“Intuitions” about Intuition

This issue of the Romanian Journal of Psychoanalysis is centered on the theme of Intuition. Although not a concept specific to psychoanalytic theory or clinical work, intuition, as a psychic phenomenon, is quite present in the analyst's work. The articles in this issue offer various approaches to intuition, with clinical vignettes serving as clarifying examples of how intuition can be used in the analytic process.

In his article “Foresight, foreknowledge, forethought”, psychoanalyst Stefano Bolognini discusses the subjective dimension of intuition and its importance in making predictions – that is, anticipating internal dynamics throughout the analytic process. The author draws a clear distinction between the constructive forms of imagination, such as intuition and creativity, and the regressive or defensive ones, which distort reality to avoid facing uncertainty. Intuition is explained not as a form of magic, but as the result of a rapid synthesis of experience, knowledge, and emotional availability. In the psychoanalytic context, anticipation is not seen as an absolute prediction but is based on the therapist's refined sensitivity to the emerging movements within the analytic relationship. Thus, the emphasis is on “pre-sensing” rather than “foreseeing,” supporting the idea that the future can be partially intuited when internal and intersubjective realities are sufficiently integrated.

In her paper, “Thinking the Death Anxiety when Working with Hospitalized Patients in Terminal Stage. Dreaming the Undreamt Thoughts”, Georgiana Dobrescu presents a topic that is less explored in psychoanalytic literature: how a specialist works in a hospital setting with patients in terminal stages of illness. After an initial theoretical exploration of the thinking process (in the Bionian sense): containment, sensing, dreaming, and of death anxiety, the clinical section presents a moment of reverie triggered within the therapeutic relationship with a patient. Additional training in p