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Between chaos and order: the dynamic of the archaic
The archaic refers to the origins of psychic life which are usually located in the earliest, pre-verbal stages of infant development. Bodily inscriptions and fixations anterior to primal repression explain then the pre-historic character of archaic issues. This article proposes an extended approach of the origins by presenting a link between holding processes in early life and a basic level of mental functioning in the here and now during lifetime. This primary level of ongoing, non-verbal, dynamic processes is linked to phenomenological issues like mood and attunement. It has supportive capacities that are crucial for life to be bearable. Attention to this basic, primary level in contact with that of everyday mental functioning is not only a matter of non-verbal therapies; it can also revitalize an analytic process with dead ends in the world of representation and meaning.