Reinterpreting Psychoanalysis: Historical Foundations and Modern Applications in Understanding the Psyche

Introduction

When we think and speak about contemporaneity or modernity in relation to something, we must be aware that our knowledge’s modernity or contemporaneity will most likely already be “history” by the time we write it down. The fact is that, in this globalized world of constant new discoveries, knowledge, and information, there is almost too much of everything new and contemporary.

When Freud, at the turn of the 19th century, first presented his ideas, which were “too” modern for the time—especially in relation to the science and society to which he belonged—the reaction of his environment was appropriate to this. Freud often emphasized that some of his ideas, insights, and reflections emerged from the exploration of the oldest recorded thoughts about humanity and society and that his desire and aim were to offer new ideas and concepts about the workings of human mental and social life through a new vision, reinterpretation of other people’s thoughts, as well as his own observations, reflections, knowledge, and understanding. His genius and the power of his ideas, which described processes within the human being, took on a new, transformed form—a new concept.

To speak today, over a century later, about the modernity and contemporaneity of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic concepts, it is reasonable to ask the following: what has retained its modernity over all this time, what has been reshaped, altered, supplemented, and has once again become contemporary? In this paper, I will try to follow this path, although I am not sure I will succeed.

For me, psychoanalysis is always contemporary and, at the same time, always tied to history—thus “old.” Something I would call modern psychoanalysis is something that, in reality, does not exist “out there” in practice, just as there is no modern mathematics or modern philosophy. It may be easier to speak of modern art in this context because it is tied to a historical period that limits it. In this sense, we are in the period of postmodernism, so we can speak of psychoanalysis in the postmodern period. The aim of this paper is merely to indicate the historical development of psychoanalytic thought and concepts.

The task outlined above would require at least a few books, so I will try to limit myself and include in this paper only some elements that, in my opinion, are important for the development and future of psychoanalytic thought.

In writing this piece, I could have chosen a different path, other concepts, and/or other authors. The presented concepts represent only one limited overview. Authors and concepts not mentioned here are also significant for reflecting on the contemporaneity of psychoanalysis. My writing is limited by my level of understanding and knowledge of psychoanalysis, the experiences I currently possess, and my conscious and unconscious. All of this guided me in the execution of this article. Even what will not be said is important.

Psychoanalytic Concepts

Sigmund Freud says: “Psychoanalysis is the name for 1) the process of investigating mental processes that are otherwise almost inaccessible, 2) a method of treating neurotic disorders based on this investigation, and 3) a collection of psychological insights obtained through this path, which gradually consolidate into a new scientific discipline.”¹

Throughout its development to the present day, psychoanalysis has provided various theoretical models of human mental functioning, such as:

1. The Affect-Trauma Model—This model was very early rejected, but it has been revived, and not only that, in modern times its significance has been reaffirmed. Much has been written on the topic of trauma, particularly regarding the broader social impact of world wars and other humanitarian catastrophes, as well as in the sense of experiencing personal traumas—abuse, violence, torture.

2. The Topographic Model of Mental Functioning—This will be my starting point in this paper. In contemporary times, psychoanalysis, through encounters with other philosophical and scientific disciplines such as postmodernism, complex systems theory, and neuroscience, increasingly returns to it and to the fundamental Freudian concepts established over 100 years ago.

3. The Structural Model of the Psyche —This model experienced the greatest expansion. One branch of psychoanalysis is named after one of the structures—ego psychology. The concepts of the structural model remain relevant and contemporary, but I will not focus on this model in this article; it will merely be mentioned in relation to some authors.²

I will begin with the topography of personality and, moving forward, try to present certain psychoanalytic concepts in the way they emerged and evolved to this day.

S. Freud and the Topographic Model of the Psyche

Sigmund Freud defined the topographic model of the psyche in The Interpretation of Dreams and more precisely elaborated its concepts in The Unconscious, dividing it into three levels—the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious.^3,4 Later, with the structural model, this idea is graphically represented with the image of a floating iceberg, where the part of the iceberg below the water represents the unconscious part of the psyche. Between the water’s surface and the visible iceberg above water lies the preconscious, and everything above the water represents the conscious part of our psyche. What the sea, in which the iceberg floats, and the sky above the surface represent was not explained by Freud.

In the structural model in The Ego and the Id, Freud defines the instances of the Id, Ego, and Superego, attributing each a “topographic” element: the Id exists entirely in the unconscious part, while parts of the Ego and Superego also exist there.¹ The Ego occupies part of the preconscious and conscious, while the Superego, in part unconscious, can transition through the preconscious into consciousness. Freud also developmentally defines the formation of these instances.

Returning to the topography—between the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche operates the mechanism of repression. The unconscious is the most significant part. It contains experiences, memories, drives, and thoughts so unacceptable to the conscious mind that they represent a threat, while simultaneously, through their energy—tension and potential (the economic potential of the unconscious)—they create pressure to enter the conscious part (the dynamic potential of the unconscious). Through repression, they are held in the unconscious. Freud states that the task of psychoanalysis is to enter the unconscious, determine and uncover what happens there, translate it into a form that becomes conscious, and represent it as acceptable.

This is achieved through methods and phenomena that reveal unconscious content—such as hypnosis, free association, dream interpretation, analysis of everyday errors (slips, omissions, and speech mistakes), and analysis of jokes. Additionally, we uncover resistances and defense mechanisms in a person’s thoughts, analyze data about relationships with close people, investigate biographical information, or explore the unconscious through artistic works, culture, and society. Symptoms, which Freud classified among neurotic symptoms or broader “neuroses” [1,3,5], also reveal the unconscious.

If we summarize how the unconscious expresses and reveals itself: through drives and their energy, through (symbolic) language, and in relationships with others. Unconscious processes can also manifest in another person (the mechanism of projective identification—to be addressed later) or through creative activity—art, science, culture, etc.

According to Freud, the drive (Trieb) acts as “a borderline concept between the mental and the somatic, as the psychic representative of stimuli originating from the body’s interior that transition into the psyche”.⁴

Freud initially spoke only of the sexual drive—libido (Gr. Eros), later adding in Beyond the Pleasure Principle the death drive (Thanatos), opposing it to Eros.² The theory of drives thus reveals the instinctive, primitive, and lower sources of human motivation. Loewald notes that Freud’s early perspective—focused on the drive’s aim for energetic discharge—later evolved into a more relational emphasis, particularly evident in Freud’s concept of Eros in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.⁵

In one of his essays Freud states "It is very important that the unconscious of one person can react to the unconscious of another in such a way that it bypasses the realm of the conscious. This fact deserves closer study, particularly in the direction of whether preconscious activity can be excluded; as a description, however, it is indisputable."4

In Recommendations to Physicians Practicing Psychoanalysis, Freud refers to the unconscious as having a receptive function—it operates as a receptive organ. For the receptive organ, he uses the metaphors of a telephone receiver and a mirror.⁶

“If we formulate it, the analyst must direct their unconscious as a receptive organ toward the transference unconscious of the patient.” Freud then continues that “the doctor’s unconscious is capable of reconstructing this unconscious, defined by the patient’s free associations, from the derivatives sent through communication by the patient.” The analyst “must go through the process of psychoanalytic purification” in order to act as a mirror for the patient and “not show him anything other than what the patient reveals to the analyst”.⁶ Bollas calls this the perceptive unconscious.⁷

How can we uncover the meaning of the unconscious? Freud states that it is through the technique of free association. The analyst’s silent waiting and freely hovering attention, combined with the patient’s reclining position on the couch, create the conditions for the patient to follow the classical rule or classical method —to say everything that comes to mind without censorship, without adhering to any order or logic of thoughts.⁸ Even if the ideas seem meaningless, illogical, or strongly resisted, precisely what appears least important or most banal can be of the utmost importance for analysis. The story told by the patient becomes material for the analyst.
“We can simply follow the chronological sequence of what is said, (…). This is what can be called the classical method in the narrowest sense”.^8–10

Freud literally describes the beginning of treatment and states:

“Treatment begins with asking the patient to assume the role of a self-observer, to observe everything occurring in his consciousness, to be completely honest on one hand, and, on the other, to withhold no idea—even if 1) he thinks he disagrees with it, 2) judges it to be utterly illogical, 3) considers it too insignificant, or 4) regards it as irrelevant to what is happening or being sought. Almost always, these very ideas are the most important for uncovering forgotten material.”

