The Unconscious as Infinite Sets

Some Thoughts on Psychic Retreats

“…These are all different forms of the kind of annihilatory anxieties Carvalho describes. In Carvalho's analysis of the characteristics of uncontained affect and its terrors, he refers to Matte Blanco's theory of the five strata of consciousness (1975, 1988); and Matte Blanco's ideas can also make sense of the phenomena as seen from the perspective of second skin defences. Matte Blanco's strata begin with the logically coherent stratum 1, the stratum of distinct, well defined objects where, because there is asymmetry, coherent logical thought which requires one thing to be distinct from another, can exist.…”

Understanding Dunblane and Other Massacres

“…When one of the points of the triangle collapses, there is then a reversion to the straight line of the dyad characteristic of the paranoid–schizoid position. In making this analysis, he draws on the work of Gerald Wooster and Ignacio Matte‐Blanco (). In particular, he draws on the concepts of asymmetry and symmetry developed by the latter.…”

Winnicott redux: a reply to Saban

“…Accordingly, Saban has written in partially rhetorical mode so it is no surprise, given the confines of a single paper, that some of the detail of that which he tilts against has been lost. In particular, given Saban's chosen focus on the themes of splitting and dissociation, it is a regret that the element that he has given least attention to in his critique is the very one that seems most important to me – and that is the contribution of Matte Blanco () to all this.…”

“…Essentially Matte Blanco () expanded Freud's original insight that it was the nature of dream ‘logic’ – displacement, non‐contradiction, condensation etc. – to dissolve the usual boundaries; he deemed it the symmetricizing mode, which he saw as operating in creative tension with its counterpart, the asymmetricizing, differentiating, waking logic of everyday life.…”

“…To frame this issue within a favoured metaphor/concept of Matte Blanco's (), what is at issue here is the set (in its mathematical sense) of that which might be experienced as containing. So, if the original member (the archetype) of the ‘containing set’ is mother and maternal reverie – with its attendant sense of belonging, feeling supported, and having experience mediated by – then we can see how other scenarios, partaking of these characteristics, might well be subsequently co‐opted as members of the desired set (manifestations of the archetype if you like).…”