Psychoanalysts often speak of the infant-mother unit as a model; in this “we” of the first group, the infant’s mind is born. The purpose of this paper is to bring this speculative imagination of pre-natal and neonatal life experiences and examine how this position of we-ness in the here and now of the session wakes us up to an attitude of implication.
To do this, I have chosen as my springboard to discuss the proximity and resonance between the conceptual language of Winnicott, Bion, and Merleau-Ponty—particularly the notion shared by these authors that “at the beginning was the we.” The capacious ‘we’ of the couple as a group (Winnicott and Bion), and the ‘we’ reveal by the “impossibility of the individual” in the words of Merleau-Ponty. Winnicott’s “I have never seen an infant” and Bion’s adopting groups’ basic assumptions as to his fundamental way of being in the world share with Merleau-Ponty a notion of radical intersubjectivity as a constitutive proto-mental embodied activity of the experiencing subject. “To perceive is to be perceived;” the perceived world is an indissoluble unity as if ‘perceived’ and ‘world’ jointly compose one hyphenated word, positing a conception of sensuous-understanding, in the creation of signification.
Cecilia Taiana, Ph.D. FIPA is the 2014 and 2017 recipient of the Dr. Douglas Levin Prize and the Dr. Miguel Prados Prize respectively awarded by the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society for two of her articles: “Mourning the Dead, Mourning the Disappeared: The Enigma of the Absent-presence,” and “Memory of the Process I: The role of day’s residues in the field of the session.” The first article was published in the IJP (December 2014) and the second will appear in JAPA (January 2021). Cecilia Taiana (Psychology) was trained in Buenos Aires, Paris, London and Ottawa. She is an analyst with the Ottawa Psychoanalytic Society and retired faculty (Social Work) Carleton University.
Photo credit: Cecilia Taiana “Installation exhibit, Italy.”
Learning Objectives
At the end of this program/session/event participants will be able to:
- Discuss theoretically the infantile roots of intersubjectivity and propose ways of conceiving and responding clinically to the more primitive aspects of our patients’ communications.
- Recognize and analyze the intersubjective nature of the session and further their conceptualization of pre-natal and neo-natal stages as constitutive parts of the psychoanalytic session.
- Develop strategies (competence) by entering the session as a field of radical intersubjectivity, where the field stands for the notion of multiple constituents and where “to perceive is to be perceived.”
- Learn to listen for the ‘we-ness’ of the session as an emergent property of the psychic reality of patient-analyst moments of unison.
READINGS: All course readings will be provided upon registration.
CANCELLATION POLICY: The withdrawal policy of the Extension Program allows a refund minus a 20% administration cost, up to one week before the first class, and no refund after the first meeting.
CONFIDENTIALITY: Confidential clinical material and commentary will be presented which registrants agree to treat with confidentiality.
PLANNING COMMITTEE: Karin Holland Biggs, Ph.D., FIPA. (Chair), Elizabeth Wallace, MD, FIPA
Readings
Registrants will be sent the readings:
- Winnicott, D.W. (1951/1971). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena, Playing and Reality. London: Penguin.
- Winnicott, D.W. (1975/1949). Mind and its Relation to the Psyche-Soma, Through Paediatrics to Psycho-Analysis. London: Basic Books
- Bion, W.R. (1948). Experiences in groups, Human Relations, vols. I-IV, 1948–1951, Reprinted in Experiences in Groups (1961).
- Bion, W.R. (1950). Experiences in Groups. Human Relations 3(1):3–14.
- Civitarese, G. (2014). Between “other” and “other”: Merleau-Ponty as a Precursor of the Analytic Field. Fort Da, 20(1):9-29.
