The Ego and the Id: Concepts and developments

In this note I have limited myself to describing some convergent and divergent developments arising from the innovative concepts present in The Ego and the Id. It could be argued that a part of the psychoanalytic movement wished to emphasize the function of the Ego (Anna Freud, Hartmann, Rapaport), while another part (Melanie Klein and her followers) delved into the dynamics of the Superego and the Id in primitive and pathological states of mind. I will examine three themes presents in The Ego and the Id: the assertion that a part of the Ego is unconscious; the idea that the death drive becomes part of the dynamics of melancholia and its Superego; the concept of fusion and defusion of the life and death instinct. Freud's writing represents a forge of new ideas that have made psychoanalysis ever more creative and capable of understanding the complexity and mysteriousness of the human mind.

"The Ego and the Id": How and why Freud transformed his model of the mind

This paper argues that, despite its title, "The Ego and the Id" can be seen as the book of the superego, and although it is a metapsychological work, Freud's introduction of the new conceptual tools provided by the structural model was a response to the clinical problems he faced. The implications of Freud's introduction of the superego for the analytic relationship are discussed, with an attempt to deepen our understanding of what he had in mind by reading "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" alongside "The Ego and the Id". Finally, the paper draws on Bion to consider the implications of this remodelling of the analytic scene for listening and interpretation.

Passivity as a defence and disguised destructiveness

In this paper, I set out to describe the different viewpoints, conceptualisations and defence mechanisms of the state of passivity; the categorisation by Freud; how the perspective of his thinking was altered by later insights and clinical observations; the close connection between the superego, passivity and masochism; the significance of the internal object world for Melanie Klein; countertransference as a means of access to masochism and destructiveness, with the aid of a short case illustration; and, finally, Betty Joseph's clinical experiences in work with her patients.

The Subject of the Dialectic: Some Consequences of Freud's Bisexuality Thesis

On the basis of a previous reading (Olver, 2023) of Freud's work that reveals a bisexuality thesis, the author discusses several interrelated consequences of this thesis, including the nature of desire and primal unity, a restatement of shame, the semiotic model, and the emergence of society and the economy with reference to the ego and the superego. These consequences together encapsulate and describe the dialectic of the subject. The author shows how dialectic movement is arrested by various acts of nomination, most notably the nomination of heterosexuality in the forms of sexual reproduction and financial profit that become social and economic master values in modernity. Only by keeping the dialectic open can the subject do justice to its inherent and revolutionary bisexual nature, not in the sense of transgression but rather in pursuit of the nonnomination that is the permanent becoming of a dialectic self.

Authority And Freedom

Authority and freedom are connected, and both have external and internal forms. External authority, political or institutional, can impinge on internal freedom in ways that matter to psychoanalysts. Internal freedom requires an internal authority that can be trusted. The superego is an external authority masquerading as an internal one. The ego, with its compliance toward the id, the superego, and external reality, operates like a false self in the psyche. In Lacanian terms, it is of necessity alienated from itself. By contrast, the true self as described by Winnicott, and the "subject" as theorized especially in French psychoanalysis, represent an authentic conscience that allows us to become the authors of our at one's authority. This implies two sorts of freedom: freedom from narcissistic self-investment, and the forward-looking freedom of psychic growth. The latter occurs only in a context of relatedness to others, and it entails caring for the interests of others-if necessary at one's own expense. This vision of human beings as having an innate impetus toward psychic growth makes psychoanalysis a fundamentally optimistic endeavor. Clinical and nonclinical examples show, however, that it demands a perpetual readiness to let go of apparent certainties.

Reading Loewald: Oedipus reconceived

Loewald's 'Waning of the Oedipus complex' is a watershed paper in the history of psychoanalytic thought. By means of a close reading of Loewald's paper, the author frames, discusses and clinically illustrates his understanding of Loewald's reconceptualization of the Oedipus complex. The principal elements of Loewald's reformulation include: 1) the idea that the tension between the pressures of parental infl uence and the child's innate need to establish his own capacities for originality lies at the core of the Oedipus complex; 2) the notion that oedipal parricide is driven, most fundamentally, by the child's 'urge for emancipation.' Parricide involves a revolt against, and an appropriation of, parental authority; 3) the idea that the child atones for the act of parricide by internalizing a transformed version of the child's experience of the oedipal parents. This results in an alteration of the very structure of the child's self (i.e. in the formation of the superego as the agency of autonomy and responsibility); 4) the notion that, in the child's appropriation of parental authority, he in reality 'kill[s] something vital in them...[thus] contributing to their dying' and to the succession of generations; and 5) the idea that the incestuous component of the Oedipus complex involves, in health, the creation of a transitional incestuous object relationship which, over the course of one's life, mediates the interplay between undifferentiated and differentiated aspects of self and relatedness to others. The author concludes with a comparison of Freud's and Loewald's conceptions of the Oedipus complex.

