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turns the analysis into a refuge from disturbance, and the ‘excursion’ ensues when the analyst turns the analysis into a series of flights. O’Shaughnessy recognizes that partial and limited acting out is an inevitable part of every clinical situation, but it becomes problematic when not contained so that it then deteriorates into enactments of a destructive type – enclaves and excursions (Shaughnessy, 1992). Additionally, enactments can be viewed as an example of Winnicott’s (1963, p. 343) idea, discussed earlier, that we succeed by failing—failing the patient’s way. This is a long distance from the simplistic theory of cure by corrective experience. To paraphrase Winnicott, enactment in a patient can be in the service of the ego if it is met by the analyst, and used to allow the patient to bring something toxic into the area of his or her control, where it can be managed by projection and introjection. Thus, for North America, the concepts of enactment have deep roots in Freud, and also in the object relations tradition. III. B. Latin American Evolution of the Concept: Wider Context and Conceptual Precursors Latin American psychoanalytical thought was influenced by pioneer authors who, in the 1940s and 1950s, developed deep studies about the analytical process taking into consideration what occurred between the members of the analytical dyad. Racker (1948, 1988) studied the “complementary countertransference”, as a consequence of the analyst’s identification with the patient’s internal objects. Grinberg (1957, 1962) described the “projective counteridentification”, a situation where analysts allow themselves to be taken over by the patient’s projective identifications and react to them without perceiving it. Later Grinberg modified some aspects of his ideas and showed the utility of this concept to the comprehension of what occurred between the members of the analytical dyad. Both Racker and Grinberg described situations similar to actual ideas of enactment. These and other authors influenced Willy and Madeleine Baranger who, taking the Kleinian ideas as a basis, described the analytical field (Baranger & Baranger, 1961-62, 1969, 1980). Such an analytical field is a place/time that involves two people (analyst and patient) who are taking part in the same dynamic process, one in which neither member of the dyad is intelligible without reference to the other. Both constitute a structure named the unconscious phantasy of the dyad , that goes beyond the sum of the aspects of each participant. In this context, the Barangers described a product of the field named bastions . They occur when parts of the patient and parts of the analyst become intertwined, engulfed, in a defensive structure. The bastion may appear as a static foreign body, while the analytical process seems to be continuing to run its course, or it takes over the whole field, becoming pathological. The idea of bastion is close to the idea of chronic enactment (Cassorla, 2005). Owing to these developments, the Latin American psychoanalytical culture rapidly absorbed the concept of enactment. Conceptual clarification was further facilitated by
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