Serge Lebovici

Fantasmatic interaction and intergenerational transmission

Direct observations and video recordings of mother-infant dyads are used to study the organization of fantasmatic interactions. The infant is represented in the mothers fantasmatic life as the child of the desire for maternity and is represented in her imaginary life as the child of the desire for pregnancy. During pregnancy, therefore, the fetus serves a dual function for the mother: One function is fantasmatic, marked by its mothers intrapsychic conflict; the other function is imaginary, as constructed from the mothers latent thoughts. Evidence from clinical studies illustrates the role of life events in structuring both the fantasmatic and the imaginative infant. Therapeutic interventions can be facilitated by having parents view videotapes of their interactions with their infants. Other implications for therapeutic interventions are suggested.

The way to subjectification

I will start with a personal recollection. Rene Spitz, who became a friend during his stay at the University of Geneva, continued a steady correspondence with me from the time he returned to Denver. Unfortunately, I did not keep this correspondence. Spitz devoted much energy to defending the Freudian paradigm which, according to him, was simple. What differentiates the baby from the animal is that the former does not react to aggression with reflex withdrawal, but with thought, even before it perceives the origin of excitation. From this response is inferred the main postulate of psychoanalytic theory: that «the breast arises from the absence of the breast» (Freud, 1925). This meant that the newborn is able to hallucinate the object that is suddenly missing and would be able to reactivate the mnemic traces of the object through auto-erotic activity

The Needs of the Child and His Development

When we examine the development of the child, we generally assume that it depends on biological, social and psychological factors which we readily represent in the form of a pyramid with the psychological factors occurring at the top. It seems to me that this metaphor does not reflect reality, which is infinitely more complex, and that the interweaving of biological, social and psychological factors must be emphasized at the outset. To demonstrate this, I will mention just one example: it has to do with the birth of a smile.