Beyond Nature and Culture: Fromm's Existentialism

Though commonly seen as a member of the so-called "culturistic" school of psychoanalysis that rejected Freudian drive theory and embraced an "oversocialized" conception of human nature, Fromm's qualified essentialism and neo-Marxist existentialism significantly transcend both biological and social determinism (although he succumbs to the latter in regard to his theory of the Oedipus complex). His existential Freudo-Marxism contributes to the integration of psychoanalysis and social science. In place of the authoritarian superego and the pseudo-objective stance of the classical Freudians, Fromm offers conscientious, egalitarian, personalistic, and humane values.

Psychoanalysis and the law

The paper discusses Freud's view of the law as the implementation of collective violence on the individual violator. I focus on the implications of the link between the superego (as the source of moral judgment) and the aggressive drive and suggest that we need to be ever vigilant regarding the danger of employing the law as a disguised means of taking pleasure in collective violence. The paper also discusses Freud's conception of personal responsibility, according to which we are responsible for all our behavior, including unconsciously motivated behavior (such as slips and dreams). However, the kind of responsibility Freud has in mind is not the moral responsibility of blameworthiness or praiseworthiness, but rather responsibility in the sense that, whether or not acknowledged, all our behavior reflects our personal desires and motives.

Differences in Attribution of Impulse (Id), Ego and Superego Functions to Male and Female Photographs

The response data for a new Photo-Analysis test, comparable to those for Dombrose and Slobin's subtest of the IES Test, were analyzed for sex differences in stimulus content. Male photographs elicited significantly more impulse and fewer ego responses than female photographs from both male and female Ss, as predicted. Although the superego scores were not significantly different, they were in the predicted direction.

Comparison of Impulse, EGO, and Superego Functions in Better Adjusted and More Poorly Adjusted Delinquent Adolescent Girls

Dombrose and Slobin's IES Test was given to a group of ‘high’ adjusted and a group of ‘low’ adjusted delinquent girls. It was predicted that the ‘high’ adjusted group would make more ego and superego responses and fewer impulse responses than the ‘low’ adjusted group. No significant differences were found between the two groups.

Defenses and morality: Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, and contemporary psychoanalysis

In this paper we follow the development and transmission of moral learning from Adam Smith's impartial spectator to Sigmund Freud's superego and then to contemporary psychoanalysis. We argue that defenses are an integral component in the acquisition of any moral system. Elaborating on this argument, we assert that there is a progression from defensive systems that are "closed" to defensive systems that are "open," as defined in a recent work by Novick and Novick. The former system is "static, avoids reality, and is characterized by power dynamics, sadomasochism, and omnipotent defense." The latter, on the other hand, is a system that allows for "joy, creativity, spontaneity, love and it is attuned to reality." Furthermore, while Smith and Freud's systems are more one-person systems of defense, contemporary psychoanalysis has moved to more of a two-person system.

My conversations with the superego and the ego: an experimental approach to psychotherapy technique

The author traces the history of superego theories in Freud's work and shows how latter contributions to psychoanalytic theory by Gray, the Novicks, and Arlow have provided theoretical foundations for innovative treatments in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Arlow's insight into the continuous debates and discussions within our patients provides us with an opportunity to join in these discussions. Vignettes from two mildly obesssional male patients seen twice and twice a week provide demonstrations of this approach in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

[Concepts of the borderline personality disorders]

For many years, the borderline personality disorders have mainly been researched in terms of psychoanalytical theories, such as theories on relations with the object. Nowadays, there are three kinds of concepts that are distinguishable. The first ones are those which are group models, serving attempts to made characteristic sets of qualities, represented by individuals suffering from the borderline personality disorders, more precise. The remaining concepts are models of conflict and deficit, which explain complicated mechanisms of interactions of social, psychological and biological factors, and therefore, contribute to better understanding of the genesis of the symptoms of this disorder. Upon the basis of the attempts made so far in the field of describing the borderline personality disorders, one may indicate certain criteria, representative for the entire group of individuals with this diagnosis, regardless of the assumptions applicable to the genesis of the disorder and its symptoms, even though the population of the infirm suffering from the borderline personality disorders is not internally homogenous. The interest of psychologists, attempting to describe the borderline personality disorders, is focused upon certain sets of qualities, presented as the examples of descriptive models. Among the researchers, working on the issues of the borderline personality disorders in this manner, there are: Gunderson, Kernberg, Kohut, Winnicot, Guntrip, Fairbaim, Adler and Buie.

