Space, time, space-time psychoanalytical thoughts on time and space

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this contribution, which is intended only to open up perspectives for reflection, Freud’s remarks on time and space are briefly outlined. For Freud, the unconscious was timeless, while chronological times could exist in the conscious. Freud conceived of his psychic apparatus spatially, assuming that the psyche is extended. Bion distinguishes between ’place’ and ‘space’. The place seems to be associated with the absent object, while the space is associated with a feeling. Disturbances in containment lead to the unlimited space being without spatial and temporal boundaries. The clinical consequences for space and time in nameless states are discussed with case vignettes. The considerations show that time and space are to be thought of as objectal. In the earliest phases, the place where the breast was could be experienced by the infant not as a space but as a time: the past as the place where the object was. The consequences of this are discussed – and an attempt is made to understand Freud’s enigmatic sentence a little bit better.