Unconscious Communication Research Articles

Neuroiconics [Book Reviews

Neuroiconics is about the science of capturing conscious and unconscious communications by and within the human brain. Written in Russian, the book has 14 chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. There are 35 pages of references dating from 1908 to the present, and it includes full insight into state-of-the-art Russian and worldwide neurovisual studies. New research directions for multimodal sensory processing within the brain are projected. Two distinctive findings are presented in chapters ten and 14. The importance of diagonal spatial frequency filtration in array processing for facial perception handling and the suspected orderly versus chaotic networks formed by neurocells can trigger new research directions. Many new results are presented on the perception of a facial image based on proactive, computerized image stimulus testing. The importance of diagonal spatial frequency filtration is noted in emotion recognition, considering the world is inundated with false images and expressions. Significant personal effect was investigated after separating the stress factors unrecognized by conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings. Brain recognition and reaction, through vision, depend on the overall neuron reactions in both active and inactive mode, obvious and hidden cells/synapses, and consensual and contesting interactions. This impact resulting from the subconscious level leads to the belief that neuron interactions can be driven by contrasting forces from processing the same vision signals. The propagation of opposing senses in the dominant sensory category cannot be ignored in the interpretation of how vision signals affecting brain functions result in abrupt or unexpected behavior changes. This book presents discussions about future vision-associated brain research. Many models imply hierarchical processing by constructing input into an artificial neuron from outputs at a lower level, which allows gradual growth of receptive fields and, therefore, an ability to process more complex stimuli.

Analytic Safety: Navigating the Shifting Sands—A Relational Perspective

ABSTRACTIn this article, I explore the complex dialectics of safety and risk for both analyst and patient in the analytic setting. The dynamic and fluid quality of both safety and risk are considered in relation to the ongoing levels of conscious and unconscious communication that inhabit the analytic space. These dimensions of our clinical work are expanded and illustrated through the detailed account of a 10-year analysis of a young woman battling for her psychic and physical life.

Free Association Continues

ABSTRACT Lothane’s description of the development of free association from Galton’s one-person perspective through Freud’s use of both one- and two-person perspectives is outstanding. He characterizes free association as emphasizing the unconscious communication between both analyst and patient. I agree with his position and my discussion illustrates how both analyst and patient unconsciously prime each other to create the therapeutic process. The process can be lively and dramatic, and Lothane’s understanding of the importance of drama has led him to develop the term dramatology to describe the ongoing therapeutic drama that is created in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as part of this unconscious communication of feeling. The concept of free association continues to develop through these new concepts of how the communication of feeling and knowledge take place unconsciously. I then suggest an even larger field of influence of both patient and analyst that includes unconscious communication of uncanny knowledge that will at times create anomalous experiences. The crucial factor for a good outcome seems to be the depth of the emotional engagement between patient and analyst.

Projective identification and “telepathic dreams”

ABSTRACTBased on the pioneering works by Freud and other authors with regard to telepathic dreams, and specifically those related to Klein’s projective identification and latterly developed by Bion and Grinberg, the author reviews some concepts associated with the theory of intersubjectivity. An example of a telepathic dream that emerged within an analytic process is integrated with these concepts in order to propose several hypotheses about their genesis. The main hypothesis is that projective identification and counter-identification, in their normal and abnormal forms, are the oneiric basis of communication. One member of the analytic pair transmits unconsciously to the other the contents of his real life, and the other one dreams about it; this way the dominant emotions and phantasies are made conscious. An emotionally intense climate, especially with abandonment phantasies, is required to achieve this type of communication. These dreams, infrequent in analysis, underscore intersubjective creativity, the “analytic third” described by Ogden. The author mentions some concepts based on neuroscience and quantum physics as possible explanations for the biological basis of unconscious communication.

