Triangularity in separation
(2019)
Traditional psychoanalytic literature tends to present issues of separation as a two-person dilemma. Current understanding, however, seems to challenge that view. The recent realization that there is no such thing as a baby, but only a mother-and-baby unit, has opened the way to the further understanding that there is no such thing as a mother-and-baby unit >extra-context<. In other words, there is always a father in the background – be he real or phantasized. Separation, therefore, cannot but be conceptualized as involving a triangle. It should never be forgotten that Oedipus’s own life history starts with a separation initiated by a father and acquiesced with by a mother. The aim of this paper is to present some thoughts on the Oedipal (i.e., triangular) dimension of separation.
On the need to be beguiled
(2017)
This paper presents the view that the >need to be beguiled< is a fundamental experiential dimension immanent within the drive organization of the human psyche. It is argued that, as an expression of the >feminine,< inherent in the constitutional bisexuality of the psyche, this need makes itself felt from the very beginning of any mother–infant interaction. It seems to function as a sine qua non element for the establishment of early object relationships and for the reception and incorporation of perceptual and psychic stimuli arriving from without. Developmentally, this need finds expression in a variety of relational manifestations, that is, creative acceptance, receptivity, and surrender at one end of the spectrum, all the way to abusive masochism at the other. The position and vicissitudes of this dynamic within the psychoanalytic condition are examined with some thoroughness.
This paper addresses the notion of irrationality and madness, as they are understood within the psychoanalytic framework. By highlighting their similarities and differences, as well as by emphasizing the crucial defensive position that manifest psychosis holds in the midst of all this, an attempt is being made to delineate the links between the conjectured earliest interaction that the infant has with its environment and the burgeoning conscious rational mind. Winnicott's conceptualizations around fear of breakdown, disintegration, the environment-mother, and therapeutic regression are utilized to form a bridge between the theoretical understanding of madness and the clinical applications of this understanding, as illustrated by a clinical vignette.
Homecoming
(2013)
Philosophical and literary perspectives are combined with psychoanalytic ones in an attempt to provide a comprehensive conceptualization of the theme of homecoming. The concepts of home and homecoming are presented as symbolic representations of fundamental psychical functions, and their vicissitudes as subjective manifestations of basic psychic organizations. The hypothesis is put forward that the ability, or lack thereof, to work through the process of mourning of a lost object colors the evolution and outcome of any reckoning with such a notion and what it stands for. Literary sources are used to supplement and explicate psychoanalytic understandings regarding how the concept of homecoming is being made use of, within unconscious dynamics observed in a number of analytic cases.