The sexual couple: a psychoanalytic exploration

Even an originally revolutionary movement like psychoanalysis can become conservative and can take refuge, at last, in reactionary acquiescence. Many revolutionary minds, fighters of yesterday, are tired and now rest their cause on dogmas and preconceived ideas. The progress of science does not tolerate such refuge. The shape of psychoanalysis around the year 2000 of our era will be very different from the concept of the New York Psychoanalytical Society of 1945. No prophetic gift is needed to predict that it will be much more occupied with the total human personality than with the sexual components. The picture of psychoanalysis in the year 2000 will, I am sure, be nearer to that which neo-psychoanalysis sketches then to that of libido theory. It will be recognized then that the crude sex-drive cannot have the power attributed to it by Freud and that early mixtures of sexual and non-sexual urges are clearly to be observed in those very phenomena which impress us as "purely" sexual." (Reik, 1945).

Super-ego in patients with coronary artery disease

In this paper, we explored the super-ego ofpatients with coronary artery disease. Research results have confirmed the initial hypothesis that a significant number of patients with coronary artery disease has rigorous super-ego. Among patients with coronary artery disease (N=50), and control group (N=50), we have found significant differences in the quality of super-ego and ego attitude towards the demands of the super-ego. The results of this research contribute to understanding the impact of psychological factors in coronary artery disease.

"In pursuit of the Nazi mind?" The deployment of psychoanalysis in the Allied struggle against Germany

This paper discusses how psychoanalytic ideas were brought to bear in the Allied struggle against the Third Reich and explores some of the claims that were made about this endeavour. It shows how a variety of studies of Fascist psychopathology, centered on the concept of superego, were mobilized in military intelligence, postwar planning and policy recommendations for "denazification." Freud's ideas were sometimes championed by particular army doctors and government planners; at other times they were combined with, or displaced by, competing, psychiatric and psychological forms of treatment and diverse studies of the Fascist "personality." This is illustrated through a discussion of the treatment and interpretation of the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess, after his arrival in Britain in 1941.

Otherness in interior identity: a reflection about the Freudian concepts of unconscious, superego, and id

Theoretical, psychoanalytical constructs referring to the unconscious, the superego, and id, enjoy an autonomy within the I. As such, this study contemplates the discussion of these foreign entities that inhabit the interior of the I, producing an effect of foreignness. In the first section, I will develop a reflection on the state of foreignness of the unconscious. I will begin with an analogy used by Freud, which addresses the thesis of universality of consciousness with the psychoanalytical thesis of the subconscience within the I. Affirmation of consciousness in the other may be used analogously for affirm the idea of another inhabiting our own being. I shall continue, seeking to understand how the process of unconscious repression produces the effect of foreignness. The idea of a moral censor present in the entity of the superego constitutes the theme of the second section. The superego follows the principle of otherness in its constitution and in its effects on the I. Finally, a reflection on the dimension of otherness in the Id seems urgent to me, as with this concept, Freud radicalized in the idea of the foreign as the origin of the subject.

Mother, melancholia, and humor in Erik H. Erikson's earliest writings

Erik H. Erikson wrote three articles when he was in his late-twenties and an up-and-coming member of the psychoanalytic community in Vienna. At the time he wrote these articles, he was in a training psychoanalysis with Anna Freud, teaching at the Heitzing School in Vienna, and learning the Montessori method of teaching. These articles focus on the loss of primary narcissism and the development of the superego (or punitive conscience) in early childhood, especially through the child's conflict with maternal authority. They support the idea that melancholia, with its internalized rage against the mother, is the inevitable outcome of the loss of primary narcissism. I note, however, that the third of these articles makes a case for the restorative role of humor, especially when Freud's view that humor is a function of the superego is taken into account.

