Transference, metaphor and the poetics of psychoanalysis

Book Reviews

“…The same can be said about transference, discussed at length in Enckell (1999). The analysand will pick up elements from perception but arrange them in a way that is speci c to him.…”

“…Henrik Enckell, well known to Scandinavian readers as previous editor in chief of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, has carried out a study which distinguishes itself by being systematic and in many ways innovatory for psychoanalytic theory and practice. The dissertation consists of an introductory part and four papers (Enckell, 1999(Enckell, , 2001a(Enckell, , 2001bEnckell and Campbell, 2001).…”

Poetics contra Psychoanalysis

“…Trauma risks becoming a catch-all term to explain, for readers who see everything as representations, anything which is not represented. What has resulted from this metaphor in analytic practice (Jacobus 2005;Szajnberg 1997;Ingram 1996;Enckell 1999;Civitarese and Ferro 2013). But cases in which literary concepts are "applied" to the material of psychoanalysis or vice versa (as one "applies" a hammer to a nail), do not constitute the exception but the rule.…”

Towards a “full” language. Concerning bodily aspects in the psychoanalytic talking cure1,2

“…I think these images became important in Nina's process of establishing contact between words and what Loewald calls "bodily concreteness and power of life". Many analysts have discussed the place of figurative and pictorial thinking in psychoanalysis and the importance of metaphorical language, in Scandinavia among them Anthi (1983), Gammelgaard (1998) and Enckell (1999). I cannot in this context give an account of the many significant theoretical and clinical contributions to the question at hand, and I will in my further discussion stick to the more general terms image and figurative thinking and to Sigmund Freud's theories.…”