"In Relation You Are Created" – Unconscious Communication in the Relational Space of Sandplay Therapy

From the beginning, C. G. Jung emphasized the relational dimension in analysis. Therapy and therefore sandplay therapy is an intersubjective phenomenon and requires a safe, interpersonal field with the resonating presence of others. Sandplay has its place in the relationship between therapist and patient and is therefore part of a dialogic process. It is not enough just to offer a sand tray and some figurines and watch the scene; therapists are always involved. As Jung said, there is transformation on both sides, on the patient's as well as on the therapist's. Creativity only unfolds in the context of an intersubjective field as a process of communication beyond consciousness. The affective mirroring relations come before all imaginary situations, meaning that at the beginning there is relationship, creation is co-creation. After a theoretical introduction which reflects on the significance of the resonance space in the interactive field of sandplay therapy, a clinical example of a female adolescent will illustrate the creative and transforming experience of deep mutual understanding, as a conversation between two "unconsciouses," where we found each other and became one ourselves: In relation we both were created.

You Can Get Here from There

You Can Get Here from There Louise Braddock (bio) Note: This reply is only/largely to the first, main part of Leite's (2018) response to my paper. A reply to the second, which criticizes the use of the imagination in the account, has to be left aside for reasons of space. What more, following Wollheim, I have to say about the imagination and its relation to identification, can be found in Braddock (2012). Originally, my paper was organized around the above title (but suppressed by the Editor!), my meaning being that, on the one hand, the paper showed how to 'translate out' projective identification from its hermetic psychoanalytic usage (thus getting 'here' from 'there') by combining philosophical analysis and the 'extension of ordinary psychology' approach. This would enable the ordinary person to get quite a lot of the way to an understanding of projective identification (getting 'there' from 'here'), something that many psychoanalysts see as important, but difficult to do. At the same time, the title was also intended to show that it is possible to retrieve an intelligible thesis about unconscious communication from what analysts write about projective identification in their vocabulary, and what, as they claim, occurs in the sorts of interactions Leite describes in his response to my paper. My initial response to Leite is to say that his remarks give me the opportunity, and the opening, to say a number of things that had to be left out of "Understanding Projective Identification," or that appeared in a perhaps over-compressed form in my Introduction, and thus to make explicit what was all along the implicit project of the paper: to speak to the lay audience of those who find psychoanalytic claims in general, and consequently find the concept of projective identification in particular, at best unsupported and at worst incomprehensible, and so write them off. I am, that is, ambitious to help those who are bemused, to understand projective identification, and to show those who are disposed to reject psychoanalysis wholesale that there is a way to make at least this part of it intelligible. (I am also ambitious to explain psychoanalytic concepts such as projective identification within an analytic philosophical framework and without opting for either deflation or an eliminitivistic reduction to neuroscience. Finally, I am also ambitious to provide an entry point for psychoanalysis into those social sciences that recognize a place for psychoanalytic methodology and theory but are ill-served by the empirical indeterminacy of Lacanian theory. Further, the psychoanalytic theory I have in mind is post-Kleinian theory, which in my view is both a powerful and theoretically productive contemporary theory embodying what is essential in Freud's own, by now historical theory, and is also exceptionally well-grounded in a method of observation developed by precisely the school of analysts on which Leite himself draws.) Leite, unusually for a philosopher in the analytic tradition, is knowledgeable about what it is [End Page 89] that contemporary psychoanalysts think and do. He draws on this knowledge for the psychoanalytical case material that he adduces as counterexample evidence to my argument; the clinical material he cites is of both verbal and nonverbal behaviors described by psychoanalysts as the basis on which their attributions of projection and projective identification are made or, as he puts it, they judged projective identification to be 'actualized.' In my Introduction, I noted that such behaviors are indeed modalities for projective identification. I concur that both the sorts of case cited by Leite, and also importantly the bizarre verbal and nonverbal behaviors described by Bion, Meltzer, and other analysts working with psychotic patients, are indeed the sorts of clinical observation that need to be addressed and given theoretical clarification. My strategy in using the 'extension of ordinary psychology' approach is to get as far as possible with it and the resources of philosophy, and to clarify those areas where a contribution from psychoanalysis is both needed, and needs to be philosophically clarified albeit in ways that may put pressure on philosophy itself; the 'extension of ordinary psychology' approach is such as to reach a limit in explaining psychoanalytic phenomena, and beyond which it is psychoanalytic theory itself, which...