Through free associations, which Bollas calls free talking, unconscious ideas are revealed in the analytic process.⁹

Freud identifies several specific features of the unconscious: the core of the unconscious consists of drive representatives seeking to discharge their energy—desires. The intensity and dynamics within the unconscious are significant, involving displacements and condensations of investments, which Freud calls the primary psychic process. In the preconscious, the secondary process prevails, enabling awareness, transition to conscious mental activity, and communication between the conscious and the unconscious. Furthermore, processes in the unconscious are timeless—time is bound to the functioning of the conscious system. Unconscious processes disregard external reality and replace it with their own psychic reality, operating under the pleasure principle (from Freud’s later 1920 work, we know this principle is transcended). Unconscious processes become knowable only under the conditions of dreaming or neurosis—through a regression from the higher preconscious system to an earlier stage. In themselves or for themselves, unconscious processes are unknowable. Discharge from the unconscious system transitions into bodily innervation, leading to affect. Meanwhile, processes of the preconscious system demonstrate inhibition of invested representations. In certain places, drive energy is bound and restrained, while elsewhere, it flows freely, tending toward discharge. The communicative capabilities of the preconscious are limited by censorship (or multiple censorships), which test reality, temporally organize content, and present the content of these investments.⁴

Let us also mention repression. In the essay Repression, Freud states that the condition for repression is that the discomfort associated with satisfying the drive becomes stronger than the drive satisfaction itself.¹⁰ In The Unconscious from the same year, Freud adds: “Everything repressed must remain unconscious, yet what is repressed does not encompass the entirety of the unconscious.”⁴ He explains that the unconscious has a broader spectrum, and the repressed is only a part of it. Around the mechanism of repression and its censor, the topographic model of the personality is constructed.

The receptive and transmitting functions of the unconscious enable unconscious communication.¹⁰ The question that arises—and which many intersubjectivists later mentioned may overlook—is: how does the patient’s unconscious message reach the analyst’s unconscious, and how does the analyst unconsciously receive and decode it? The answer appears in the mechanism of projective identification, which will be described later (for M. Klein, it concerns expelled bad internal objects; for Bion, projective identification becomes a tool for communication). The process of encoding the patient’s message and decoding it within the analyst’s unconscious introduces Bion’s concept of the alpha function (explored later).

The child projects unacceptable thoughts and feelings—most often, feelings of terror about death—onto the mother (“beta elements”). The mother’s mental capacity—through the process of reverie and her alpha function—enables her to process, decode, and transform these beta elements into alpha elements, soothing the child and thereby allowing the child to think, feel, and learn from (emotional) experience. This helps the child survive the experience of mortal terror. According to L. Brown, Bion developed his discovery of the alpha function through the analysis of his experiences during World War I.

In the language of intersubjectivity (to be discussed later), the maternal transference constantly occurs at a deeper unconscious level between the patient and therapist, reflecting the patient’s desire or need for the transformation of beta elements into alpha elements.⁹

Returning to the drives of the unconscious: libido, or sexual drive, is perpetually subjected to repression because, at its core, it is linked to impulses described by the myths of Oedipus (and Electra). In our unconscious, the drive forces include the taboos of parricide, incest, suicide, and infanticide—all encompassed by the myth of Oedipus. Freud initially emphasized the sexual aspect, but later introduced the death drive, which is also embedded in the Oedipus myth.

What is the meaning or essence of the individual? Is it the relational context of existence with others, or the personal, internal resolution of taboos? Reinterpretations of the Oedipus myth are among the many explored paths in psychoanalysis—perhaps Loewald’s interpretation, and later Ogden’s reflections on Loewald, are particularly compelling.^5,11

Finally, the phenomenon of death and human mortality emerges—a central question in philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas and beyond. Human finitude, and the awareness of it, reveals the fundamental fact that humans are not gods. Herein arise religious questions about eternal life. Death, as a taboo, and the inability to truly think one’s own death—it can only be thought symbolically—underpins the existential meaning of life. Human mortality gives life its purpose and significance.

If we speak from a phenomenological perspective, human life is limited by its duration. The temporality of life is the essence of human existence. To use Heidegger’s expression “Dasein” being is duration, a dynamic experience of the meaning of life, as Jevremović says.^11,12 Fear is something we can contemplate as individuals, whereas the pressure of dread does not allow for thinking. That nameless, empty, unnameable dread—“nameless dread”, as Bion calls it — is paralyzing. Human beings are defined, in every way, by their thinking.¹³ Thinking is the foundation of rationality. Yet humans are also defined by their non-thinking, by things or ideas they are incapable of contemplating. This refers to the unconscious, to everything that is inaccessible to consciousness—repressed, split-off, and so on. Death is something impossible to think of directly. We can do so on the symbolic level (secondary process). The subject experiences death through representations and fantasies, always symbolically. However, symbolism represents the state of the unreal, the “as-if”, the as if of something, or the state after something. This amounts to a kind of denial of death. In life itself, the work of death is evident.¹² Here Freud’s dualism of the life and death drives becomes apparent, a dualism emerging from the same essence. Later, this idea is present in the works of M. Klein, Winnicott, Lacan, and others. The path to the other, the relationship with the other, is also imbued with the dialectic of life and the work of death. The same is true of the path to oneself. The tragic subject not only experiences but also contemplates their finitude, their death.¹⁴

Thus, life, libido, creativity, and thinking, as well as the threat of death, destruction, and death itself, are all elements that psychoanalysis considers as foundational to its theoretical concepts and clinical practice. Therefore, the development and trajectory of psychoanalysis is something that will never be concluded.

Sándor Ferenczi and the Confusion of Tongues

In his article Sándor Ferenczi presents two cases of patients who were both unwanted and rejected children by their families, in whom he discovered deeply rooted self-destructive tendencies.¹⁵ The personality traits of these patients included moral and philosophical pessimism, skepticism, and distrust of the world. Simultaneously, there was a morbid clinging to objects and attention, rejection of work, emotional infantilism, and dependency. Ferenczi accepted the theory of drives and sexuality, providing his own drive theory. One of the concepts he introduced is “amphimixis” of eroticism, claiming that what we call genitality is an aggregate of so-called partial drives and the stimulation of erogenous zones. In children, every organ and every function serves the satisfaction of libido. The mouth, excretory openings, skin, eyes, muscles, etc., are all used for gratification. However, these functions lack organization. Autoeroticism is fragmented, anarchic, and unorganized. It is only later that libido begins to group around specific centers. Development from the initial anarchy leads to unity—genitality. Initially, the free libido is dispersed and strives toward unification—fusion (amphimixis).¹⁶ Ferenczi does not reject the trauma-affect theory and goes further in thinking about drives, this time introducing the element of the relationship with the other, the closest one.

In one of his most influential articles Ferenczi discusses the traumatic experiences of patients and the hallucinatory repetition of such experiences observed in his practice.¹⁷ Importantly, he connects the drive, (symbolic) language, and the relationship with and in the other. Ferenczi demonstrates the distinction between tenderness and passion, thereby differentiating infantile eroticism from adult sexuality. Passion and adult sexuality include an element of suffering—a sadomasochistic component. Ferenczi argues that the sense of guilt turns the object of adult love into one that is both loved and hated—an ambivalence absent in the child’s love or tenderness. The latter is a “sincere” emotion, free of suffering. Hatred is what traumatically shocks and frightens the child when loved by an adult, gradually transforming the child from a tender, playful being into one burdened by guilt, imitating adult anxiety and self-punishment. It is worth noting the similarity of this understanding of hatred with Winnicott’s.¹⁸ In the abuse of a child’s tenderness by an adult—through adult sexuality—the languages of adult sexuality and childlike tenderness become confused. In fantasy, Ferenczi says, the child plays with the idea or desire to take the place of the parent of the same sex, but in reality, the child cannot or does not want this without the feelings of tenderness received from the mother. If the child receives too much love or a different kind of love (adult sexuality), and it is imposed upon the child during their tender phase, it leads to pathological consequences similar to those arising from rejection or neglect. Ferenczi’s work with patients—where he discovered himself and allowed patients to analyze him—unfortunately led to chaos (perhaps to the very confusion of the patient’s and therapist’s language) and showed that this form of symmetrical work with patients was unacceptable.

