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in childhood, under traumatic conditions the overwhelmed adult mind may at any point in the life cycle generates new regions of unconscious functioning. The unconscious continues to be a cornerstone notion in many schools of thought, admittedly without reification and in differing contexts. Process: The study of unconscious processes, ‘processing’ and structures is widely considered to be as important theoretically and clinically as traditional analyses of unconscious content. The contemporary trend seems to be to investigate the unconscious processes with their fluid and structured dimensions in their own right as well as deconstructing different layers in unconscious functioning: originally considered relatively ‘illogical’ and ‘non- communicative’, today they are viewed as having their own logic and their own modes of communication. Reliance upon one level of unconscious functioning over others may be seen as an important determinant of an individual’s response to traditional analytic technique. Prominent Role of the Object, Object-Relations and Variously Conceptualized Interaction: Object-relations theories have developed a concept of the unconscious which is founded on relational models of the mind, which assume a prominent role of the object in formation (and change) of the unconscious. Among variously conceptualized models of internalization of relational experiences in a reciprocal interaction with the innate drive/affective endowment of the newborn, there is widespread recognition that alongside the acknowledgement and satisfaction of bodily needs, the mentalizing, symbolizing, and communicative skills of primary caretakers as well as their own unconscious lives are crucial in the constitution of, and modulation of, unconscious content, structure, and process, and of the articulation of all of these with the more rational regions of the mind. While the Relational Intersubjective Self and Attachment theorists’ focus on the role of the adult in the constitution of psychic structure has gained widespread recognition, there is an ongoing debate about the movement of some of the proponents’ approaches toward cognitive, subjective and intersubjective “psychological” realities and away from dynamic views of the unconscious as conflict-laden, imbued with infantile sexuality and irreducibly “other”. Many contemporary writers of this persuasion envision ‘two-track’ theories of the unconscious, whereby the ‘relational unconscious’ as a concept allows the joining of psychoanalytic thought about dynamic/intrapsychic and intersubjective phenomena. The participation of the analyst: It has followed from the recognition of the role of the object in unconscious mental life that here-and-now countertransference manifestations are commonly considered another royal road to the intuition and representation of unconscious issues at play in treatment. Articulation-Interplay : Debate is less about the respective contribution of intrapsychic, external, and relational factors as study is turned to the articulation and complex interplay between the early (and in the analytic situation the present) object’s quality of binding-dreaming-symbolizing-facilitating and the subject’s unconscious intrapsychic « responses » and representations.
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