ego-defenses, can be expressed only in a symbolic, allegorical form.
  Page 535
  the concurrently passive and competitive origins of his deeply ambivalent transference to the psychiatrist in a series of long, ornate and yet taunting and ironic phantasies, one of which may be quoted in part as follows:
  - Phantasy N 5: “Events subsequent to the morning of October 8th had occurred in the li