M. Klein, Positions, and Projective Identification

One of Ferenczi’s analysands was Melanie Klein, whose second analyst was Karl Abraham. Perhaps Klein’s work was influenced by the fact that her first analysis was interrupted by Ferenczi’s illness and her second analyst, Abraham, passed away during her treatment. In her clinical work with children, Klein discovered and theoretically developed certain concepts foundational to a new developmental theory—the theory of object relations. At the core of this theory lies the development of the ego through the relationship with the object, via two main developmental positions: the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position. Her theory introduced new concepts and hypotheses into psychoanalysis, which her followers and the Kleinian school as a whole used to explain a broad spectrum of psychological phenomena and pathologies.

The paranoid-schizoid position and the detailed description of processes occurring in the first three months of a child’s life are outlined by.¹⁹ In this work, she also defines the concept of “projective identification,” which becomes one of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalytic thought. Klein examines the significance of early paranoid and schizoid anxieties and mechanisms, which she also discussed with Paula Heimann prior to the work’s publication. Klein states that anxieties arise in early childhood and drive the individual, or their Ego, to develop specific defense mechanisms. For Klein, object relations exist from the beginning of human life, with the first object being the mother’s breast, which the child splits into the good-gratifying and bad-frustrating parts. This splitting mechanism results in the separation of love and hate. Simultaneously, she asserts that object relations are shaped from the outset of life by the relationship between introjection and projection, between internal and external objects and situations. Klein describes how the child directs destructive impulses toward the object, expressed through fantasized oral-sadistic attacks on the mother’s breast. According to her, persecutory anxieties, aroused by the child’s oral-sadistic impulses aimed at plundering the breast’s contents, are crucial for the development of schizophrenia and paranoia. Anal-sadistic impulses, on the other hand, trigger fantasies of entering the mother’s body (including with feces) and controlling it from within.

The various defenses that emerge in the child include splitting of objects and impulses, idealization, denial of inner and outer reality, and repression. Initially, Klein called this developmental stage the paranoid position (coined alongside the schizoid position term later used by W.R.D. Fairbairn). Klein explains the differences between her and Fairbairn’s views (for details, see Klein¹⁹) and highlights the usefulness of Winnicott’s ideas about the unintegrated early ego from his work.²⁰

Klein argues that the child’s anxiety stems from the operation of the death instinct, which the Ego experiences as terror or fear of annihilation, manifesting as persecutory fears. She identifies two additional significant sources of anxiety: birth trauma (separation) and frustration linked to the satisfaction of bodily needs. Klein explains that while the child perceives these objects as external, through the mechanism of introjection, they become internal persecutors, intensifying the fear of internal destructive forces. The child projects part of the destructive impulses outward—onto the mother’s breast. Another part of the destructive instinct becomes bound to the libido, yet the child’s anxiety remains active. Under the pressure of this threat, the early Ego risks disintegration due to its incohesiveness. The early Ego splits the object and its relationship with it, reflecting its own splitting. Thus, in fear of annihilation, the Ego splits or fragments into parts—a mechanism Klein attributes as the cause of schizophrenia and disintegration. Klein emphasizes that the Ego cannot split the object without splitting itself. The mechanism of splitting functions differently in the depressive position. In her paper Klein describes the defense against depressive anxiety as the splitting of the intact, living object from the dead or dying one.²¹

Later, Klein identifies a deeper structural split in the unconscious, tied to the earliest and most terrifying figures. To the mechanism of splitting, she adds the two earliest mechanisms for overcoming anxiety: projection and introjection. Klein connects these to the mechanisms of idealization and denial. The previously mentioned dual fantasy attacks on the mother—the oral-cannibalistic impulse to suck, bite, and tear out her contents and the anal-sadistic impulse to expel dangerous parts and feces—are projected into the mother. At the same time, these attacks are split-off parts of the child’s Ego. The child does not perceive the mother as bad but rather bad parts of the self.

“Now (the child’s) hatred of parts of itself is mostly directed toward the mother. This leads to a certain form of identification that establishes the prototype of an aggressive object relation. I propose the term ‘projective identification’ for this process”.¹⁹

She adds:

“When projection stems mainly from the child’s impulse to damage or control the mother, the child experiences the mother as a persecutor. In psychotic disturbance, such identification of the object with hated parts of the self contributes to the child’s intense hatred of other people”.¹⁹

This process involves not only the projection of bad parts of the self but also good parts. Gifts, in the form of excreta given to the other, represent the child’s good, loving parts. Klein states:

“The projection of good feelings and parts of the self into the mother is essential for the child’s ability to develop good object relations and integrate its Ego. (…) These processes, whereby the child splits parts of itself and projects them into objects, are thus crucial for normal development and also for abnormal object relations”.¹⁹

Klein thus links the operation of projection, introjection, splitting, and projective identification in relation to other objects to the subject’s normality and pathology. She also highlights the process of idealization and the child’s reliance on the idealized internal object, which severely disrupts Ego development, contributing to narcissistic pathologies. Klein references Paula Heimann’s essay where Heimann describes how internal objects can function as foreign bodies embedded in the self.²² This applies to both good and bad objects. The former compel the Ego to cling to them at all costs, while the latter push the Ego to expel them. In both cases, however, these internal objects prevent the Ego’s integration and may further split it. According to Klein, achieving an optimal balance between introjection and projection during the development of the Ego and object relations is crucial for a normal personality.

Regarding Klein’s work, it is necessary to mention an addition in which Klein comments on Freud’s analysis of the Schreber case. She emphasizes how Schreber vividly described the splitting of his doctor Flechsig’s soul into persecutory and loved figures. The soul split into 40 or 60 subdivisions until they became a nuisance, after which God carried out a purge, and Flechsig’s soul survived in the form of one or two parts.¹⁹ Klein states that it is not just a process of splitting Flechsig’s soul but also Schreber’s experience of the fragmentation of his Ego. Furthermore, both God and Flechsig are representatives of Schreber’s Ego.¹⁹ The conflict between Schreber and Flechsig leads to an internal catastrophe, which is then projected onto the external world as feelings of disappointment and paranoid fantasies about a global catastrophe. Klein argues that the attack on the internal souls, of which only one or two remain, is part of an attempt at healing—an attack meant to eliminate or cure the split in the Ego by annihilating its dissociated parts. The result would be that only one or two souls remain, strong enough to endure. However, she also states that this is a highly destructive attempt at healing, in which the Ego acts against itself and its internalized objects.¹⁹

The foundation of the Kleinian school is rooted in clinical work. Their theoretical concepts are always tied to and consider clinical practice. The main theoretical ideas are based on psychoanalytic work with psychotic patients, with key contributors including H. Rosenfeld, H. Segal, and W. Bion. The development of the concept of projective identification is attributed to W. Bion, H. Rosenfeld, and D. Meltzer. Donald Meltzer is also one of the most productive authors in exploring the entire development of the so-called Kleinian school.^23,24 At the same time, the Kleinian school engages with the development of the theory of thinking pathological personality organizations—borderline and narcissistic pathological organizations—and clinical techniques for working with children and adults.²⁵ Key authors in this area include J.H. Rey,²⁶ Meltzer, Rosenfeld, E. Brenman, L. Sohn, E. O’Shaughnessy, Betty Joseph, John Steiner, and many others. Some of W. Bion’s concepts will be defined later.

Klein’s work with children allowed her exceptional talent to encompass and define the concept of unconscious fantasy.²⁷ Her views on internal objects and the child’s internal world are significant, as is her orientation and connection between drive theory and object relations, and her understanding of the death drive in relation to envy. As mentioned earlier, the concept of unconscious fantasy is based on recognizing children’s highly aggressive, violent, and loving fantasies toward the mother, which create a significant level of anxiety. For Klein, psychic reality is the reality of the unconscious, the reality of the conflict between love and hatred occurring in the unconscious and connected to defense mechanisms expressed through specific unconscious fantasies. This idea of unconscious fantasies and defense mechanisms was fully accepted and further developed by her successors (e.g., Segal, Joseph). Kleinian theory is an interweaving of drive theory and object-relations theory. Interestingly, for some, Klein’s theory seems less connected to object-relations theory due to her continual return to the importance of drives and their expression in unconscious fantasies [28]. Taking unconscious fantasy into account, H. Segal developed the concept of symbol formation and symbolic equation (for more, see Segal²⁵).

