Back to Table of Contents
The unrepresentable reiterates without the possibility of being repressed, and to be put into words, to become partially speakable or to constitute compromise formations. “There is an almost permanent presence in the psyche which prevents its transformation into absence, the latter being a precondition for inscription as a representation” (p.100). Berenstein also highlights what is called presentation. This refers to everything that is presented to an individual through the sense organs, including what is perceived of the other, which is modeled on early object relationships. He complements this approach with another aspect: “the new” in later relationships, that allows for the existence of links ( lo vincular , in Spanish original). For example, links pertaining to couples relations or to parent-child relations. He calls it: “establishing contact with the new” (p. 104). This contact with the new refers both to bonding relationships and to the influence of the cultural environment. It includes “What was previously inscribed, while its components will be ordered by a new term [= new link], which places them in an ensemble that previously did not exist... the new symbolic order makes them different and therefore their meaning also changes” (p.105). Thus, for Berenstein, symbolization is a process that remains active throughout life; in order to achieve new meanings it is necessary to create the opportunity for them to occur: "There was no place waiting for it" [in the intrapsychic world] and when a place is offered, it changes the meaning that existed up to that moment" (p.105). He states: “Two paths open from the trace and the inscription (in the psyche): that of unconscious representation and that of symbolization. The first recreates what can appear as an object created from the investments proposed to the other by the (subject’s) ego. In this way, the absence of the other...stands as a defense against what is perceived as foreign from the other, that which is not capable of representation” (p. 108). “The new” (p.105) refers to what did not have a previous inscription. This new path …initially does not include object relations. It is a symbolizing path in which new relationships or new parts of a relationship are included. It implies a psychic reorganization a posteriori, beyond childhood. For Berenstein, ‘the new’ may bring “a new symbolic order” (105). Symbolization process then requires the presence-absence of the other and originates both from the internal world, and also from the intersubjective world.
899
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online