Action, Fantasy and Language: Developmental Levels of Ego Organization in Communicating Drives and Affects

Santostefano, Sebastiano

doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-0492-1_15

Cited by 16 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…There is a good deal of agreement between cognitive researchers and psychoanalysts that the mind's earliest origins are in the body (Altman, 2002;Aron, 1993;Bucci, 2002;Fonagy et al, 1993Fonagy et al, , 2002Freedman, 1977;Lecours and Bouchard, 1997;Levenson, 1998;Piaget, 1947;Ross, 2003;Santostefano, 1977;Stern, 2002;Sugarman and Jaffe, 1990;Wolff, 1960). Regardless of whether one speaks of a body ego, procedural systems, or sensorimotor thinking, the essential point is 'the central role of body action in the early formation of psychic structure' (Freedman, 1977, p. 112).…”

Section: The Importance Of Mental Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead they are subordinated to and integrated within more advanced modes of organization (Sandler and Joffe, 1967;Santostefano, 1977;Talvitie and Ihanus, 2002). Regression, as an explanation of psychopathology, must shift its emphasis using this perspective.…”

Section: The Importance Of Mental Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, some argue that optimal functioning and self-regulation require an easy but controllable ebb and fl ow between levels of mentalization (Lecours and Bouchard, 1997), while others argue for the value of subordinating as much mentalizing as possible to the verbal, symbolic mode (Altman, 2002;Ross, 2003). And some believe that implicit, procedural, or action modes of knowing can be directly refl ected upon (Ross, 2003) and subordinated to explicit, declarative, and symbolic mentalization (Lecours and Bouchard, 1997;Santostefano, 1977), while others argue that it is impossible to subject these earlier modes of organization directly to mature insightfulness (Talvitie and Ihanus, 2002) or that primitive mentalizing cannot be literally superseded by mature mentalizing so that, instead, one should aim to integrate the action mode, not replace it (Bucci, 2002). Resolving these subtle disagreements can await further research.…”

Section: The Importance Of Mental Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…'Developmental help facilitates a better synthesis of developmentally acquired organizations which were pathologically established' (Daldin, 1994, p. 523). However, it is becoming far more common to accept that experience or knowledge organized at less symbolic levels can be worked with analytically (Altman, 2002;Friedman, 2002;Lecours and Bouchard, 1997;Process of Change Study Group [PCSG], 1998;Ross, 2003;Santostefano, 1977;Talvitie and Ihanus, 2002).…”

Section: Implications For Analytic Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

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Mentalization, insightfulness, and therapeutic action: The importance of mental organization

Sugarman

2006

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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Section: The Importance Of Mental Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Mental Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Mental Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Analytic Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Mentalization, insightfulness, and therapeutic action: The importance of mental organization

Sugarman

2006

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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“…It is the acquisition of this key mental function, more than the awareness of any particular mental content, that is the emphasis of this approach. To the degree that the mind and its functions originate in the body, progress through fantasy, and eventually coalesce around verbal, symbolic modes (Santostefano 1977), our goal is to facilitate this developmental progression (Bion 1962;Lecours 2007;Sugarman 2006bSugarman , 2008.…”

Section: What Is Conscious Self-reflection In Child Analysis?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of Play to Promote Insightfulness in the Analysis of Children Suffering from Cumulative Trauma

Sugarman¹

2008

The Psychoanalytic Quarterly

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Psychoanalytic opinion continues to be dichotomized in regard to the role of trauma versus intrapsychic conflict as contributing to pathogenesis. This paper emphasizes the importance of conflict in both the experience and processing of trauma, so that problems in talking about it and processing it verbally are taken as evidence of conflict and defense. Cumulative trauma and its analysis in children are emphasized. While children in analysis find remembering and talking about their traumas difficult, they can know such experiences and modulate the anxiety of knowing when they do so in play. A clinical vignette is presented to demonstrate this way of using play to promote more advanced mentalization or insightfulness.

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Clinical child psychology: The need for developmental principles

Santostefano

1980

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

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Clinical child psychology is in dire need of advances in diagnoses and treatment. The author suggests several ways this goal can be achieved through the application of developmental psychology. Clinical Child Psychology: The Need for Developmental Principles Sebastiano SantostefanoThe clinical child psychologist is in dire need of advances in diagnostic and treatment techniques and in concepts that guide what-is observed and how to understand these observations. Compared to earlier clinicians who worked primarily in child guidance clinics and with children suffering from neuroses, the clinician today confronts a broader array of ages and social-psychological problems. For example, the clinician may see a six-year-old who is hyperactive and restless with no organic cause, a twelve-year-old who has been a slow learner since the first grade in spite of adequate intelligence, and a fifteen-year-old who, although usually shy and passive, occasionally explodes in violence.Approaching these problems with the techniques they have inherited, clinicians are finding more and more that diagnostic methods (traditional intelligence, perceptual, and projective tests) and treatment methods (psychotherapy) are insufficient. Clinicians find, for example, that the aggression an adolescent shows on projective tests does not always correspond to the aggression he or she shows in the school yard and that the learning disability handicapping a child does not always respond to psychotherapy. New Directionrfm Child Deuelopmmt, 7, 19801 2 How should the clinician proceed to search for technological advances? The recommendation made here is that the child clinical psychologist introduce developmental principles into clinical concepts and techniques. At first glance this recommendation may appear strange. Is clinical child psychology not synonymous with developmental psychology? If a psychologist works with children, is the work not routinely conducted through the lens of developmental psychology? The answer to both questions is no.

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Action, Fantasy and Language: Developmental Levels of Ego Organization in Communicating Drives and Affects

Cited by 16 publications

References 8 publications

Mentalization, insightfulness, and therapeutic action: The importance of mental organization

Mentalization, insightfulness, and therapeutic action: The importance of mental organization

The Use of Play to Promote Insightfulness in the Analysis of Children Suffering from Cumulative Trauma

Clinical child psychology: The need for developmental principles

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