Klein believes that humans are born with a basic, rudimentary Ego capable of experiencing anxiety and defending against it. Through mechanisms of projection, introjection, and identification, the internal world of objects and the Self is built, providing meaning and understanding of the external world through relationships with it. Regarding the death drive, Klein states that its most destructive component is envy.²¹

Klein’s greatest contribution to psychoanalytic theory lies in her concepts of the depressive and paranoid-schizoid positions. Klein considers the depressive position to be a state with specific characteristics, including defenses, anxieties, and object relations, which emerge in the second trimester of an infant’s life and continue throughout the individual’s life. This position involves integrating partial objects into a whole object, which brings the painful realization that feelings of love and hate, previously split and inaccessible to one another, are directed at the same, whole object. This realization evokes concern for the other, for the second object. Klein’s focus on parts of the object, particularly the mother’s breast and the penis, as primary early objects of infantile preoccupations, is crucial.

Internal objects contained in the unconscious play a significant role throughout the subsequent lives of both children and adults. The transition to the depressive position marks a fundamental shift from relating to partial objects (anatomical parts of the other, which are psychologically partial internal objects) to integrating them into a single, whole object. The infant’s relationship with partial objects is more tied to the function of the partial object than to its anatomical structure—this involves capacities such as seeing, hearing, smelling, remembering, feeling, recollecting, and judging, which are both active and passive and connected to partial parts of the other object. The integration of function, anatomy, and the partial experience of objects into the whole object represents the transition from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position.²⁷

The paranoid-schizoid position, with its specific defense mechanisms and experiences, was described earlier. The discovery of the paranoid-schizoid position and its defensive processes—projective identification, projection, introjection, splitting, and repression—forms the foundation for understanding psychotic pathologies (Bion, Segal, Rosenfeld) and borderline personality disorders (Rey, Sohn, Steiner).

W. Bion and the Theory of Thinking

Wilfred Bion, like M. Klein, views the concept or mechanism of projective identification as a mechanism of (unconscious) fantasy. Sandler comments on this by saying that most analysts agree that patients do not literally remove their thoughts and feelings from their own psyche and place them into the analyst’s psyche.²⁷ In his essay, Bion states that the mechanism of projective identification is associated with the aim of projection or the influence on the recipient of these projections.²⁸ The goal is for the patient to evoke in the analyst (the child in the mother) the same feelings that the patient (the projector) is experiencing. Consequently, the recipient of the projections (the mother, the analyst) may feel a need to react to these feelings. This represents the patient’s (emotional) need for an (emotional) reaction from the analyst—a countertransference on the analyst’s part. Bion, throughout his work, presents and explores the concepts of transference and countertransference in various ways. A significant point regarding projective identification is Bion’s view of it as a mechanism of communication as well as a defense mechanism. Whether the process becomes a form of communication and understanding or merely a defense depends on the analyst’s response, as noted by Joseph.²⁹

Bion’s first description of the projective identification mechanism is found in his work “Experiences in Groups”, where he notes that the experience of countertransference within projective identification has a markedly different impact on the analyst compared to other mechanisms.³⁰ The analyst feels as if they are an object of manipulation, in the sense that the analyst is an important part managing the patient’s fantasy.³⁰ Bion uses the concept of projective identification as a central part of his development of the theory of thinking. He proposes a model for understanding the process of thinking, which can also be seen as a series of interconnected models of thought.²⁷ Ogden views Bion’s theory from four main perspectives.³¹

For group dynamics in therapeutic groups, Bion does not use the term fantasy. Instead, he relates group processes to the group’s and individuals’ preoccupation with basic assumptions, which involve frightening orientations toward reality. These assumptions keep the group at a level where it cannot think about them. The mechanisms involved include dependency, operating by the principle of pairing, or functioning according to fight-flight dynamics. All these mechanisms prevent processing and thinking. These principles enable the group to remain in a state called hatred of learning from experience. Only in a working group format is it possible to think and process material within the group. However, both principles—basic assumptions and the working group—always operate in parallel. In this duality and constant interplay, Bion highlights the concept of “binocular vision” [33:86], which emphasizes that thinking always includes a view of reality from multiple perspectives simultaneously—from the perspective of the conscious and unconscious, from the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position, and from psychotic and non-psychotic viewpoints.³¹

One of the principles of mental functioning (a term used by Ogden,³² rather than Bion) is the human need for understanding and knowing the truth.

Bion introduces new, sometimes mathematically designated concepts, into psychoanalytic theory and practice. Perhaps for this reason, some consider his model, in certain parts or even as a whole, to be complicated. However, Bion’s explanation and contribution to psychoanalysis is exceptionally precise and invaluable. His theoretical model or system is intended for use and verification in practice. Bion understands thinking as the product of two distinct mental activities—the development of thoughts and the development of the apparatus required for thinking. He states that thinking and the apparatus for thinking are developed under pressure from thoughts. He sees psychopathology as damage to one of these two parts—either there is a failure or damage in the development of thoughts, or there is damage to the development of the apparatus for managing thoughts. He classifies thoughts into pre-conceptions, thoughts, and concepts. Pre-conceptions are referred to as empty thoughts or a priori thoughts. A fundamental innate pre-conception is, for example, the expectation of the mother’s breast. When the child’s pre-conception encounters a real experience, a concept is formed. The formation of a concept is always associated with an emotional experience. This process involves frustration—the child’s expectation may not be realized (absence or emptiness of the breast) and satisfaction is not achieved. If the capacity to tolerate frustration is sufficient, a thought develops in the child’s mental world, and the apparatus for thinking develops. Thus, the ability to tolerate frustration helps to develop thoughts and the thinking apparatus. Notably, this is similar to the model later described by Winnicott, in which the state of illusion, the expectation of the mother’s breast, and the ability to endure frustration are understood as a transitional space for the development of creativity, thinking, and creating.³³

If the capacity to tolerate frustration is impaired, the internal bad (absent) breast causes a tendency to expel frustration from the mental world or to transform it. Instead of thoughts, the pre-conception and negative realization result in a bad internal object that must be expelled. This bad object has the characteristics of a thing-in-itself (Kant), and its presence disrupts the development of the mental apparatus for thinking. Through the mechanism of projective identification, these bad internal objects are expelled. If the inability to tolerate frustration increases, destructive attacks on thoughts and the thinking apparatus also increase.³⁴ Ogden calls this process the principle of thinking development for the purpose of managing thoughts.³¹

Thus, time and space can become identical to bad internal objects—destroyed and destructive. The predominance of projective identification creates confusion and an inability to distinguish between the self and external objects, reducing the capacity for thinking. If the ability to tolerate frustration is not sufficient to eliminate bad objects, but too great to accept reality, omnipotence can develop as a substitute for the progression from pre-conception to concept.³⁴

Some pre-conceptions are fundamental for the child’s mental survival. For example, the pre-conception for personality development is one of these, and like others, it depends on the environment—the mother. In the match between the child and the mother and in the development of the child’s mental apparatus, the mechanism of projective identification plays a key role.³⁴

Intense feelings of frustration create threats, including the experience of dying, a terror of death. The child feels (through projective identification) as though they are dying within the mother. A well-balanced mother can recognize this and respond therapeutically in a way that allows the child to accept back their previously threatening personality, this time returned by the mother in a usable form. If the mother cannot accept the child’s feelings, the frequency and intensity of projective identifications and subsequent re-introjections increase.³⁴

Through the alpha function (mentioned earlier), Bion describes the mother’s role in early child development (and the analyst’s role in analysis). This function transforms perceived feelings associated with emotional experience—beta elements—into alpha elements, providing material for dreams and thoughts, and representing the ability to remain awake, to awaken, to be aware, or unaware. If the conditions for normal projective identification between mother and child are not established, this can damage the alpha function, leading to an inability to distinguish between conscious and unconscious elements. The alpha function thus enables the capacity for self-awareness or non-awareness.³⁴ Ogden states that dream-thoughts are symbolic representations of experience arising from feelings. Capacities for the alpha function, dreaming, thinking, and remembering are evoked in the psyche to manage thoughts.³⁴

The mother’s capacity for reverie (to endure the child’s projective identifications and intolerable feelings—beta elements—and transform them into alpha elements, helping the child develop their thinking apparatus and alpha function) is crucial for the child’s mental development. If the mother cannot accept the child’s projections, the child experiences the feelings as if they are dying. Upon re-introjection, the child does not take back an acceptable fear of death but rather nameless dread.³⁴

The process of transformation, that is, emotional change and learning from experience, is enabled by the alpha function. The formation of the “container-contained” relationship [33], which stems from the relationship described above, along with the container-contained concept, is one of Bion’s most established ideas alongside the alpha function. Both terms, container and contained, should not be understood as things or objects but as a process—unconscious psychological work of dreaming, which operates through pre-conscious, dream-like thinking (reverie) and secondary thinking processes.³¹ Bion’s model of thinking demonstrates not only that the developmental environment is important but also how important it is. Ogden refers to this principle as: “it takes two minds to think unpleasant thoughts”.³¹

