-
Gabbard, G. O. & Ogden, T. H. (2009) On Becoming a Psychoanalyst. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 90:311-327
- It takes three people—mother, father and child—to create a healthy oedipal child; it takes three people—mother, father and adolescent—to create a young adult; it takes two young adults to create a psychological space in which to create a couple that is, in turn, capable of creating a psychological space in which a baby can be conceived (literally and metaphorically); it takes a combination of a young family and an old one (a grandmother, grandfather, mother, father and child) to create conditions that contribute to, or facilitate the acceptance and creative use of, the experience of aging and death in the grandparents (Loewald, 1979).
- Similarly, in the sessions, the psychological work that the patient does in isolation from the analyst (and that the analyst does in his isolated space behind the couch) is as important as the thinking/dreaming that the two do with one another.
- ‘Bound in a nutshell’: Thoughts on complexity, reductionism and ‘infinite space’. Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 88: 559-74.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, B. H. (2016) The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Rivista di Psicoanalisi 62:149-167
- When a patient's story is brittle (too brittle to be remade alone), psychoanalysis can be a space in which another story can be told, this time a story that emerges and belongs to neither the patient nor the analyst, but is their shared creation and can be both examined and reclaimed by the patient (this is my elaboration of what I believe Kurtz means by «relational truth» [137] in psychoanalysis).
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, B. H. (2017) The Risk of True Confession: On Literature and Mystery. Fort Da 23:40-61
- You look out into space like that and you begin to feel as if someone were after you, the navy or the government or religion.
- For an instant, Michael K is not afraid to believe what he thinks. A space opens up from which doubt is momentarily absent.
- So long as admittance into the realm of psychoanalysis requires a work of literary criticism to answer the same two questions over and over again (and, so, to define itself in relation to psychoanalysis in a way that is predetermined by the profession) there is no way 60 for literary studies to explore how psychoanalysis bears upon literature in a way that respects, and preserves, the forms of uncertainty it most needs to retain. Developing a space in which this latter form of critical exploration can occur will require a branch of psychoanalytic literary studies devoted to a more flexible relationship between these disciplines, one founded on the critical freedom to have the psychoanalytic aspect of “psychoanalytic literary criticism” be expressed in ways that speak to the psychoanalytic dimension of literature, not to the psychoanalytic dimension of psychoanalysis.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, B. H. (2022) A Psychoanalytic Perspective On Reading Literature: Reading The Reader by Merav Roth, New York, Routledge, 2020, 336 pp., $46.95, ISBN 978-1-138-39131-4. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 103:236-240
- Roth believes that, in moments of acute psychological distress, a person may experience an overwhelming fear of disintegration, characterized by the collapse of the “transitional phenomena” or “potential space” in which objects are neither internal nor external, and therefore are objects that are both created in the mind of the subject and discovered among all the objects of life.
- Malraux the narrator is a more remote witness who enables the reader to cope with the immediate threat to his psychic integration and to create a space in which he can reflect upon the situation in which he finds himself. (36) It is due to this space that reading is capable of inducing transformative experiences, of helping us to mourn through fiction what we struggle to mourn in life, of retroactively becoming present for experiences that we were not present for when they first occurred.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, B. H. & Ogden, T. H. (2012) How the Analyst Thinks as Clinician and as Literary Reader *. Psychoanalytic Perspectives 9:243-273
- We live in a different world now. (1924, p. 268) In this opening sentence, a note is sounded that echoes through much of the remainder of the story: Psychic time and space are contracting, time is running out, and vitality is in a state of severe decline.
- Presumably, the Psychoanalytic Literary Reader hears a note sounded (something going on in the language) and identifies it as the psychological contraction of space and time, and the diminishing of aliveness.
- A stronger reading might have given some clues as to what it is about Kafka's opening sentences that sound the note of the diminution of psychic time and space and vitality; the reader wants to know more about what in Kafka's language expresses what the PLR hears.
- The image is that of someone entering into a different world—a world characterized by a unique form of psychic space and time, and by a sense that this “different world” is sealed off from other forms of reality that preside over the outside world.
- If before, the equation was “a note is sounded”: “psychic time and 262space are contracting,” now the equation is “Kafka's description of physical reality: “the entirety of an internal world.”
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. (1997) Reverie And Metaphor: Some Thoughts On How I Work As A Psychoanalyst. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 78:719-732
- I added that it seemed that he had gone on to suggest indirectly that the reason he didn't know was that he anxiously turned to activities like Christmas shopping to occupy the space in which he might have felt what it is like to spend some time with himself.
- I said to Mr H that I thought that he tries to keep the unwelcome guest (his own sense of deadness) at bay (distracted) by using feverish activity to fill the (metaphorical) space in which the deadness and loneliness might be experienced.