On evading analysis by becoming an analyst

This paper considers what implications Bion's famous anecdote about 'some patients getting better and others going on to become psycho-analysts' might have in clinical practice. It explores key stages in the post-qualification analyses of three practitioners whose training analyses had left them qualified but restless and dissatisfied with their ongoing work. It suggests that a significant common factor in these unsatisfactory outcomes was the weakness of these analysands' egos, understood as their inability to enjoy coniunctios, and their profound fear of accessing the source of the problem. This had led to an unwitting investment in spurious super-ego driven alternatives such as professional qualification rather than face the initially bleak realization (of 'nameless dread') that could initiate analysis and individuation. Because of the containment and reward implicit in the training environment it is argued that training analysts--despite their experience and expertise--remain vulnerable to being recruited into an ameliorative fantasy that blocks the transference and inhibits development.

The superego, narcissism and Great Expectations

The author notes that the concepts of the superego and narcissism were linked at conception and that superego pathology may be seen as a determining factor in the formation of a narcissistic disorder; thus an examination of the superego can function as a "biopsy", indicating the condition of the personality as a whole. Charles Dickens's novel "Great Expectations" is presented as a penetrating exploration of these themes and it is argued that in Pip, the central character, Dickens provides a perceptive study of the history of a narcissistic condition. Other key figures in the book are understood as superego representations and, as such, integral to the vicissitudes of Pip's development. In particular, the lawyer Jaggers is considered as an illustration of Bion's notion of the "ego-destructive superego". In the course of the paper, the author suggests that Great Expectations affirms the psychoanalytic understanding that emotional growth and some recovery from narcissistic difficulties necessarily take place alongside modification of the superego, allowing for responsible knowledge of the state of the object and the possibility of realistic reparation.

What if there is an ethical dimension in psychoanalysis?

The implications of an ethical dimension in psychoanalysis are explored, together with the questions whether and in what sense analysis has anything to contribute to ethical reflection, and whether and in what sense ethical considerations can play a role in analytic theory and process. As regards theory, analytic construction of an ethical agent would require a refocusing of structural and dynamic considerations in order to provide an integrative source of decision-making capacity to serve as the responsible agent in ethical deliberation, choice, and action. Suggestions are made for formulating the nature of the ethical agent in terms of a theory of motivation rather than of drive, and in terms of an integrative theory of the self. To the extent that analysis involves ethical considerations, the way lies open for dialogue and mutually enriching contributions of analysis to ethics and vice versa. Various aspects of the analytic perspective are explored that in themselves carry ethical implications or can be enriched by ethical reflection. Beyond theoretical considerations, the interaction between ethical factors and genetic, structural, and dynamic issues in clinical psychoanalysis loom as matters for future exploration.

Communicating with the schizophrenic superego revisited: a new technique

Developing from the author's prior work in which the patient's superego is conceived as more accessible to consciousness than generally believed, this article undertakes greater illumination of technical matters arising in the clinical circumstance. Directly and firmly addressing the superego of the psychotic patient is regarded as having immediate therapeutic benefit, rendering the ego stronger and leading to increased rationality and firmer sense of identity.

[The concept analysis of ego-integrity in the elderly]

PURPOSE

Ego-integrity in Erikson's stage theory is used frequently among health team members related to the care of the elderly and has specific meanings within the context of quality of life in later life. However, the concept of ego-integrity in the elderly has not been well articulated in the literature. This study was conducted clarify and conceptualize the phenomena of ego-integrity in the elderly.

METHOD

A Hybrid Model of concept development was applied to develop a concept of ego-integrity, which included a field study carried out in Seoul, South Korea using in-depth interviews with old adults who were admitted as a right person for research subject according to attributes of ego-integrity analysed in the theoretical phase.

RESULTS

The concept of ego-integrity emerged as a complex phenomenon having meanings in several different dimensions which encompassed several attributes.

CONCLUSIONS

Ego-integrity is a concept having needs that should be treated in a specific way and it is possible to enrich the meaning and methods to manage ego-integrity in nursing interventions for promoting quality of life so that its application may have effects that have positive impacts on the elderly's well being.

The Invention of Purgatory

Stoppard (1998) in his great play "The Invention of Love" has suggested that the love poem "Like everything else, like clocks and trousers and algebra . . had to be invented" (emphasis added). In this essay I argue that the concept of Purgatory was not always with us either but also had to be invented. If theology got the concept started, I suggest that eventually it may have found its way into psychology, even influencing psychoanalytic ideas about the origins of the Superego. If the concepts Heaven and Hell reflect primitive Superego absolutes, the concept of Purgatory seems like the primitive Superego modulating its own severity and becoming more mature in the process. This influence of a theological concept (Purgatory) on a psychoanalytic concept (Superego) is then outlined and explicated in some detail.