In further development of the thinking model, Bion introduces additional concepts (K-knowledge, H-hate, L-love). “K”—“knowledge”—is an essential factor, alongside the already familiar love and hate, which are nourishment for mental health. It represents the instinct for knowledge (truth) and the drive to explore (the new), whose development and activity form the foundation of mental health.^31,32

Ogden adds a fourth perspective, elaborating Bion’s idea that there exists an indestructible psychoanalytic function of the personality, and that dreaming is the fundamental process through which this function operates.^31,32 Bion asserts that dreaming and dreams exist in both states—wakefulness and sleep. For Freud, dreams and their purpose are to reveal unconscious material to the conscious mind (transforming primary process material into secondary). For Bion, the unconscious is a set of psychoanalytic functions of the personality, and therefore, psychoanalytic work requires making the conscious part unconscious—meaning that conscious parts of experience need to become accessible to the unconscious. Bion claims that dreaming is a psychological activity through which we achieve awareness. Dreaming creates a barrier—a protection against unconscious mental activities—while enabling the conscious part of the personality to become aware of its unconscious fantasies.³¹

For Bion, dreaming is thus a form of thinking that establishes a medium through which we achieve self-awareness, psychological development, and the capacity for personal and symbolic growth within the experiences of our lives.³¹ Each of Bion’s four principles of mental functioning does not begin with the pressure of instinctual drives (as in Freud, where the movement is from the pleasure principle to the reality principle), but with the lived emotional experience in the real world, concluding with the thinking and feeling of that experience.³¹

Bion also develops the idea of the interplay between the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position, denoted as Ps⇆D. Although this was originally Klein’s idea, Bion adds the dimension of the dispersion and disintegration of the self on the Ps side and integration on the D side, while overlooking other elements of both positions. This allows insight into the movement and transformation from one position to another and back again during the analytic session, from feelings of integration and depression to feelings of fragmentation and vulnerability.³²

Bion developed many other concepts and metaphors (e.g., the Grid, “O,” psychic transformation, etc.), but these will not be discussed here.

If Bion states that it takes two minds, two people, to think a single thought, then Donald W. Winnicott is the analyst who places the focus of observing the development of mental and personality functions entirely within the relationship between the mother and the child.³² Winnicott famously said, “There’s no such thing as a baby. There’s a baby and someone.”³⁵

D.W. Winnicott: Transitional Space and Hate

Winnicott is the first to introduce the concept of transitional space and transitional phenomena into psychoanalytic theory—phenomena that belong neither to the child’s internal world nor to external reality. It is a space (and time) that demarcates—separates—and simultaneously connects the internal and external worlds. This is the so-called third space. Winnicott employs various terms in addition to the above, such as potential space, the realm of cultural experience and creativity, the space of play, and the space of relaxation.³⁶ Let us explore the concept of the intermediate space and transitional phenomena in more detail.

Developmentally, according to Winnicott, the phenomenon of transitional space exists from birth, even before birth, in the relationship between mother and child. It is connected to culture, creativity, and being. As the child begins to separate from experiencing itself (the “Me,” as Winnicott calls it) and moves to perceiving the non-self (the “Not-Me”), the child transitions from total dependence to relative dependence and starts using the transitional object. This developmental process is linked to play and creativity while leading to the use of illusion, symbols, and the use of others (objects).³⁶

Winnicott, as both a pediatrician and an analyst, was the first to place this intermediate space—the child’s play, creativity, and use of another object—at the center of good and healthy mental development. When Winnicott presented his article, psychoanalytic literature did not consider the space between the internal and external. Freud’s concept of the transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle did not address the process or passage the child undergoes. Similarly, Klein focused on the child’s internal object world and its splitting and projection onto others (the mother). Winnicott highlights that the transitional object is not purely internal nor fully external but something the child “possesses.”

Winnicott states: “…here we have the third part of a human being’s life, a part we cannot ignore, the transitional area of experience, where inner reality and external life overlap”.³³

Winnicott arrived at these psychoanalytic concepts through observing children with their mothers, their development, and his work with children. He identified a connection between the child’s use of their hand, fingers, thumb-sucking, and later the use of a piece of a blanket, a soft toy, etc. He asserts that the use of such transitional objects is not merely about satisfying oral needs (though this may be foundational) but also involves critical aspects: “the nature of the object, the child’s ability to recognize the object as part of the Not-Me, the place of the object, the child’s ability to create the object, and the special relationship established with the object.”³³

The transitional object represents the child’s object of possession. It provides the child with a sense that it is their creation, their product, and truly belongs to them. It does not necessarily have to be a physical object (it can be music, singing…), yet it is something parents spontaneously accept as significant for the child. Winnicott states that there is no difference in the use or function of the transitional object between boys and girls. The child’s excitement concerning the transitional object relates to the fact that the child nurtures and loves the object, which reflects the child’s states of silence and excitement in their relationship with the mother. The object connects the mother whom the child excitedly loves and the quiet, calm mother of the external environment, uniting these two maternal roles.³⁶

The entire transitional space between two people is thus interwoven with the relationship between internal reality and external surroundings, as experienced by two people. This space also constitutes the entire cultural space.³⁷

The transitional object symbolizes the child’s relationship and experience with their environment. A child capable of using the transitional object is on the path to using symbols.³⁶ The transitional object represents a developmental phase, moving from a relationship with the object to the use of the object. Winnicott illustrates how symbolism manifests in the child’s development and in sick patients:

“…A schizoid patient asked me after Christmas if I enjoyed eating her fist. Then she asked whether I had truly eaten it or only in fantasy. I knew she would not be satisfied with either alternative. Her splitting required a double answer”.³⁷

In two images, Winnicott graphically presents the concept of the transitional space, where, between the mother’s breasts, as a symbolic representation of the mother, and the child on the other side, he places the transitional space – between them, in the first image, he calls the space ‘illusion,’ and in the second image, he calls it the ‘transitional object.’ Initially, the child needs to believe that they are responsible for the creation of the mother’s breasts – the child is the creator of the mother’s breast. This is their necessary, omnipotent illusion. Once this illusion is created in the child, an important process and time of de-illusion (disillusion) occurs during the child’s period of relative dependence. According to Winnicott, the child will not experience the world objectively and their perception of the difference between themselves and the ‘not-me’ (the child and the environment) will be disturbed if the child is not allowed a sufficiently good experience of illusion.³⁶ This sufficiently good experience is related to the response of the good-enough mother to the child. Good-enough mothers are not ideal, and Winnicott does not present his concept of the good-enough mother as the concept of an ideal mother. He says that a good-enough mother is something possible, realistic. The mother provides the illusion that the child created her breast simply by responding to the child’s needs at the appropriate time. After the child creates the breast in their illusion, it actually appears. In this way, the child gains a sense of creative ability and creativity, while also being able to endure frustration (the transitional time and space) between their illusion and external reality, when the satisfaction, the breast, the creation, the mother, actually comes from the outside. The transitional object and phenomena in the transitional, in-between space are transformed, created, and generated from illusion. This is the transitional space, which must not be disturbed. Winnicott says that the transitional object is something that is a matter of agreement between us and the child and something that will never be questioned, whether it arose in the child’s mind or was presented from the outside.³⁷

In the essay Winnicott states:

“…From wakefulness to sleep, the child jumps from the experienced world into the world of their own creation. A need arises between the two worlds for a neutral area, a need for all kinds of transitional experiences…”³⁸

From wakefulness to sleep means two worlds – the inner world, belonging to the world of dreaming, the unconscious, subjective reality, and the outer environment, belonging to the world of shared reality, which is consciously experienced as the non-me (“Not-Me”).³⁶

The most important task of the mother, immediately after creating the possibility and space for the child’s illusion, is the liberation from this illusion. This illusion problem belongs exclusively to humans and is such that no individual is capable of solving it definitively on their own. The theoretical understanding of the problem can open the possibility for a theoretical solution.³³ If space for illusion is created, space for frustration and gradual liberation – rejection or transformation – is also created. Here, Winnicott shows a similarity to the concept of the depressive position in M. Klein. If the process from illusion to the loss of illusion takes the wrong path, the child will not develop a sense of separation between themselves and others – the environment, they will not be able to set boundaries, liberate, or reject – they will not know how to say no.