Traversing the Ineffable: Commentary on Sharon Farber’s “Becoming a Telepathic Tuning Fork”

In this commentary I attempt to refine our definition of telepathy, questioning whether phenomena such as projective identification, dissociative processes, unconscious affective communication, and implicit relational knowing warrant equal classification. Should projective processes be distinguished from “telepathic” transmissions? I propose a continuum of mutual receptivity along which sensory and non-sensory-based forms of human empathic responsiveness might be positioned. This continuum will extend all the way to telepathic communications that defy material-based, Newtonian models of mind, since they occur between patient and therapist while situated in separate geographical locations.

Unconscious perception and reverie: an intersubjective connection.

This paper discusses an intriguing topic for psychoanalysis: the concept of unconscious communication. Beginning with the concept of unconscious perception, it moves on to figurability and culminates with reverie. Auxiliary concepts, such as receptive unconscious, intersubjectivtiy, countertransferrence and empathy, are discussed in order to articulate the conceptual network on which theoretical arguments are based.

Sea: An Exploration of Figurability Through the Triad of Training Clinician-Supervisee-Analysand

Using the work of the Botellas (2005), Laplanche (1999), and Levine (2012), I aim to examine unconscious communications between patient and clinician and the transformational process that moves intersubjectively from unrepresented toward represented mental states. During my work with Sea, sessions from my own analysis revealed content that I failed to recognize as my own; unconscious untranslatable messages given to me by her that were half understood during my supervision, and crystalized only during my own analysis. Using my own changes in representational states that became available to me during this shifting of positions, I worked as Sea's “double,” sharing with her my ability to consolidate her internal representations, while strengthening her ability to reflect in the face of potentially self-destructive actions. Weaving in my own analysis with our therapy sessions, I show how regressive states from the clinician create the potential place from which the patient can form his or her own representations of that which had formerly remained un-representable because of traumatic origins. I discuss the ways in which this process might be multi-directional.

The Vibrant Challenges of Clinically Effective Psychoanalytic Mindedness

In addressing the central challenges of developing and maintaining the analyst’s psychoanalytic mindedness, this paper focuses on two particularly challenging core components of clinical effectiveness not so easily developed despite the rigors of the tripartite training model. The first is the analyst’s receptivity to unconscious communication, which entails the analyst’s curiosity, acceptance of human nature, doubt, restraint, narcissistic balance, and integrity. A brief clinical vignette illustrates this. The second factor is recognizing and managing the inherent disappointments and narcissistic challenges in working psychoanalytically. The author maintains that the ability to lose and subsequently recover one’s analytic mind entails discipline, courage, and faith that only experience can provide.

Comparison of In-Person and Screen-Based Analysis Using Communication Models: A First Step Toward the Psychoanalysis of Telecommunications and Its Noise

As the popularity of computer-mediated psychoanalysis rises, it is important that analysts and researchers undertake a more comprehensive investigation of the parameters involved in mediation and their effects on the psychoanalytic setting, the analytic field, and the unconscious of the analytic couple. The primary aim of this paper is to offer a series of communication models that visually lay out for comparison purposes key aspects involved in both in-person and mediated psychoanalytic communication. Particular emphasis is placed on the nonverbal channels of unconscious communication, so vital to reverie, and on the attenuation and distortion of these channels when electronically mediated. Also addressed are the disruptive capacities of communication devices and the mediation artifacts that are inevitably introduced by telecommunication systems, whose overarching goals of efficiency, clarity, and expediency conflict with those of analysis. The paper ends with a call for the psychoanalysis of telecommunications.

