Framework for the imaginary : clinical explorations in primitive states of being

330 Pages·2008·5.705 MB·English

by  Mitrani, Judith L., McDougall, Joyce

A FRAMEWORK
FOR THE IMAGINARY

A Framework
for the
Imaginary
Clinical Explorations in Primitive States
of Being
Judith Mitrani
Foreword by
Joyce McDougall
(cid:68)(cid:58)(cid:75)(cid:71)(cid:58)(cid:60)
First published in 1996 by Jason Aronson Inc.
This edition published in 2008 by
Karnac Books Ltd.
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2008 by Judith Mitrani
The rights of Judith Mitrani to be identified as the author of this work
have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
AC.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-85575-679-3
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
Dedicated to the
Treasured Memories
of
Harry David Stone
(1910-1989)
and
Frances Tustin
(1913-1994)
The Wind Beneath So Many Wings

Contents
Foreword by Joyce McDougall ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xv
Introduction to the Karnac Edition 2008
by Neville Symington xviii
1 Unintegration, Adhesive Identification,
and the Psychic Skin: Variations
on Some Themes by Esther Bick 1
2 On the Survival Function of Autistic Maneuvers
in Adult Patients 27
3 Notes on an Embryonic State of Mind 51
4 On the Survival Function
of Pathological Organizations 65
viii Contents
5 To Err Is Human: One Patient’s Emergence
from within a Pathological Organization 95
6 The Role of Unmentalized Experience in the Etiology
and Treatment of Psychosomatic Asthma 109
7 Examining a Fragment of a Fragment:
Freud’s “Dora” Case Revisited 141
8 On Adhesive Pseudo-Object Relations:
A Theory 151
9 On Adhesive Pseudo-Object Relations:
An Illustration 171
10 Toward an Understanding
of Unmentalized Experience 205
11 Deficiency and Envy: Some Factors
Impacting the Analytic Mind from
Listening to Interpretation 249
References 279
Credits 295
Author Index 297
Subject Index 301
Foreword
Those acquainted with Dr. Judith Mitrani’s published articles in various
international and American psychoanalytic journals will welcome this vol-
ume of her collected papers and will also have the pleasure of discovering
four chapters that are published here for the first time. Those who do not
yet know Dr. Mitrani’s work will engage in a delightful and insightful clin-
ical and theoretical voyage of discovery into the understanding and treat-
ment of primitive states of mind.
Mitrani, although inspired by the work of Klein, Bion, Tustin,
Winnicott, and other noted researchers of the British and American object
relations schools, offers, in a pioneering spirit, extensions not only of
Freud’s concept of anxiety equivalents, but also of many other psychoanalytic
conceptions in the area of primitive mental and protomental states.
Her conception of psychosomatic phenomena, particularly with regard
to respiratory illness, is ground-breaking in that she conceives of certain