Freud did not and talked about thing presentations as being equal to word presentations. Words can become things (visual representations) in dreams and things can become words.
Freud, S. (1915). The Unconscious. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, 159-215
Freud, S. (1917). A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, 217-235
The ego is first a body-mind or psyche-soma and it doesn't think in words but in images/pictures/mimesis.
When one realizes this, then the associations and fantasies one produces with a patient as well as the zones in the body which register the repressed feelings or drives can be worked with somatically.
Round things (breasts) and long cylindrical things (penises) often show up to correspond to certain body zones and, as Klein pointed out, these things are phantasied as destroyed in various ways.
But fuller images and also representations of people in action also show up.
Here's a quick example, but many vignettes from previous posts already have such things in them too:
I’ve done assertiveness work with client and he reports that
some people in his life have been “shocked” with him saying no. I ask him what’s
going on in his life and he tells me he watched 'The Goonies' and he loves Data.
This develops into a theme of how client identifies as the person in his friend
group who has to have crazy ideas, music, or something to offer the others. He’s
not a full member but a cartoon character of sorts. He can’t just be there and
be a “person” but has to do something. However, as we go further into this
theme he brings up a friend, his “best friend,” who has no job, plays video
games all the time, and would just be alone if it wasn’t for him. I ask him
what he thinks would happen to him if client was no long in his life and he
says that he’d ‘disappear and go off the
grid”. Client goes into how he’s “the charismatic one” and his friend is the
asocial one, and gets into some more particulars of the relationship.
Afterwards I ask client how much this resembles the relationship with his
mother (who he had previously referred to as having been his best friend) and
if he was the asocial one with her. He said that she “tried to make him the
asocial one” but that he would talk and say things “with no filter” and that she’d
often “get butt hurt about it”. He suddenly adds “I talk to much” and “I need
to shut up”. I ask him to focus on this feeling and begin bilateral stimulation (BLS). He registers it in
his heart. I ask him to stay with the feeling and to see if it wants to develop
(get bigger, move, get smaller) and continue the BLS. He feels like it is the
same, so I ask him to project it out. He says it seems like a balloon on a bed
of nails. I ask him to explain and he says that a balloon on a nail will pop it
but when it is “10 nails” then it evens out the pressure and it doesn’t pop. I
ask him to pay attention to this set up and if the balloon just stays there,
resting on the nails, or if anything eventually happens. He stays still and
thinks and then slams his hand down on the desk signaling that the balloon will
be popped. I ask him where his attention goes, to the bed of nails or to the
left overs of the balloon. He says the latter and I ask him to picture the
deflated remnants and to see if they feel right in his heart or chest and begin
BLS. He signals that it feels right and he tells me that as it embeds there,
that it slowly begins stretching across his chest. I tell him to follow the
process to completion and he does.
I ask him what it feels like and he tells me that it reminds
him of when he gets in trouble and how his heart beats really hard. He also
tells me that when he talks with “no filter” that it’s a rush too, and maybe
even talking in general is a rush. We talk about the asocial side of him and
how he used to be quiet but he feared “becoming invisible”. He adds that “being
center of attention is cool” but that part of the issue is that he “doesn’t
like the quiet”. He suddenly switches gears and renames his asocial side the “timid”
side and talks about how as a kid that “even [his] birthdays were never about [him]”
He says that his parents invited over their friends and got drunk. He adds that
his parents friends were his friends and he didn’t have any his age. He adds
poetic phrases like “I don’t like living behind a curtain” and adds the he “doubt[s]
that anyone wants to talk to [him]; [he] just talks to talk”. I ask him to
focus on this feeling and he reports that his stomach feels “empty” I continue
the BLS and he says it is also a little painful and squeamish. I ask him to
imagine that someone sees him from the outside and how they might imagine he
looks and he says “sad” (with nothing else coming to mind). I ask him to put
these into object statements and he says that his grandpa comes to mind. He
tells me about how his grandpa is alone and no one visits him and that its sad.
I ask him to picture his grandpa looking this way and to see if a reaction
shows up in his body. He does so says it feels like “shit/garbage” in his
stomach. I ask him to stay with this feeling and see if it wants to develop. He
says no and I ask him to project it out. He tells me that it looks like an
asshole who is pissed off and screaming. I repeat asshole? He asks me if I know
Alex Jones and explains how he has a red face and begins to do an impression of
him saying that the tap water is making the frogs gay. I ask him to bring it in
and to see where it feels right. He says in the jaw and I continue the BLS. He
tells me his jaw “is straining super hard” and he opens it and I tell him to
stop and just to let the asshole fully embed. He eventually signals that it is
in and then I ask him what his body is doing with it now that it’s in. He tells
me that its being dissolved. I continue the BLS and he then signals that it’s
done. I ask him if there is any sense of well being or relief in his jaw and he
says yes and I ask him when he’s felt like this. He says in high school when he
felt like his opinion counted and he was listened to. He tells me that having
his opinion valued even though he didn’t have a BA was a big deal. I ask him to
let the memory soak in and anchor it.
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