On Attacking and Being Attacked in Group Psychotherapy

ABSTRACTVerbal attacks are unavoidable within long-term psychotherapy groups. This article examines the inherent therapeutic value of potentially destructive exchanges. Group leader attempts to objectively define and regulate “attacks” are critiqued. A case example illustrates how leader interventions using induced feelings can enhance the therapeutic process and subsequent relational repair. Leader difficulties in identifying with the relational positions involved (attacker, victim, bystander) are explored, and a framework is offered for illuminating unconscious, dissociated, or unformulated emotional communications. It is argued that leader resistances may inadvertently promote and maintain group members’ damaging tendency to direct aggression toward rather than away from the self. Instead of being avoided or controlled, verbal attacking can be considered meaningful developmental progress and leveraged clinically to promote emotional maturation within the group.

An account of psychiatric casework in three clinical encounters using a psychoanalytic lens

Transference and countertransference are key diagnostic concepts in psychoanalysis which are unacknowledged in categorical diagnostic systems in psychiatry. This may also highlight the fundamental differences in understanding clinical presentation in the context of the individual. In psychoanalysis, the clinician's response to each patient is carefully thought about. Three vignettes are used to illustrate how clinicians use their countertransference to ask key questions which address the sense of the uncanny that the patients' stories evoke. This is then linked, using the theoretical notion of projective identification, to unconscious communication between doctor and patient. I conclude by describing an ICD-10 category of patients who present a disturbance in articulating emotions, tending to evoke and manifest powerful bodily experiences. The examination of countertransference is suggested as adding depth to a diagnostic process that risks losing the value of data from individual patients.

A Couple's Unconscious Communication: Dreams

The author describes the process of a couple's psychoanalytic psychotherapy, conducted in co‐therapy, through the analysis of some dreams and their associations. The dream analysis will show the common and shared inter‐subjective dimension of the couple that emerged from the psychoanalytic psychotherapy setting. Central notions of this clinical work are those of inter‐phantasizing, common and shared dream space, and couple associative chain. But also the containing model of the psychic envelope can be considered as one of the bases of the theory of a couple's dream space. The author describes the process by which the partners of the couple, and more generally the ‘therapeutic new group’, were able to achieve the unveiling of a denial pact that allowed the couple to add to their family at the time of the birth of their first child with Down's syndrome; but also, and more fundamentally, what has allowed this young couple to cope with the trauma of this birth. The author finally shows how the group working‐through, within the setting of the couple's psychoanalytic psychotherapy, gave new meaning to sensations, feelings and affects of the couple.

Dance movement therapy and developmental trauma: dissociation and enactment in a clinical case study

This article highlights how body language and non-verbal communication are key elements for the treatment of patients who have suffered from developmental traumas. Contributions from authors from a range of disciplines help the writer to compare the relationship infant-caregiver with the relationship patient-therapist, focusing on common rhythms, attunement, breathing and regulation of affects. The writer investigates how a prolonged lack of attunement from the primary caregiver can have traumatic effects for the child. A clinical case study demonstrates that, through the awarness of his/her own body as 'the instrument', the dance movement therapist can stimulate unconscious implicit body communication and create a sort of vessel where enactments that arise from the therapeutic process can find expression in creative and unexpected ways, as in dreams. This process helps the patient to reintegrate the dissociated aspects of his/herself and can generate significant changes for those involved in the therapeutic process.

