Time and the <i>après‐coup</i>

Birksted‐Breen, Dana

doi:10.1516/1dm9-6x63-248b-u5f6

Cited by 96 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The power of therapy certainly takes place in the present time of the analyst–analysand encounter, but the experience of that present time is not only shaped and determined by the relations each of the participants had in his or her past, but shapes how they perceive that past and even rewrites it (retranscription). These après‐coup processes (deferred action) which construct meaning retroactively, have been described so well by Freud () and others like Modell (), Green (), Birksted‐Breen () and Pine (). Thus, our changing perception of the past, together with the content and processes that each session brings into being, create a new experience of the present which, in turn, serves as a new past for future moments.…”

Section: Time Dimensions In the Clinical Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Time Stood Still: Thoughts about Time in Primitive Mental States

Schellekes¹

2017

Brit J Psychotherapy

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Deciphering the way patients experience time provides an additional key to primitive mental areas which do not express themselves in the usual verbal or symbolic ways and can help us and our patients better understand these deep layers of the psyche. It is when the issue of time moves to the centre of experience as a separate and predominant aspect of existence, that there and then occurs a disturbance in our continuous and natural transition between various temporalities, one that often exposes an inner rupture, many times of a very early origin. The paper first focuses on a number of art works which portray attempts to deal with death anxiety by capturing the moment, or watching, controlling, organizing, cataloguing the movement of time as though such attempts could freeze time and make it endlessly prolongued. Second, theoretical aspects and clinical vignettes focus on understanding the experience of time as fractured and fragmented; on experiences of timelessness, and, on stereotypical, ritualistic, autistic-like relations to time, perceived as frozen still. In addition, conceptualizing the analyst/writer's experience of time in the presence of her patients provided a unique tool for expanding the understanding of the patients' internal world.

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Section: Time Dimensions In the Clinical Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Time Stood Still: Thoughts about Time in Primitive Mental States

Schellekes¹

2017

Brit J Psychotherapy

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“…In order to lessen his complete dependence on the psyche‐soma of the mother to attenuate and transform his primitive anxieties, the infant must tolerate her relative presence and absence as a temporal experience – it is how long she is away that matters. Time brings both distress and psychological maturity, and its first representative is space, where the object is not (Birksted‐Breen 2003). Time and space are inextricable and may be hated and feared when implying discontinuity and separation – ultimately death.…”

Section: Research Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Space for God: Religious Experience in Male Anglican Priests Who Have Sought Psychotherapy and/or Spiritual Direction

Bingham¹

2009

Brit J Psychotherapy

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In qualitative psychoanalytically‐informed research the author explores how the internal object‐representational world of six stipendiary male Anglican priests might illuminate the psychological significance of their relationship with God. Viewing personality development as a lifelong process permits a more synthetic view of existing theories of God as maternal object, transitional object or oedipal father. A relationship with God may reinforce a good relationship with primary objects, but when failures in maternal containment have resulted in disturbances of the spatio‐temporal organization of the infant's mind, new experience – including religious experience – will be superimposed on this distorted psychic substrate. When space‐centred thinking dominates, religious objects may offer exogenous structural support to the personality, but in the absence of transformative object relationships they will remain unassimilated. The priestly quest may sometimes be an attempt to establish or repair a triadic internal relationship with a maternal containing object and the symbolic father.

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“…Nevertheless, the equation of time with space captures an aspect of our subjective experience-that time is linear and we journey through it. Developmental time-or, in analysis, process time-is the essential background for the après coup reconstruction of the past (Birksted-Breen, 2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On Time and Deepening in Psychoanalysis

LaFarge

2014

Psychoanalytic Dialogues

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The metaphor of depth has most often been used in analytic thinking to denote extension in space or time. Depth, and its companion term deepening, may also be used to describe quality rather than distance; something is deep when it is serious or important. The deepening of analysis is linked to temporality but not in a linear way. Analysis deepens as it sets in motion a series of changes in the experience of time: The past comes alive and is worked through. Past and present come into a new relation with one another. The analytic frame and the rhythm of the exchange between patient and analyst also bring to life past experiences and fantasies to do with time. Both patient and analyst must enter a fluid time-state in order for deepening to occur. Clinical examples illustrate these dimensions of temporal experience and the way they emerge in the deepening analytic process.

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Time and the après‐coup

Cited by 96 publications

References 11 publications

When Time Stood Still: Thoughts about Time in Primitive Mental States

When Time Stood Still: Thoughts about Time in Primitive Mental States

Making Space for God: Religious Experience in Male Anglican Priests Who Have Sought Psychotherapy and/or Spiritual Direction

On Time and Deepening in Psychoanalysis

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