Unconscious phantasy: Some historical and conceptual dimensions

Abstract

This paper seeks firstly to grasp both conceptually and historically the different phenomenologies that are captured by the term 'Unconscious Phantasy'. The term is shown to refer to a number of distinct though overlapping conceptual domains. These include: phantasy as scene, phantasy as representation of drive, phantasy as representation of wish as its fulfilment, phantasy as split off activity of the mind functioning under the aegis of the pleasure principle; phantasy as representation of the minds own activities (which Wollheim calls' the way "the mind represents its own activities to itself''). Lastly unconscious phantasy is understood as being the basic foundation of all mental life, including drives, impulses, all anxiety situations and defences. Having mapped out this territory through following the development of the concept in the work of Freud and Klein, the author draws on the work of the philosopher Richard Wollheim who, the author contends, has made a fundamental contribution to our conceptual understanding of unconscious phantasy. In the last section of the paper, the author draws a distinction between what he terms 'objects' (namely psychic objects) and what he terms 'facts'. It is suggested that this distinction, though implicit in much of our work, benefits from being made explicit and that in so doing an important dimension of analytic work is illuminated. We aim to help the patient to discover what he is like, to understand the ways in which he conceives and misconceives himself, to unravel the fact-ness of himself and his world from its 'object qualities', to differentiate between unconscious phantasy and reality.

The Actualization of the Transplantation Complex on the Axis of Psychosomatic Totality—Results of a Qualitative Study

“…In general, unconscious fantasies form the central building blocks of psychic life and all interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, they also play a role in the development of psychopathological symptoms [ 24 , 40 , 41 ]. According to Melanie Klein [ 25 , 26 ], the child tries to get at the mother’s contents (milk) in an aggressive way, destructive in other circumstances, by e.g., biting her breast.…”

Frontiers in psychodynamic neuroscience

“…Conrad (2021), to whose work I am indebted, believes that "the drives no longer occupy a preeminent position in the psychoanalytic theoretical landscape" because many analysts think that they are "simultaneously too abstract and too simple to be a serviceable concept." Although, this may be true for some schools of psychoanalysis, there are also prominent analysts who have been of the opposite view, among them Segal (1985), Feldman (2000), Green (2015a), Bell (2017).…”

Интуиция: Опыт Формального Исследования

“…Кляйнианский психоаналитик Дэвид Белл (David Bell) выделил, в частности, такие разновидности (бессознательной) фантазии [79]: фантазия как репрезентация влечения; фантазия как репрезентация желания в качестве его осуществления; фантазия как отщепленная деятельность психики, функционирующей под эгидой принципа удовольствия; фантазия как репрезентация собственной деятельности психики; фантазия как базовое основание всей психической жизни, в том числе влечений, импульсов, всех ситуаций тревоги и защит. Фрейд противопоставил принцип удовольствия аналогичной концепции принципа реальности, который описывает способность откладывать удовлетворение желания, когда косвенная реальность не допускает его немедленного удовлетворения («Зрелость -это умение переносить боль отложенного удовлетворения»; Sigmund Freud's seminal paper Formulations of the Two Principles of Mental Functioning).…”