GEORG GRODDECK: “THE PINCH OF PEPPER” OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

The life and works of Georg Groddeck are reviewed and placed in historical context as a physician and a pioneer of psychoanalysis, psychosomatic medicine, and an epistolary style of writing. His Das Es concept stimulated Freud to construct his tripartite model of the mind. Groddeck, however, used Das Es to facilitate receptivity to unconscious communication with his patients. His "maternal turn" transformed his treatment approach from an authoritarian position to a dialectical process. Groddeck was a generative influence on the development of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Erich Fromm, and Karen Horney. He was also the mid-wife of the late-life burst of creativity of his friend and patient Sándor Ferenczi. Together, Groddeck and Ferenczi provided the impetus for a paradigm shift in psychoanalysis that emphasized the maternal transference, child-like creativity, and a dialogue of the unconscious that foreshadowed contemporary interest in intersubjectivity and field theory. They were progenitors of the relational turn and tradition in psychoanalysis. Growing interest in interpsychic communication and field theory is bringing about a convergence of theorizing among pluralistic psychoanalytic schools that date back to 1923 when Freud appropriated Groddeck's Das Es and radically altered its meaning and use.

The arms of the chimeras

This article seeks to compare the approach developed in 1974 by Michel de M'Uzan to the concept of the ‘chimera’ with Thomas Ogden's (1995, 2005) reflections on ‘the analytic third’. This comparison shows that in spite of the different theoretical approaches, unconscious to unconscious communication – a subject of interest in contemporary psychoanalytic research – makes it possible to grasp the intersubjective data deployed in the field of the session. After reviewing M. de M'Uzan's conception of the ‘chimera’ – a product of the unconsciouses of patient and analyst alike, and which emerges during a process of depersonalization in the analyst – the author proposes her hypothesis of the chimera as a particular intersubjective third whose creation, in a hallucinatory state, makes it possible to gain access to the bodily and emotional basis of the trauma. The author describes the chimera as a mental ‘squiggle’ between the two members of the pair which finds expression in different forms; further, she considers that the chimera that seizes the analyst is underpinned by the unconscious affinities of traumatic zones in both protagonists, which permit the grounding, configuration and sharing of the territories of suffering, as apprehended in this paper.

Monsters, dreams and madness: Commentary on ‘The arms of the chimeras’

Considering Freudian and Post‐Freudian approaches to the intersubjective Beatrice Ithier puts the work of Michel de M'Uzan and Thomas Ogden in comparison. To this comparison I add a consideration of the work of Christopher Bollas. The highly creative clinical approaches these three theorists take is shown to be informed by their elaborations of the Freudian notion of unconscious communication and by new approaches to the issue of identity. Attention is paid to differentiating traumatic from fanciful chimeras; and to the experience of the analyst undergoing the sorts of transformations requisite to entering this psychic space marked by fluid exchanges of being and becoming, wherein analyst becomes patient, new subjects are created through shared dreams, and through which monsters appear.

In Search of the Absent Analyst: Commentary on Janine de Peyer’s “Uncanny Communication”

The subject of telepathic phenomena in psychoanalysis has been highly controversial ever since it was introduced into psychoanalysis by Freud in 1921. Following a theoretical-clinical introduction, my explanation for these profoundly mysterious phenomena combines contributory factors involving patient, archaic communication, and analyst, regarding massive primary traumatic absence that was imprinted in the patient’s nascent self and inchoate relating to others. The telepathic occurrence in treatment bursts forth as a search engine when the analyst is suddenly emotionally absent in order to seek and find the analyst and to halt the process of abandonment and collapse into the despair of the early traumatization. This is discussed here with regard to de Peyer’s clinical examples. Thus, the telepathic phenomena embody the enigmatic “impossible” extreme of patient–analyst deep-level interconnectedness and unconscious communication in the analytic process.

Uncanny Communication and the Porous Mind

In this paper I examine the phenomenon of “uncanny” unconscious communication and the plausibility of “telepathic” interconnectivity between patient and therapist. While reexamining long-standing psychoanalytic reluctance to engage with the topic of the “uncanny,” I present clinical examples of seeming anomalous transmission, followed by discussion from contrasting perspectives of psychoanalysis, neuroscience, quantum physics, and parapsychology. The patient’s and analyst’s reactions to these uncanny moments are explored, along with the potential clinical value of nurturing receptivity to this “frequency” of unconscious attunement.