Winnicott states that if an adult demands that we accept their subjectivity as objectivity, we may perceive or diagnose madness. In later works, Winnicott also describes the development of different parts of the self (true self and false self) in relation to the environment, but they will not be interpreted here.

If a person can enjoy their personal transitional space without such demands from the other, we can also share our personal transitional spaces with them and accept some degree of overlap of areas that creates a shared experience among people in culture, art, religion, and philosophy.³³ The transitional object of the child, therefore, remains intensely present throughout life. From the mother’s breast, through the child’s sucking on their thumb, fist, or hand, through blankets, teddy bears, toys, the transitional object becomes, over time, disinvested, and is replaced by engagement with culture, religion, science, philosophy – in short, human creativity and thinking.

At this point, I would like to present another Winnicott concept, where a parallel is drawn between the experience of hatred, which develops in the child’s relationship with the mother, and the countertransference experience of hatred in the analyst when working with very aggressive, dependent, and psychotic patients.

The concept of countertransference was introduced into psychoanalytic theory by Heimann with the article “On Countertransference,” first presented in 1950.³⁹ Winnicott rarely used the term countertransference in his works. The article “Hate in the Countertransference” was written in 1947 and presented in 1949, when psychiatric work with highly disturbed and psychotic patients was quite different from today.¹⁸

The ability of the child to hate while also loving signifies a level of ambivalence achieved. For Winnicott, this is an important developmental stage during the period of the child’s relative dependence and represents a level of achieved concern for others.³⁶

The task of the analyst working with a psychotic person is seriously complicated if the analyst is not fully aware of their own hatred towards the psychotic patient and does not resolve it. The analyst must also undergo analysis themselves, while the analysis of the psychotic person is exhausting compared to the analysis of a neurotic person.¹⁸ The psychotic person evokes feelings in others that are difficult to resist and control. Winnicott identifies three components of countertransference: 1) abnormalities in the analyst’s feelings that the analyst cannot understand, meaning the analyst requires further personal analysis, 2) the analyst’s identification with personal experiences, which creates a positive and different environment for working with the patient, and 3) the true objective countertransference, where the response is a real and objective reaction with love or hatred towards the patient. Winnicott believes that a psychotic patient is not capable of distinguishing between love and hatred.

He says about the analyst:

“The analyst must be able to endure the effort without expecting that the patient will know what is happening, possibly for an extended period. To do this, they must be aware of their own fear and hatred. They are in the position of the mother of a newborn or an unborn child”¹⁸

For patients who have never had a sufficiently good environment for their mental development, the analyst may be the first to provide such an environment.

“To a neurotic, the couch, warmth, and comfort may represent a symbol of the mother’s love; in a psychotic, these things may represent the physical manifestation of the analyst’s love. The couch is the analyst’s lap or womb, the warmth is the actual warmth of the analyst’s body, etc.”¹⁸

From this, Winnicott develops the concept of the analytic setting as “holding,” without actual physical contact with the patient.³⁶

(The psychotic or highly disturbed) patient must, at a certain point, receive the analyst’s objective hatred. Winnicott says, “…the patient is actually seeking the analyst’s hatred, and at that moment, objective hatred is required. If the patient seeks objective hatred, they must be able to find it, otherwise, they will think they cannot achieve even objective love”.¹⁸

Winnicott draws a parallel with the relationship between mother and child and states that the mother hates the child before the child is capable of hating her. The child’s need for the mother is a cruel, unrelenting love, and this is one of the reasons for the mother’s hatred.³⁶ Thus, the psychotic and highly dependent patient enters therapy with their unrelenting needs. Developmentally, this is the period where the child is absolutely dependent on the mother. Only when the child is able to experience the other as a whole personality, does hatred become one of their feelings".¹⁸

Winnicott lists 17 reasons why a mother might hate her child from the very beginning, stating that this list of reasons for maternal hatred can be useful for understanding the relationship between the analyst and a psychotic patient. Let us list some of the reasons: the child is not the product of her own (mental) conception and is not the child from childhood play, the father’s child, the brother’s child, etc. The child was not magically conceived and poses a danger to her body, representing a disruption in her private life, an overload. The child causes pain in the nipples during breastfeeding, which at first is chewing. The child is relentless, treats her like a slave, and she must love him, including his excretions, at all costs, until she begins to doubt herself. The child shows that he is disappointed with her, his enthusiastic love is only temporary, and once he gets what he wanted, he discards her like an orange peel. At first, the child has no idea what the mother does and sacrifices for him… Until the point that the child disturbs her, but also frustrates her—she cannot eat him or use him for sex.¹⁸

Acceptance and tolerance of the child’s relentless, cruel love for the mother, and the cruelty of that love, will provoke the child’s hatred.³⁶

Regarding working with psychotic patients and those with severe mental disorders: “The analyst must show the same patience, tolerance, and reliability that the mother shows to her child, recognizing the patient’s desires as needs, putting aside other interests in order to be available to the patient. They must be precise and objective, and appear to give everything because they want to, even though they are giving only because of the patient’s needs.”¹⁸

Winnicott’s work and contribution to psychoanalytic thought and the understanding of child development is invaluable, forming the foundation for understanding the work with the most difficult patients and their most infantile and regressive needs. His largely novel view on mental development and the mental processes of a child in relation to the mother has brought many new ideas and concepts into psychoanalysis, which are still relevant today, both in theoretical considerations and in clinical work.

S. Mitchell and “Relationality” Steven Mitchell is a representative of the psychoanalytic direction and theory that he himself called “relationality.” The concept of relationality was first used by Mitchell in 1983 (Mitchell, Greenberg). He argues that psychoanalysis has always been linked to the connection between people from its very beginnings. He says that Freud’s early seduction theory was related to the toxic influence of another (the seducer) on the development of an individual’s psychopathology. He suggests that Freud’s later-established theory of drives is a form of object-relational theory. Even the clinical process of psychoanalysis was essentially always relational. Mitchell believes that the focus on the individual from the beginnings of analysis and Western philosophy since Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”) is connected to the fact that one could take their thoughts as primary, as fundamental and indivisible facts, as objective, thinking, and conscious truths.⁴⁰

Mitchell’s description of states of mental functioning, which he calls levels of organization and modes, is clearly and concisely described in his work titled “Relationality: From Attachment Theory to Intersubjectivity.”⁴⁰ As the title suggests, he builds his thinking about human mental processes on several directions, all concerned with the relational component. Thus, he draws from John Bowlby’s attachment theory, H.S. Sullivan’s interpersonal psychology, and intersubjectivists. At the same time, he leans on Fairbairn’s fundamental thesis that drives do not seek gratification but rather seek an object. In this work, Mitchell also refers to two authors—H. Loewald and T. Ogden. Regarding one contemporary concept of the latter, more will be discussed later, but at this point, I will mention some fundamental directions that Mitchell sees in Loewald, followed by the presentation of four levels or states of relational organizations in mental functioning in the relationship between two people, according to Mitchell.⁴⁰

Loewald develops a psychoanalytic view of the mind and the nature of mental functioning from the beginning of our existence, which he describes with the concept of “primal density.” This is a sensomotor experience where there is no distinction between inside and outside, between self and other, between actuality and fantasy, between past and future. Loewald says that this experience is best described by Heidegger’s term “being.” It should be noted that Loewald and M. Heidegger were classmates in philosophy studies, and the latter had a significant influence on him. All future constructions, boundaries, and systems in our life or mental processes, which arise gradually over time, are organized, according to Loewald, from the primal density, which remains active throughout our lives. This fundamental and constantly present “hidden thing” within us holds together all dimensions of experience, which only seemingly function as completely separate, distinct, and unconnected.⁴⁰ Around this primal density, our mental universe is generated (a parallel to the creation of the universe and the forces at work within it), which is held together by centripetal and centrifugal forces. For Loewald, psychopathology is the imbalance between these forces in our mental life.

