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The author discusses Ferenczi's theory of femininity in terms both of its orientation to Freud's constructivist view on the same subject and its intimate connections with his own phylogenetic speculations. She underlines the significance of Ferenczi's assumptions about the universality of the ?trend of maternal regression? and its determining role in genital sexual union. Due to the absence of a ?real? penis in women, Ferenczi postulates that female development is marked by a whole series of regressive moves and renunciations, from urethrality to anality (i.e. from activity to passivity), the ?abandonmentγ of the clitoris in favour of the vagina, and a regressive secondarynarcisstic cathexis of the entire body. The author criticizes Ferenczi's reduction of woman to the ?mother? function and relates this view to recent femininity theories emanating from the French school of psychoanalysis, which follow him in this respect. There is a brief discussion of the author's own approach to establishing a theory of femininity. She situates her theses in the framework of the tensions obtaining between Ferenczi's unsatisfactory theory of femininity as a ?defective? condition and his bold and laudable attempt to provide Freudian metapsychology with a biological foundation.
Cites cases of children believing in male maternity, and describes myths and legends, classical and modern, involving the same type of event. These beliefs are discussed in terms of the concepts of Freud and E. FROMM. It is concluded that the fantasy of male maternity is linked with frustrated creative aspirations.
This paper considers the fundamental change introduced by Ferenczi in 1919 by proposing the use of countertransference as an instrument. Basically it reconsiders the concept of analytic neutrality; mastery of countertransference is reached through tolerating it, overcoming resistances against it, demanding a very intense involvement of the analyst, as opposed to the image of the surgeon or the mirror. The paper analyzes the implications of this position for psychoanalysis. It places these concepts in the scientific and personal context in which it was written, then follows the later developments of these ideas in Ferenczi's own work, as well as in that of some other authors, and comments on the effects of these ideas on the psychoanalytic movement. Finally it poses some questions regarding our present use of countertransference in clinical work, with two brief vignettes highlighting these points.
The author discusses the system of affects and terminology in connection to theories of affective monitoring, especially Krause's description of the relationship between discrete affects and actions and Tomkins classification of positive, neutral and negative affects. The relationship between the affective system, the intensity of affects and the experience of mental pain, including different qualities of anxiety is explored as well as the ways in which mental pain can be modulated and transformed to symbols, depending on the empathic capacity of the object. A process which in its turn contributes to the forming of internal objects and the integration of the specular object and the emotional object as it is described by Bollas.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist (1907-1954). Altogether she painted almost 200 pictures, among them 55 self-portraits. Frida contracted polio at the age of six and her right leg was shrivelled. She began to paint at the age of 18 while recovering from a serious traffic accident, as a result of which she could never give birth to a living child. This was a painful and wounding experience for her. But Frida psychologically created an inner space, enlivening her womanhood, and remained artistically creative. She underwent over 30 operations and was bed-ridden for long periods of her life. Frida's pictures derive from her life as a woman. She created something new out of her archaic Mexican heritage. Space, time, the body, are entwined in many ways in Frida's life and art. It is in space and time that her life of the body expands its significance. The body imprisoned Frida in the imaginary, where there are no bonds and limits. The object of Frida's intense study was her own self. She painted self-portraits to be able to feel she existed. She built and created herself in painting. The bed-ridden Frida studied herself in mirrors like Narcissus in the water's surface and became merged and separated. She lived literally in the tensions of life and death. Frida Kahlo's pictures are incarnated from life to life and become protective and supportive icons.