Wednesday, October 4, 2017

thing presentations

Lacan famously said the unconscious is structured like a language.

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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