Each of our experiences arises from the core of primal density (this core carries a fundamental record and predisposition for all our mental experiences). Loewald’s view on language is interesting, as most philosophers and analysts (including Freud) strictly differentiate between the primary and secondary processes of thinking, pre-verbal and verbal. The primary process is directly related to the unconscious part of the mind—Id, while the secondary process is related to the pre-conscious and conscious—Ego**.⁵** For Loewald, the fundamental question of language is the distinction between verbal and pre-verbal. He argues that language transcends this distinction. For him, language plays a fundamental role from the very beginning of life. He asserts that the distinction between primary and secondary thinking processes is not as important as the ways in which language operates at these two levels and stages of development. He states that language is a key element of primal density, where all feelings, perceptions, others, and self-unite.⁵

“Mother speaks to the child, not expecting him to understand her words, but as if she is speaking to herself with the child… The child is included in the experience of the mother’s speech, which is part of the child’s fundamental experience with the mother…”⁵

Understanding of language is delimited by a developmental stage where sounds, words, and tactile experiences are merged into a dense, inseparable experience, and a stage where the semantic properties of language take the place of sensory feelings and excitement. Thus, Loewald makes a distinction between language in the primary thinking process and language in the secondary thinking process.⁴⁰ With the concept of the fundamental element of language in primal density, at the core of the beginning of life, Loewald’s concept is close to more recent authors and theorists in the field of language—such as S. Parker’s concept of the human instinct for language (‘the language instinct’).

Loewald distinguishes between the so-called ‘thing presentation’ and ‘word presentation.’ A child is part of the language when they are born; the child’s environment consists of words and things. In the primary process, these things are mixed, condensed together. With the rhythm of the mother’s speech, the child is overwhelmed; it does not experience the words, but rather a holistic experience. Only in the phase of the secondary process do the contents of the holistic experience differentiate, where sounds, words, and rhythms acquire meaning and the sign they refer to. The connection between the thing presentation and the word presentation is the secondary process, which originates from the basic unit where the thing is embedded in the word. Therefore, a differentiation occurs from one unity.⁵

The function of these differentiations, according to Loewald, is carried by the unconscious (and the relationship with the other), as he states that the silent element of the unconscious is not its drive energy, but rather the power of de-differentiation—reunification. Due to the power of primary condensation and the forces that act toward unity, after the secondary process of differentiation, a reconnection is possible. A key component and quality of the experience is related to the relationship between these two levels of organization.⁴⁰

Here, the influence of Heidegger on Loewald is clearly visible, as Heidegger says that 'man lives in the house of language and that language is the house of being.⁴¹

Loewald sees all experiences and the development of the psyche as moving towards a unified beginning (primary unity, condensation) and gradual differentiation—differentiation and reconnection. He understands the experiences of mother and child in this way. The psychical states of mother and child are tightly bound and in complex, interwoven relationships. In the early post-birth experiences, the child and mother co-create each other through mutual influence (here, a connection with Winnicott’s concept of the creation of the mother’s breast through the child’s illusion may arise). Loewald states that for the child (and mother), there is no differentiation between the child’s crying and the mother’s response, between the breast and the mouth. In the nurturing phase of the child, the Self and the Other are not differentiated. From here, the gradual path to differentiation follows.⁴⁰

In his article Loewald provides detailed explanations of events and differentiations in the conscious, pre-conscious, and unconscious parts of the psyche and gives descriptions and explanations of the happenings in the analytic process, related to his concept of understanding language and primary condensation.⁵ I will not go into further detail about these Loewald ideas here.

The levels of organization and states of functioning of the psyche, as described by Mitchell,⁴⁰ who builds upon the authors I mentioned earlier, are as follows:

State (Mode) 1: Nonreflective behavior, related to what people actually do (‘do with’) with each other. This is pre-symbolic, non-reflective, non-responsive behavior, where relational fields (relationships) are organized around mutual and equal influence between individuals. These are instinctive, drive-based activities and responses that occur in the unconscious or pre-conscious part of the psyche. These activities are related to cycles of sleep and feeding. This also reflects the patterns of attachment between child and mother in adult life.⁴⁰

State 2: Affective permeability, where there is a shared experience of intense emotions through permeable boundaries. This state involves no boundaries between two individuals. It may involve very stressful, traumatic experiences, feelings of being overwhelmed by another, or feelings of unity with another—fusion. This part, in the language of intersubjectivists, as Mitchell later states, is strongly connected to the experience of transference-countertransference in the analytic work.⁴⁰

State 3: Self-other configurations and experiences. In this organization, there is a gradual differentiation of the self and the other, representations of the self and the other, patterns, and experiences of the relationship between ‘me’ and ‘you.’ The objects are still not fully differentiated. It is an unstable self-organization that is not yet formed. In this state, experiences are represented as experiences of one person, but there is no clear understanding of the boundary between object and subject.⁴⁰

State 4: Intersubjectivity. Mitchell says that in Western culture, the human being is recognized as a ‘subject’ when another human being recognizes them as such. In this state, the person and the other become a more complex carrier of personality, with a self-reflective ability. This means they think and act with an awareness of the relational dependency on the other for the fulfillment of their ideas. The other is fully recognized as a separate personality and can take on a transformative role when in relation with them. The self and the other become authentic representatives of the self and humanity. This involves recognizing and identifying the other, while also constantly intertwining in the system and field between two or more people, where there is an exchange and sharing of experiences.⁴⁰

Mitchell views the states of functioning of the psyche as constantly present and functioning in each person (just as Loewald sees the psyche functioning on two levels), with the particular state becoming more pronounced at a certain moment or time period, depending on the environment, relationship, and other factors in the individual and their surroundings. Recognizing the intertwining and identifying the states of the psyche provides insight and recognition of the functioning of the human psyche. Mitchell, in his model, also incorporates concepts and ideas of intersubjectivism, which brings him closer to, or integrates into, his theory of relationality.

The theory of intersubjectivity has been developed since the 1980s, with a comprehensive overview of the intersubjective perspective and concepts provided by authors such as R.D. Stolorow and G.E. Atwood, and many other authors (O. Renik, Aron, Bebe & Lachmann). Currently, the most important concepts in intersubjectivity are: ‘encounter,’ moments of meeting, mutuality, authenticity, and spontaneity. The central metaphor or concept of intersubjectivism is the relational field or system in which psychological phenomena are expressed and where mutual experiences constantly occur. It is a continuous collaboration, exchange, attunement, disattunement, overlap, divergence, and change, between subjects, aimed at establishing and constructing the intersubjective context of intrapsychic experiences, which takes place both in the analytic setting and in the process of psychological development.⁴²

Intersubjectivity is a theory of the field, or systems theory, that does not seek to understand psychological phenomena as isolated intrapsychic processes, but as formations that emerge in the intermediate field between different worlds of experience. Psychological phenomena that arise cannot be understood without the intersubjective field and context in which they arise [43]. Insight and meaning are created and generated jointly and consensually.

Intersubjectivity is also a theory of process that presents methodological and epistemological principles for researching and understanding intersubjective contexts in which psychological phenomena are expressed.

‘The organization of the child’s experiences must be understood as the mutual system of the child and the caregiver, as their own.’⁴²

Atwood and Stolorow, instead of using the term unconscious (driven) fantasy, use the concept of the “prereflective unconscious.” This refers to the commanding principles of the unconscious that are activated within the child-caregiver system and serve as the foundational building blocks for personality development. These principles are crucial for observation and research in the psychoanalytic process. The core of psychoanalytic treatment is the establishment of new substitutive principles for organizing experience, allowing the patient’s responses, understanding, managing, and organizing of psychological experiences to become greater, richer, more complex, and more flexible.⁴² The intersubjective context in which the so-called pathological configuration (experience) has arisen is of fundamental importance for all forms of psychopathology. What is diagnosed is always viewed from the perspective of the functioning of the entire intersubjective system.

The emergence of conflict is understood by intersubjectivity as a state in which the child, within the child-caregiver system, cannot integrate psychological experience—affective states—because of an inadequate response to the child’s condition from the environment. From the intersubjectivist perspective, the content of the dynamic unconscious is not repressed drives, but rather affective states that are isolated or enclosed because they have provoked a strong and inappropriate response from the environment. The boundary between the conscious and unconscious is always created in the intersubjective context and field. This idea of “fluid boundaries” in the intersubjective system continues from childhood onward and expresses itself in the psychoanalytic situation.⁴²

The concept of the formation of conflict is also included in the concept of two dimensions of transference, or two groups of unconscious organizational modes. Bebe and Lachmann refer to these as “patterns of experience.”⁴³

The first organizational mode is the developmental dimension (of personality), in which the patient longs for experiences that were missing or unsatisfactory during their development. The second is the repetitive dimension, which refers to a type of conflict or defense where the patient fears the repetition of a harmful or unsuccessful experience with the analyst. These two dimensions continuously alternate and form the background for the patient’s responses, attunement, and experience of the analyst. Just as the patient responds to the analyst (transference), the analyst always responds in the intersubjective field, this time in the dimensions of countertransference. This system and the operation of transference and countertransference are an example of the intersubjective field or context.