Paul Gray's narrowing scope: a "developmental lag" in his theory and technique

A cental thesis of Paul Gray's work is that a "developmental lag" pervades modern psychoanalysis in its failure to assimilate and apply knowledge gained about the role of the unconscious ego in intrapsychic life. But Gray himself, it is proposed, has become a victim of a new "developmental lag," of his own construction. As he somewhat single-mindedly pursued the ramifications of his "developmental lag" concept, Gray may have foreclosed on some noteworthy ideas developing around him. The most important example is his claim--herein refuted--that proper interpretive technique can avoid being infused with transference. He also seems to have rejected the theoretical importance of the internalization of the analyst and the clinical usefulness of countertransference. While emphasizing defense analysis, he ignores defenses such as splitting, denial, and disavowal as substantive problems for his technique of close-process attention. Gray's "undoing" of the rapprochement between "ego analysis" and "id analysis" by viewing the matter as an either-or proposition undermines the very real value of his contribution to the field.

[So-called complex ego-functions, psychic cross findings and valuation of efficiency in medical expert assessment of psychogenic diseases]

Medical expert assessment of a disease-induced disability requires the integrative examination of own and outside anamnestic data, file content and psychic cross-findings received in the assessment interview, if necessary completed by results of psychologic testing. The measure of disability with regard to psychogenic diseases is the impairment of the so-called complex ego-functions because they make it possible to judge someone's will which is available to overcome his inhibitions concerning achievement. This case report describes how to determine and present an impairment of complex ego-functions on the finding level. It is the author's view that it is desirable to operationalise this way of receiving findings with the aim of achieving obligatory criteria for granting payment to every insured person.

Latency of auditory P300 correlates with self-control as measured by the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

The reception, processing, and storage of information about experience define personality. The present study investigated the relationship between auditory event-related potentials (AERP) and personality traits. The AERP were recorded using a standard auditory oddball paradigm, and personality was evaluated by Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) in 20 healthy young male subjects. The P300 latency was found to be significantly associated with rule consciousness (factor G in the 16PF), perfectionism (factor Q3), and self-control (factor SC): it was negatively correlated with G score (r = -0.56, P = 0.01), Q3 score (r = -0.67, P = 0.001), and SC score (r = -0.65, P = 0.002). Moreover, the P300 amplitude and N100 amplitude were negatively correlated with reasoning (factor B; r = -0.46, P = 0.044; and r = -0.72, P = 0.002, respectively). These results indicate that the personality traits of self-control, perfectionism, high superego, and reasoning are related to information processing in the brain.

Haunted by parents--a literary example of change meaning loss: Edna St. Vincent Millay

The author uses the life and personal history of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, as revealed through her diaries and letters and in biographies, to illustrate a particular type of psychoanalytic patient. Such patients are resistant to change, particularly when it involves letting go of the internalization of early parental figures. Although some of these patients fail to achieve successful analytic outcomes, Millay is an example of someone with similar circumstances who nevertheless made significant creative contributions.

[From the preoedipal to the oedipal: Kafka as an example of the problems of transition from dyadic to triangular relationships]

In early childhood, the mother is the primary object of the child's dyadic relationship, and mother and child form a unity together. In the oedipal period, however, the father enters this dyadic unity, and it is with his entry that the dyad becomes triangular and begins to incorporate features of a triangular relationship. In some cases the father may even replace the mother, thereby reducing the mother's relevance. Kafka is an interesting example of this unusual case. In addition, a close look at Kafka's psychopathology facilitates a better understanding of the interdependency of preoedipal, oedipal and adolescent stages. A psychoanalytic approach to Kafka reveals severe disturbances of these major developmental steps, which, on their part, impede the development of Kafka's individual identity. It is against this background that Kafka's author identity will be analysed in greater detail, by regarding representations of separatedness, continuity, and originality in his literary work to be expressions of his author identity. One further assumption of this paper is that Kafka's ideal self and superego are not separate from each other. His feelings of guilt, shame and fear demonstrate that these instances are very much intertwined and not distinct from each other. The reader's emotional agony while reading some of Kafka's work signalizes that Kafka's ideal self and superego form a unity together. Psychoanalysts, however, commonly accept that, in normal development, ideal self and superego should become separate entities, and continue their activities separately. It seems as though Kafka's ideal self and superego have not gained sovereignty yet, and likewise, it is difficult to separate the son's superego or ideal self from his father's.

