Table Of ContentCHAPTERTITLE I
PRIMITIVE AGONY
AND SYMBOLIZATION
PSYCHOANALYTIC IDEAS AND APPLICATIONS SERIES
IPA Publications Committee
Leticia Glocer Fiorini (Buenos Aires) (Chair); Samuel Arbiser
(Buenos Aires); Mary Kay O’Neil (Montreal); Gail S Reed (New York);
Paulo C Sandler (Sao Paulo); Gennaro Saragnano (Rome);
Christian Seulin (Lyon)
Other titles in the Series
The Art of Interpretation: Deconstruction and New Beginning
in the Psychoanalytic Process
Wolfgang Loch
edited and commentary by Peter Wegner
The Unconscious: Further Reflections
edited by José Carlos Calich & Helmut Hinz
Escape from Selfhood: Breaking Boundaries and Craving for Oneness
Ilany Kogan
The Unconscious in Psychoanalysis
Antonio Alberti Semi
From Impression to Inquiry: A Tribute to the Work of Robert Wallerstein
edited by Wilma Bucci & Norbert Freedman; associate editor Ethan A. Graham
Talking About Supervision: 10 Questions, 10 Analysts = 100 Answers
edited by Laura Elliot Rubinstein
Envy and Gratitude Revisited
edited by Priscilla Roth and Alessandra Lemma
The Work of Confluence: Listening and Interpreting in the Psychoanalytic Field
Madeleine & Willy Baranger
edited and commentary by Leticia Glocer Fiorini
Foreword by Cláudio Laks Eizink
Good Feelings: Psychoanalytic Reflections in Positive Emotions and Attitudes
edited by Salman Akhtar
Psychosomatics Today: A Psychoanalytical Perspective
edited by Marilia Aisenstein and Elsa Rappoport de Aisemberg
Foreword by Cláudio Laks Eizirik
PRIMITIVE AGONY
AND SYMBOLIZATION
René Roussillon
Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications Series
First published in 2011 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2011 René Roussillon and The International Psychoanalytical
Association.
The right of the René Roussillon to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 85575 856 8
Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltd
www.publishingservicesuk.co.uk
e-mail: [email protected]
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR vii
PSYCHOANALYTIC IDEAS AND APPLICATIONS SERIES ix
IPAPublications Committee
INTRODUCTION
Primary trauma, splitting, and 1
non-symbolic primary binding
PART I: AGONY 27
CHAPTER ONE
Drives and intersubjectivity 29
CHAPTER TWO
The capacity to be alone in the presence of the analyst 49
CHAPTER THREE
Interpretation, play, and style 65
v
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Play and potential 89
CHAPTER FIVE
Communicating primitive experiences 107
CHAPTER SIX
The primitive “inter-I” and primary “doubled” 123
homosexuality
CHAPTER SEVEN
Destructiveness and complex forms of the 147
“survival” of the object
PART II: SYMBOLIZATIONS 169
CHAPTER EIGHT
The symbolizing function of the object 171
CHAPTER NINE
Associativity and non-verbal language 189
CHAPTER TEN
Research and exploration in psychoanalysis 211
REFERENCES 235
INDEX 245
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
René Roussillon, who was born in July 1947, was awarded a PhD in
clinical psychology in 1988. In 1989, he was appointed Professor of
Clinical and Pathological Psychology in the University of Lyon-II.
From that point onwards, he has been the head of the clinical psy-
chology department in Lyon University and of the research team
focusing on “the subjectivation process in borderline and extreme
situations”. He is also the director of the clinical “psycho-hub” of the
Rhône-Alpes region in France, a facility that he founded in 2007. In
1991, he became a Full Member of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society
and of the Lyon/Rhône-Alpes Psychoanalytical Group; he is a for-
mer president of that association.
He has published several books in French on psychoanalysis, as
well as a significant number of articles (which have been translated
into English, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish,
Greek, Romanian, and Bulgarian). In 1991, he was the recipient of
the prestigious Maurice Bouvet Award for his book Paradoxes et
Situations Limites de la Psychanalyse (Paradoxes and Borderline
Situations in Psychoanalysis). The main topics of his research work
in psychoanalysis have to do with psychical trauma, the analysing
situation, and the various forms of transference that may prove
problematic within that setting.
vii
PSYCHOANALYTIC IDEAS AND APPLICATIONS SERIES
IPA Publications Committee
The Publications Committee of the International Psychoanalytical
Association continues, with this volume, the series: “Psychoanalytic
Ideas and Applications”.
The aim is to focus on the scientific production of significant
authors whose works are outstanding contributions to the devel-
opment of the psychoanalytic field and to set out relevant ideas and
themes, generated during the history of psychoanalysis, that
deserve to be discussed by present psychoanalysts.
The relationship between psychoanalytic ideas and their appli-
cations has to be put forward from the perspective of theory, clini-
cal practice, technique, and research, so as to maintain their validity
for contemporary psychoanalysis.
The Publication Committee’s objective is to share these ideas
with the psychoanalytic community, and with professionals in
other related disciplines, in order to expand their knowledge and
generate a productive interchange between the text and the reader.
We are honoured to publish Roussillon’s thoughts related to nar-
cissistic disturbances. This author establishes a model in terms of a
sequence of mental processes typical of the different forms of nar-
cissistic pathology, supported in his remarkable clinical experience.
ix