- Balint, Bion, and Winnicott have all stressed the central importance to analytic technique of the analyst's not stealing ‘the patient's creativity … by … know[ing] too much’ (Winnicott, 1971c, p. 57); of his being evercognisant that ‘“the answer is the misfortune or disease of curiosity”—it kills it … ‘answers’ [interpretations that pretend to be answers] are really space stoppers … putting an end to curiosity’ (Bion, 1976, p. 22); of providing room for the patient ‘to discover his way to the world of objects—and not be shown the “right” way through some profound or correct interpretation’ (Balint, 1986, p. 180).
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. (2005) Letters to the Editors. Psychoanalytic Perspectives 3:3-3
- 2005 3 1 3-3 A Letters to the Editors Thomas Ogden San Francisco Dear Editors, I want to congratulate Psychoanalytic Perspectives for offering a space for creative expression. I think that Bonnie Zindel's story “The Day of Michelangelo,” which appeared in your last issue [Vol. 2, No. 2], is a remarkable piece of writing.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. (2013) Chapter 9 Reading Winnicott. Donald Winnicott Today 78:213-234
- In the space of a single sentence, Winnicott suggests (by means of his use of the idea, rather than through his explication of it) that 216depression is a manifestation of the patient’s taking on as his own (in fantasy, taking into himself) the mother’s depression (or that of other loved objects), with the unconscious aim of relieving her of her depression.
- His indefinite, enigmatic language does not fill a space with knowledge; it opens up a space for thinking, imagining, and freshly experiencing.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. & Kurpinsky, M. (2014) Conversations with Clinicians: On The Parts Left Out: A Novel. Fort Da 20:81-95
- I was able to write a short story in the space of a few weeks. But the short story seemed incomplete; it had too many “parts left out,” which is one of the many places from which the idea for the title of the novel came.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. & Lombardi, R. (2018) Infinity, The Conscious And Unconscious Mind: A Conversation Between Thomas Ogden and Riccardo Lombardi. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 87:757-766
- “Perceiving the boundaries of a space, such as those of our analytic office, make you feel hate: thanks to your recognition of hatred, you need no longer grow confused about the sky, as used to happen when you dilated about space and got into a muddle.
- When I awoke I noted the anxiety inherent in the dream, and connected it to Gianni's return, which was like a difficult return to earth of his “space shuttle.” When Gianni finally came for his session he looked pale and wan.
- Lombardi: “The half-line includes the point where the straight line begins, a point where you can be and accept yourself, where you can have a space for yourself, instead of being everywhere and nowhere.
- ” With some effort he added the names of the streets, which I happened to know were correct, so I told him he was right, and that he was getting himself oriented in space and time after the summer's interruption of analysis. Meanwhile, I thought of the patient's commitment to reach actual space-time that would allowed him to be oriented and to find himself within himself, and in his actual analysis.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1979) On Projective Identification. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 60:357-373
- In the therapy hours (often a play therapy), her therapist said that he felt as if there were no space in the room for him. Everywhere he stood seemed to be her spot.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1980) On the Nature of Schizophrenic Conflict. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 61:513-533
- For instance, in one session, he said that he spent a great deal of time imagining himself as a tyrannical director of the Kennedy Space Center. He then repeated the idea over and over in a sing-song fashion.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1984) Instinct, Phantasy, and Psychological Deep Structure—A Reinterpretation of Aspects of the Work of Melanie Klein. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 20:500-525
- For example, Bower (1971) has demonstrated that in the first weeks of life, infants have a sense of the continuity of the existence of the object over time and space. In one set of experiments, twenty-day-old infants evidenced surprise when an object failed to reappear after a screen was removed that had been placed between the infant and the object.
- This early sense of continuity of matter over time and space could be thought of as an important part of the infant's "intuitive" sense of objects from birth.
- (For a discussion of the concept of potential space in the early mother-infant relationship, see Ogden, 1984b), (1984c).
- Ogden, T. 1984b On potential space Int. J. Psychoanal. in press. Ogden, T. 1984c Comments on potential space: A theory of being and symbolizing.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1985) On Potential Space. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 66:129-141
- Specific forms of potential space include the play space, the area of the transitional object and phenomena, the analytic space, the area of cultural experience, and the area of creativity.
- Although potential space originates in a (potential) physical and mental space between mother and infant, it later becomes possible, in the course of normal development for the individual infant, child or adult to develop his own capacity to generate potential space.
- The differentiation of symbol, symbolized, and interpreting subject creates the possibility of triangularity within which space is created. That space between symbol and symbolized, mediated by an interpreting self, is the space in which creativity becomes possible and is the space in which we are alive as human beings, as opposed to being simply reflexively reactive beings.
- PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF POTENTIAL SPACE Winnicott states that it is within potential space that symbols originate. In the absence of potential space, there is only fantasy; within potential space imagination can develop.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1985) The Mother, the Infant and the Matrix: Interpretations of Aspects of the Work of Donald Winnicott. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 21:346-371
- In other words, in the beginning, the environmental mother provides the mental space in which the infant begins to generate experience.