Changing patterns of femininity: psychoanalytic implications

The social status and gender-role behavior of women has changed periodically over history, depending on a variety of socio-cultural, economic, and religious factors. Classical psychoanalytic views concerning "normal" feminine psychology and sexuality, based on Freud's original postulates were derived from his experiences and observations as a late-19th and early-20th century middle-European male. This article explores the errors involved in these traditional hypotheses concerning "penis envy," "normal" feminine masochism and passivity, female super-ego development and female psychosexuality, including orgasm and gender-role behavior.

The "incompatible idea" revisited: the oft-invisible ego-ideal and shame dynamics

The observation that incompatibility with conscience initiates deployment of defense goes back to Freud's conceptualization of the "incompatible idea" put forward in Studies on Hysteria. In this view, consciousness itself, insofar as it gives rise to painful affect resulting from conflict with the conscience, is the cornerstone for dynamic thinking, first as regards repression of traumatic memory and later for dynamic thinking generally. Subsequent discoveries about the conscience tended to give rise to pars pro toto thinking in which the new discovery replaced rather than added to the basic notion of conscience. Such pars pro toto imbalance exists in full force in psychoanalytic thinking today: Modern conflict theory privileges the postoedipal retaliative aspect of the conscience, as Kleinian thinking does for the preoedipal projective aspects of retaliation. Neither conceptualizes shame adequately. Kohut appreciated the role of shame, but discarded the notion of incompatibility with the ego-ideal. The incompatible idea model still provides an all-inclusive model for conceptualizing the conscience in the context of intrapsychic conflict.

In her mother's voice: reflections on "femininity" and the superego

For some female analysands the anxiety generated by superego conflict stimulated by aggressive and creative wishes may be warded off by invoking representations of the archaic all-powerful, limit-setting mother. To understand this clinical phenomenon in terms of a specific kind of female superego vulnerability is to miss the possibility that the fantasy of being mother's good little girl may be employed in the service of concealing the analysand's wishes and capacity for creative and destructive power. In the analytic hour we see transformed aspects of the analysand's past that are useful to the mind in its current operations. Representations of the mother and the archaic maternal imago are neither reflections of the past as it was, nor are they monolithic. These maternal representations may reverberate with adult memories of the past, but that remembered experience is a constructed one, constructed to serve particular mental operations. As these apparently remembered constructions arise in the current hour we need to remember that the present is the present, with its immediate desires and conflicts that the mind is attempting to represent. The past as it appears in the present is a new creation and, like the transference, a mutual creation of the analysand with her analyst.

The superego. Its formation, structure, and functioning

In this paper the theory of the superego is explored from the point of view of ego psychology. It traces the historical background in Freud's original contributions and the more contemporary understanding of the forces at work in the formation of this new psychic structure as they come together at a unique point in development, the oedipal phase. Superego functions are delineated, and precursors of superego functioning are differentiated from the functioning of the superego proper. Some attention is paid to the distinctions between ego and superego identifications, and between guilt and shame. Some clinical illustrations are included.

The experience of borderline phenomena through cinema: Guentin Tarantino's Reservoir dogs, true romance, and pulp fiction

The experience of many patients with borderline personality is intense and kaleidoscopic. These qualities may be represented in film in ways that reflect and convey their essential features that are less readily captured in words. Quentin Tarantino has produced a trilogy of films that bring to light and to life the borderline experience. We use these movies to illustrate and discuss five key borderline themes: the fluid nature of drive derivatives, the discontinuous experience of time and space, the coniflicted search for an idealized parent, antisocial distortions of the superego, and the organizing and stabilizing function of a central romantic fantasy.

Freud's 'problem': cognitive neuroscience & psychoanalysis working together on memory

The first part of this paper discusses the development of Freud's views on memory from the time of the Project up to the formulation of the second topography. Freud's attempts to match his psychological views with an organic model were necessarily inconclusive, but in the process many innovative ideas about memory can be seen to resonate with recent developments in cognitive neuroscience. A brief discussion of perceptual identity, internal perception and Freud's affect theory introduce the central theoretical idea in the second half of the paper, namely that Identification can be seen as a form of memory. Modern memory theory is linked with the superego, following which the author proposes that internal objects might be renamed 'memory-objects' and that these can be understood in terms of the distinction made in cognitive neuroscience between implicit and explicit memory and between different parts of the brain, in particular the amygdala, the basal ganglia and the hippocampus. Klein's 'memory in feeling' and the views of Fairbairn and Ogden in relation to the dynamic nature of internal objects are briefly discussed. The paper ends with a few comments on the aberrations of memory and some implications of the implicit memory-object system.