Primitive Mental States: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Origins of Meaning / Edition 1

by Jane Van Buren, Shelley Alhanati

Overview

Traditional psychoanalysis relies on the presence of certain meaning-making capacities in the patient for its effectiveness. Primitive Mental States examines how particular capacities including those for symbolising, fantasising, dreaming, experiencing and finding meanings in those experiences, can be taken for granted. Many of us lack these capacities in certain dimensions of our minds making traditional psychoanalysis ineffective.

In this book, international contributors are brought together to consider a radical evolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory developed from a combination of ultrasound studies, infant analysis, and observation of mothers and babies. These findings demonstrate how much mental life exists even before birth and considers unevolved, unborn and barely born aspects of the self such as the birth of emotion and the birth of alpha functioning.

Topics covered include:

• prenatal imprints on the mind and body
• difficult to treat patients
• non-verbal, non-symbolic, disembodied states of being
• early relational and attachment trauma.

Illustrated throughout with original data and extensive clinical discussions from some of the biggest names in the field, Primitive Mental States will be a useful resource for students and seasoned analysts alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415468947
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/21/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jane Van Buren is a Psychoanalyst in full time private practice in Los Angeles, California and training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Centre of California. She has written widely on the themes of women and children, culture and psychoanalysis.

Shelley Alhanati is a psychoanalyst in northern California, and is a Supervising Analyst and faculty member of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She has lectured and written widely on various topics in psychoanalytic theory as well as on fetal, infant, and child developmental research.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors ix

Foreword x

Introduction: Primitive mental states and the origins of meaning 1

1 "Orphans of O": The negative therapeutic reaction and the longing for the childhood that never was James S. Grotstein 8

2 Experiencing emotions, avoiding emotions: Between Hercules and Puss-in-Boots Antonino Ferro 31

3 Incorporation of an invasive object Paul Williams 47

4 The theory of transformations and autistic states. Autistic transformations: A proposal Celia Fix Korbivcher 64

5 A binocular view of adhesion: From prenatal contiguity to postnatal appetite Marianne Robinson 80

6 The trauma of conception: Cellular memory Joanna Wilheim 97

7 Thoughts without a thinker Jane Van Buren 112

8 Nothing comes from nothing: Failed births, dead babies Francisco Gonzalez 122

9 The origins of the unconscious: Framework of the future mind Arnaldo Chuster 135

10 Pre-verbal language in the treatment of a mother and infant: A clinical exploration Annie Reiner 155

11 Transformations of early infantile experience: A six-month-old in psychoanalysis Johan Norman 175

12 'Talk to me baby, tell me what's the matter now': Semiotic and developmental perspectives on communication in psychoanalytic infant treatment Bj?rn Salomonsson 197

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

‘This is an exceptional book…the scholarship is outstanding and the integrity of the authors and their work is evident throughout’ Thomas H. Ogden, Director, Centre for the Advanced Study of the Psychoses; Personal and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, USA

From the Publisher