- In the development of the capacity to be alone, the infant develops the ability to generate the "space" (state of being) in which he lives, a state referred to by Winnicott (1971a) as "potential space." (For a discussion of the concept of potential space, see Ogden 1985.) Until the point in development being focused upon, the mother and infant together have created this space intersubjectively. This space is not coextensive with the universe; rather, it is a personal space.
- In addition to these (inexact) dimensions of body and mind, this experience of a containing space includes the experience of the space in which we work creatively, the space in which we relax "formlessly, " the space in which we dream, 8 the space in which we play, and so on.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1987) The Transitional Oedipal Relationship in Female Development. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 68:485-498
- It is only in the space between reality and fantasy created in this way that subjectivity, personal meaning, symbol formation and imagination become possible.
- In order for this experience to be generated, mother and daughter must be able to create and make use of a 'play space' (Winnicott, 1971b), (1971c) that both connects and separates them. The Oedipus complex is a drama to be played with in this space that is first created by mother and daughter and later entered into by the father. If in the very beginning of the oedipal phase, the question of who it is that the child is in love with (mother or father) must be answered, the play space 'collapses' (Ogden, 1985b), (1986) and the oedipal drama becomes all too real.
- 21:346-371 OGDEN, T. 1985b On potential space Int. J. Psychoanal. 66:129-141 OGDEN, T.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1988) On the Dialectical Structure of Experience—Some Clinical and Theoretical Implications. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 24:17-45
- It could be said that it is in the space between the symbol and the symbolized that an interpreting subject comes into being.
- In a paranoid-schizoid mode, there is virtually no space between symbol and symbolized; the two are emotionally equivalent.
- In this paper, space allows for only a brief introduction to a discussion of this mode of experience.
- The continual scratching (often leading to the necessity of wrapping the infant's hands in gauze to prevent severe skin damage and infection) is understood from this perspective as the infant's desperate attempt to restore (through heightened skin sensation) a surface by means of which the terror of leakage and falling into shapeless space is allayed.Wrapping a hospitalized patient snugly in sheets (while he is continually accompanied and related to by an empathic staff member) is an effective and humane way of treating a patient experiencing the terror of impending annihilation in the form of the dispersal of the self into unbounded space.
- L.) as well as tingling, numbness, and an exaggerated sensitivity to skin impressions like the tightness of one's tie or of one's shoes. At times, the space between the patient and myself has felt as if it were filled with a warm soothing substance.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1988) Misrecognitions and the Fear of not Knowing. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 57:643-666
- In this realm, there is no space between oneself and one's experience.
- Potential space is the space in which the object is simultaneously created and discovered.
- It is not a developmental phase; rather, it is a psychological space between reality and fantasy that is maintained throughout one's life. It is the space in which playing occurs; it is the space in which we are creative in the most ordinary sense of the word; it is the space in which we experience ourselves as alive and as the authors of our bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
- The beginnings of meaning, generated in an internal psychological space, were transformed into a universal and therefore impersonal truth.
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1989) On the Concept of an Autistic-Contiguous Position. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 70:127-140
- To the extent that the bodily system is closed off from mutually transforming experiences with human beings, there is an absence of 'potential space' (Winnicott, 1971); (see also Odgen, 1985), (1987) between oneself and the other (a potential psychological space between self-experience and sensory perception).
- Instead of internalizing 131 an analytic space in which one thinks and feels one's thoughts, feelings and sensations, such patients present a caricature of analysis in which rumination and imitation substitute for an analytic process.
- Mrs M often had practically no sense of having an internal space within which to keep anything.
- At times, imitation is one of the few ways the individual has of holding on to attributes of the object in the absence of the experience of having an inner space in which the other person's qualities or parts can in phantasy be stored.
- Collapse in the direction of an autistic-contiguous mode results in a tyrannizing imprisonment in a closed system of bodily sensations that precludes the development of 'potential space' (Winnicott, 1971).
Add to favoritesAdd to read later -
Ogden, T. H. (1991) Analysing the Matrix of Transference. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 72:593-605
- This loss of boundedness is experienced as the terror of falling or leaking into endless, shapeless space (Rosenfeld, 1984).
- In the autistic-contiguous position, psychological change is mediated in large part by the process of imitation (as opposed to incorporation, introjection and identification which all require a more fully developed sense of an inner space into which qualities of the other can, in phantasy, be taken [cf.
- CONCLUDING COMMENTS The matrix of transference can be thought of as the intersubjective correlate (created in the analytic setting) of the psychic space within which the patient lives.
- OGDEN, T. 1985 On potential space Int. J. Psychoanal. 66:129-141 OGDEN, T.
- Press, 1987VIDERMAN, S. 1974 Interpretation in the analytic space Int. J. Psychoanal..
Add to favoritesAdd to read later
Disable resize to fit
Minimize
Close