IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

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In the model proposed, the field has been taken over by emotional turbulence and catastrophes (Bion, 1976). Analyst and analysand are linked together by emotions and the field is in constant transformation, thus indicating the quality of the links and the forms of attacks on the links. Everything that happens to one of the members of the dyad has emotional repercussions for the other. The adventure of the analysis is stimulated in both members of the analytic dyad by the connections by love, desire to know, and hatred of suffering. These initial emotions give rise to further complex sets of emotional links named by the letters L (love), H (hatred) and K (knowledge), which influence one another and join together in many different ways. Inversely, their negativity (-L,-H,-K) attack the positive links (Bion, 1962b). Link K (instinct for knowledge) was hinted at by both Freud (1905) (Instinct for Knowledge) and Klein (1932) (Epistemological Instinct). Bion included this instinct among the emotions and this inclusion broadened the perception of the fields. As observation of the field develops, more complex, subtle and sophisticated combinations of the emotions are identified. One of the characteristics of the analytic field is its capacity to connect L and H to K or transform them into K so that knowledge can develop. To know oneself through analysis is an emotional process and each K attained is an ephemeral step in the search for ultimate reality (O). But O is never really attained, meaning that, from this vertex of observation, the analytic field is infinite. Dreaming goes on 24 hours a day just as other biological functions do, such as breathing and digestion. Dreaming is a “theater that generates meanings” (Meltzer, 1983), permanent unconscious dreaming, the content of which is manifest through daydreams and nocturnal dreams. These dreams, in turn, are constantly re-dreamed and the symbolic network and the capacity to think more abstract thoughts is expanded. Just as mothers do with their babies, analysts apply their capacity for reverie during sessions. When dreaming is possible, the analysand unconsciously dreams what is happening here and now in the analytic field. Through free association, the analysand then tells the analyst these dreams – which are deformed through defenses – by describing images, fantasies, feelings and ideas that come to mind as he or she freely associates. The narratives involve emotions and actions. Since the analysand is awake, secondary working through makes the narrative more or less organized, thus challenging the analyst’s skill, as the analyst himself is also transferentially included in these dreams. The analyst also dreams about what is happening in the analytic field. The asymmetry of the relationship turns the analyst into “the other” of the intersubjective relationship, and he or she re-dreams the analysand’s dreams, and dreams the emotional experiences that could not be dreamed. The careful observation shows that, at some moment, the analyst deals with “dreams- for-two”, that is, dreams that were created by the analytic dyad that includes facts beyond the individual dreams of each member of the dyad. Then, one can say that “the analytic dyad dreams both dreams and non-dreams that are part of the analytic field”. It can also be said that “the analytic field dreams the dreams and non-dreams that make it up”. It follows that the expansion of the ideas depends on the vertex used to observe the dreaming field. When the patient (or part of him) has not enough capacity to symbolize, he cannot dream and think. Non-symbolized sensorial and emotional stimuli are expelled through projective

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