Angela Connolly

Healing the wounds of our fathers: intergenerational trauma, memory, symbolization and narrative

This paper explores the history of psychoanalytical approaches to intergenerational trauma, both from the Freudian and from the Jungian schools, and addresses the need when we speak of intergenerational or transmitted trauma to better define the nature and the different categories of trauma with particular reference to extreme and cumulative traumas such as those experienced by the survivors of the Nazi death camps and the Russian gulags. Therapy with survivors and with their children requires a particular adaptation of analytical technique as what is at stake is not so much the analysis of the here and now of the transference and countertransference dynamics which indeed can in the early stages be counterproductive, but the capacity of the analyst to accept the reality of the trauma with all its devastating and mind-shattering emotions without losing the capacity to imagine and to play metaphorically with images, essential if the patient is to be able to create a space for representation.

Out of the body: embodiment and its vicissitudes.

Body-mind dualism and the consequent neglect of the body of the analyst can have important negative effects on the analytical process leading all too often to misinterpretations of the analysands verbal and non-verbal communications and to disturbances of analytical temporality. This is intensified when we are dealing with individuals where disembodiment and states of psychic deadness are central features. The paper explores the philosophical roots of the idea of a disembodied mind and the way in which this impacts our relationship with the world. While André Greens concept of the dead mother and disturbances in the sense of self-agency have been held to play an important role in states of psychic deadness, I suggest that it is rather disturbances in the sense of body ownership and of the body image which are more central. The paper then discusses the particular kinds of countertransference that can be evoked in the analyst when we find ourselves dealing with this type of patient and suggests how we can use our embodied countertransference to become aware of and elaborate our own feelings of deadness in order to overcome the loss of temporality that is characteristic of such states. This is illustrated with reference to my work with a young man with a masochistic perversion and a severe disturbance of the body image with an accompanying profound sense of psychic deadness.

Cognitive aesthetics of alchemical imagery.

Jungs contribution to the understanding of the relevance of psychology to alchemy has become increasingly invalidated by the ahistorical nature of his approach, just as his tendency to ignore the importance of cognitive aesthetics for an improved comprehension of the functions of alchemical images has prevented Jungians from further extending Jungs insight of the importance of alchemy for psychology. This paper explores the history of the development of alchemical illustrations in Western Europe from the 14(th) to the 16(th) century, tracing the emergent processes over time. It is only when we take into consideration the historical dimension and the aesthetics of alchemical imagery that it becomes possible to demonstrate how the increasing use of certain aesthetic techniques such as the disjunction and recombination of separate metaphorical elements of previous illustrations, the use of compressive combinations and the use of framing devices worked to gradually increase the cognitive function and the symbolical power of the images. If alchemy is still relevant to psychotherapy it is exactly because it helps us to understand the importance of cognitive aesthetics in our approach to the images, metaphors and narratives of our patients.

Some brief considerations on the relationship between theory and practice

The present crisis in models of training and in psychoanalytical education in general can be linked to the gulf that has come to be created between analytical theory and clinical practice. The paper(1) examines the historical facts that have led to this split and suggests the need to return to the models of Freud and Jung. Both these fathers of depth psychology stressed the dangers inherent in the dogmatic use of theory and both insisted that theory must always spring from and be able to account for clinical practice rather than vice versa, as is so often the case today. The paper also looks at how theory should be taught in our analytical institutes in order to ensure that what we transmit to our candidates is not knowledge in the form of dogma but rather a way of proceeding that will enable them to think creatively about their clinical practice and thus produce new knowledge, essential if depth psychology is to remain relevant to our post-modern culture.

Bridging the reductive and the synthetic: some reflections on the clinical implications of synchronicity

When Jung introduced the concepts of synchronicity and the psychoid unconscious, he expanded analytical psychology into decidedly uncanny territory. Despite the early interest shown by Freud, anomalous phenomena such as telepathy have become a taboo subject in psychoanalysis. Today, however, there is an increasing interest in thought transference and synchronicity, thus opening the way for a fruitful exchange between different psychoanalytical schools on their clinical implications. I propose to examine some of the ambiguities of Jungs thinking, to clarify how we define synchronicity, the relationship between synchronicities and parapsychological events, and their clinical significance. At the present moment, we are still unsure if such events should be considered as normal and a way of facilitating individuation, or as an indication of psychopathology in the patient or in the analyst, just as we are uncertain about the particular characteristics of the intersubjective field that can lead to synchronicities. Making use of the typology of mind-matter correlations presented by Atmanspacher and Fach, and the distinction they draw between acategorial and non-categorial states of mind, I will use two clinical vignettes to illustrate the different states of mind in analyst and analysand that can lead to synchronicities. In particular I will focus on the relationship between analytical reverie and synchronicity.