Within the field (context), two situations continuously occur—intersubjective conjunctions and intersubjective disjunctions. In the first, psychological similar principles, forms, organizations, and understandings between the patient and the analyst are present; in the second situation, there is a difference or divergence in the meanings of the analyst’s and patient’s understandings.⁴²

If the analyst is capable of recognizing and illuminating the ways and organizations occurring in the intersubjective field within the therapeutic relationship, the exchange of subjective worlds between the patient and the therapist can create the conditions for empathetic understanding and insight.⁴² If two unconscious elements are subjected to such a process of exploration and illumination, this leads to transformation—a change in the system, a new understanding for both the analyst and the patient.⁴²

To say that clinical psychoanalysis is intersubjective means that the clinical “setting” or meeting consists of and represents an exchange and collaboration of two subjectivities—the patient’s and the analyst’s—and that the understanding and insight generated in the clinical work (psychoanalysis) is the product of this collaboration. Insight is something that is a shared creation, as a joint discovery of both the patient and the analyst.⁴⁴

Intersubjectivity represents a theory that, due to some of its concepts and aspects, is subject to concerns and criticism, which is true for all theoretical and clinical concepts that are constantly subject to verification, exploration, supplementation, and change.

One of the fundamental concerns is that in the context of the system and the intersubjective field, the autonomy and individuality of the subjects might be lost. In the intersubjectivist model, the subject and object, self and other, are not defined as (separate) entities, but as a process, referring to something connected with something else (“relatedness per se”).⁴⁵

There are psychoanalytic concepts that are difficult or impossible to include in the context of intersubjectivity, such as the death drive, destructiveness,⁴⁵ the Oedipus complex, paranoid-schizoid position, depressive position, separation, individuation, mirroring, idealization, and others.⁴² This represents another area of concern. In the language of intersubjectivism, these matters are placed in the context of social recognition or interpersonal knowing. Many critics argue that the theory of intersubjectivism overlooks the insight into social non-conformism provided by psychoanalysis, as driven desires and unconscious fantasies cannot be fully integrated, both in the individual and in the social context.⁴⁵

Finally, I should mention two concepts that I have not presented in this paper: Ogden’s “analytic third,” where Ogden (…..) connects subjectivity with intersubjectivity and defines the concept of the “analytic third” in the analytic process. It is also necessary to mention Green’s concept (…..) of the “analytic object” (Ang. “analytic object”). More information on these concepts can be found in their original texts.

As stated in the introduction, the initial idea of this paper was to traverse the path between psychoanalytic concepts that, regardless of the time of their emergence, the author, or the direction in psychoanalytic thought to which they belong, represent, on the one hand, the foundation for psychoanalytic thinking, while also reflecting their relevance and contemporaneity. They call for constant verification, exploration, development, supplementation, change, or, if necessary, abandonment, should it be demonstrated through psychoanalytic clinical work or theory.

It should be emphasized once again that the above presentation is, in terms of quantity and quality, provisional, and requires additional effort from the reader if they wish to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts and ideas. Furthermore, certain important schools and directions of psychoanalysis (e.g., Ego psychology, Self psychology, French psychoanalysis, and others) and important authors (e.g., Kernberg, Kohut, Green…) are not mentioned here, along with many other concepts that could be presented in the same way as those above. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to do so in another paper.

Conclusion

In the development of psychoanalysis, it is not only about the richness of diversity and the deepening of knowledge, experiences, and understanding within this diversity. Sometimes, the dispersion of ideas and deviation into different directions also means drifting away from the essence, losing the core, and forgetting the foundations. This is reminiscent of a drop of ink that we drop into a basin of water, which gradually disappears (dissolves) completely. Therefore, sensible and reasoned calls for a constant return to the essence, continual thinking, and re-interpretation of fundamental ideas and concepts are appropriate. Returning to the beginning, or repeatedly to the same place, to see it from a different perspective, means a new truth, a new view, a new concept. The purpose of free thinking and interpretation is the creative creation and development of something new or a transformation from the old, with the awareness of how and from where we arrived at the new. The constant approach to the foundation and core of our mental life is the psychoanalytic process. Through this, we become different each time. The process of the development of psychoanalysis is the psychoanalytic process.

What do I think at the end of this essay, considering all the above-described concepts and psychoanalysis for the future?

It is said that the life of a “new” living being, even as an embryo, begins in the womb when “its heart begins to beat.” This beating of the new heart enables the development of all the necessary functions and organs, the development and preparation of all sensory and motor senses, muscles, skeleton, and the brain, for the transition from the mother’s body to the outside world. When the child is in the womb, two hearts beat, two organisms function separately, yet are simultaneously life-linked through the placenta. This connection is essential for the creation and enabling of new life. Development occurs with the help and dependence on the other. The child’s heart beats when, and if, the mother’s heart beats. The child is unaware of the beating of the heart, neither its own nor the mother’s. The child simply exists. Both lives are at risk. Two lives. One dependent on the other. At birth, they separate in a physical sense. The child’s heart no longer beats in the mother’s body. The child receives its own life, its individuality. A unique fingerprint, a heartbeat rhythm, authentic and autonomous senses, skin, sight, hearing, its own way of experiencing, tasting, touching, smelling. The child is an individual separated from the environment but part of a shared existence, life.

Perhaps the same applies to the development of the psyche. The child’s unique imprint—its primary mental essence—primary unconscious essence—the core of the psyche it carries within and is connected to its corporeality—is the beginning of its mental life. Everything stems from this primary unconscious essence. This essence, at the beginning, simply is, and the child’s independent psyche begins to “be,” just as the heart beats and in unison with it. For the proper beginning, development, and protection of this independent primary essence of the psyche, the presence and protection of the other is required. The other and its psyche (conscious and unconscious of the other) and the primary essence of the child’s psyche offer the potential for the beating, development, and life of the new (child’s) psyche. The mother and child collaborate, communicate, and exist mutually in the beginning. The child’s primary essence of the psyche is left to life and death in this shared existence. If the mother can symbolize mental birth, the beginning of life, and the fluctuation between life and death, as a constant threat, then perhaps the father symbolizes the “third”—something in-between, that is, existence and creation itself. Their relationship, the relationship between father and mother, is also a symbol of what existed before the child’s life, their pro-creativity, their union (and the union of their ancestors), a symbol (pre-)beginning of our psyche. Thus, our recognition (perhaps already written in the primary unconscious essence of the psyche) that the “third” is always present here as well. The third—the father, who was already in the mother of the child before the child. The psyche of the other (mother), without which the child cannot survive, carries within it the symbol of the “third.” The child is not the only one; in fact, it only later realizes that from the very beginning, it was actually “just the third.” This is a harsh realization, but necessary for facing reality. Perhaps, already in the child’s primary unconscious essence, there is a mark and imprint of the “third,” the imprint of “hate” (which would later develop from the relationship with the mother according to Winnicott), the imprint of envy, according to M. Klein (and the imprint of the most persecutory childhood fantasies, to re-enter the mother’s body and destroy the contents of the body, the penis—“the third”). Perhaps, within the primary core of the psyche, there is the imprint of the alpha function (according to Bion), or the imprint for later confrontation with the Oedipal situation (according to Freud). If there is no (symbolic) “third”—the father—it is as deadly for the child as it is for the mother to be “dead” (according to Green) or empty, absent (according to Kohut), or not good enough (according to Winnicott). If the “dead,” absent, empty, or “not good enough” “third”—father—is missing, this can be fatal for the child’s development and mental health (pathological narcissism might mean precisely that there is no “third”).

Through the continuous interplay between life and death, through unconscious and conscious mental life, our primary essence of the psyche flows into the environment, into our life, language, existence, into creation, sexuality, creativity, work, trace, and the aesthetics we leave and leave behind in the environment. Our mental essence, from the unknown and unknowable, before our birth, before our life, flows through life and existence, onward into the unknown, the unknowable—into our death. Psychoanalysis deals with our unconscious and conscious thinking about our psyche, our “life” before birth, our death, and our “life” after it. Psychoanalysis deals with thinking about mental and concrete traces in our life, with language, with creativity, with works, with meanings we have left and will leave behind. It deals with the child and mother, it deals with the “third,” it deals with the analytical process between two subjects and intersubjectivity between them, and many other things. Therefore, there is no need to fear for the future and contemporaneity of analysis.