On Murray Jackson's 1961 ‘Chair, couch and countertransference’

One of the problems facing psychoanalysts of all schools is that theory has evolved at a much faster pace than practice. Whereas there has been an explosion of theory, practice has remained, at least officially, static and unchanging. It is in this sense that Murray Jacksons 1961 paper is still relevant today. Despite the rise of the new relational and intersubjective paradigms, most psychoanalysts, and not a few Jungian analysts, still seem to feel that the couch is an essential component of the analytical setting and process. If the use of the couch is usually justified by the argument that it favours regression, facilitates analytical reverie and protects the patient from the influence of the analyst, over time many important psychoanalysts have come to challenge this position. Increasingly these analysts suggest that the use of the couch may actually be incompatible with the newer theoretical models. This contention is strengthened by some of the findings coming from the neurosciences and infant research. This underlines the necessity of empirical research to verify the clinical effectiveness of these different positions, couch or face-to-face, but it is exactly this type of research that is lacking.

‘Tradition and the analytical setting: is there any space for originality in our clinical practice?’

The following two papers by Stefano Carta and Massimo Giannoni were presented at the Journal’s conference in Lake Orta as part of a panel on the theme of tradition and the analytical setting. The question posed in the subtitle expresses the difficulties inherent in any attempt to achieve that delicate balance which good clinical practice requires, between the need to remain anchored within the traditional framework of the analytical setting and the capacity for original creative work necessary if we are to continue to develop as a discipline and to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. Not by chance all three of the presentations reflected the anxieties and doubts experienced by the analyst when the incapacity of the analysand for symbolization and for dreaming forces the analyst to step outside the safety of the setting in order to create the possibility for symbolic work. At the same time, however, these papers demonstrate very movingly how the creative capacity to make use of empathy and the symbolic function permits the analyst to overcome moments of analytical impasses. In ‘Music in dreams and the emergence of the self’, Stefano Carta reflects on the meaning of music and acoustic images in dreams and suggests that music can sometimes better express the affective core of complexes. He shows how the sharing of the experience of listening to music in the setting can permit the analytical couple to access and to symbolize very archaic psychic levels. In ‘The session of the two dreams’, Massimo Giannoni looks at how the interplay of the analyst’s and the analysand’s dreams and the sharing of the analyst’s dream was able to compensate for a relational malfunctioning of the analytical couple which had led to an analytical impasse.

‘Tradition and the analytical setting: is there any space for originality in our clinical practice?’: Introduction to Panel on ‘Tradition and the analytical setting’

The following two papers by Stefano Carta and Massimo Giannoni were presented at the Journal’s conference in Lake Orta as part of a panel on the theme of tradition and the analytical setting. The question posed in the subtitle expresses the difficulties inherent in any attempt to achieve that delicate balance which good clinical practice requires, between the need to remain anchored within the traditional framework of the analytical setting and the capacity for original creative work necessary if we are to continue to develop as a discipline and to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. Not by chance all three of the presentations reflected the anxieties and doubts experienced by the analyst when the incapacity of the analysand for symbolization and for dreaming forces the analyst to step outside the safety of the setting in order to create the possibility for symbolic work. At the same time, however, these papers demonstrate very movingly how the creative capacity to make use of empathy and the symbolic function permits the analyst to overcome moments of analytical impasses. In ‘Music in dreams and the emergence of the self’, Stefano Carta reflects on the meaning of music and acoustic images in dreams and suggests that music can sometimes better express the affective core of complexes. He shows how the sharing of the experience of listening to music in the setting can permit the analytical couple to access and to symbolize very archaic psychic levels. In ‘The session of the two dreams’, Massimo Giannoni looks at how the interplay of the analyst’s and the analysand’s dreams and the sharing of the analyst’s dream was able to compensate for a relational malfunctioning of the analytical couple which had led to an analytical impasse.