abraham n torok m poetics of psychoanalysis the lost object me

7/29/2019 ABRAHAM N TOROK M Poetics of Psychoanalysis the Lost Object Me

1/17

A Poetics of Psychoanalysis: "The Lost Object: Me"Author(s): Nicolas Abraham, Maria Torok, Nicholas RandSource: SubStance, Vol. 13, No. 2, Issue 43 (1984), pp. 3-18Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3684812

Accessed: 17/04/2010 08:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uwisc.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of Wisconsin Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

SubStance.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3684812?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uwischttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uwischttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3684812?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/17

A Poetics of Psychoanalysis:"TheLost Object-Me"NICOLASABRAHAMnd MARIATOROK

Translator'sote:This articleis excerptedfromNicolas Abraham'sLecorcetlenoyauParis:Aubier-Flammarion, 1978), with the permissionof Maria Torok. It is being publishedsimultaneously n Psychoanalyticnquiryforthcoming1984). The Hungarian-bornFrenchphilosopher's and psychoanalyst'sworks are being systematically introduced to theEnglish-speaking cholarlycommunity.Diacritics asdevotedhalf of a special ssue(Spring1979); the University of Minnesota Press has recently commissioned the translationof Abraham's and Torok'sCryptonymie:e Verbiere l'Homme uxloups(Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1976); and the GeorgiaReviewhas published the English translation ofJacques Derrida'sprefatory essay, "Fors," o CryptonymieSpring 1977).The original title of the essay, "L'objetperdu-moi," has been supplemented hereby "APoetics of Psychoanalysis" o underscoreits contributionto both psychoanalysisand literary theory. The essay offers a privileged entry into Abraham's works in thatit puts forward a theory of fiction in the place of the psychoanalytic subject. The typeof fiction outlined here is not based on the workings of the unconscious or the illusionof an imaginary self, it is the result of a loss. In setting up the fiction of being another,the subjectcreates himself as a dialogueor, moreprecisely,as a system fanalogicaleferencesto a fictitious other. The status of the subjectbecomes poetic n that the dialogic struc-ture can only be recognized through linguistic acts. The essay thus implies a dia-logictheory of reading- a subject or a text may be read througho another text which is itsown fictitious (and concealed) system of reference.

The Haunted Analyst . . .Thatsoulwho,here on earthdid not pushforth ts partDivine,hasnot, even down in Hell, repose. -Holderlin, TotheFates

Thus speaks the poet. Yes. The "partDivine," the work born of the encounterwith oneself only, comes into being if one pushes one's self forth, only if oneis acknowledged. Acknowledged by oneself to oneself before the whole world.Sometimes the "whole world" is represented by the occupant of the analyst'schair. Before him this "part Divine" is created or, gradually, unveiled. If onlySubStance N? 43, 1984 3


3/17

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torokthe analyst would understand it, admit it, rejoice in it! As one would rejoicein poetry. But how many the ways of reachingthere. And how many the trapsalong the way. Does the analysthave an ear forall "poems" nd for all "poets"?Surely not. But those whose message he failed to hear, those whose deficient,mutilated texthe listened to time after time- the riddleswith no key-those wholeft him without yielding up to him the distinctive oeuvre f their lives, thesecome back forever as phantoms of their unaccomplished destiny, hauntingghosts of the analyst's own deficiency.Who among us is not at odds with specters that demand their due fromheaven while being the debtors of our own salvation?Just think of Freud andhis Wolfman. From 1910 well into Freud's extreme old age, the case of thisenigmatic Russian- bewitched by some secret-never stoppedhaunting him,drawing from him theory upon theory because he could not deliver the keywords to the poem.It is the same for us when it comes to the enigma of this great poetics, apoetics not of a single individual, but of an entire and vast family, dubbedrightly or wrongly with the common name manic-depressive. It has been along while since we joined forces to establish its semantics and formulate itsprosody. Let us bringto you, after a long and gropingsearchinspired by manyhaunting enigmas, a few examples and outlines drawn from our practice. Itwouldbe presumptuous and how!- to pretendthatwe have reached our goal.At the same time, it would be false modesty to deny our suspicion that we arefinally entering an open road.. . .and theCrypton theCouch

Obviously the figure of the phantom does not come to us accidentally asa name for the torment of the analyst.1This same figurepoints to the occasionof torment for the patient as well- a memory he buried withoutegalburial lace,the memoryof an idyllexperiencedwith a prestigiousobjectthatfor some reasonhas become unspeakable, a memory thus entombed in a fast and secureplace,awaiting its resurrection. Between the idyllic moment and its forgetting (wehave called the latter "preservativerepression"),2 here was the metapsycho-logical traumatismof a loss, or, betteryet, the "loss" y dint of this traumatism.It is this segment of painfully lived Reality, whose unutterable nature dodgesall work of mourning, which has stamped a covert shift on the entire psyche.The shift itself is covert, since both the fact that the idyll has taken place andits subsequentloss will have to be disguised and denied. Such a situation leadsto the settingup withinthe ego of a closed-offplace, a crypt, s the consequencesof a self-governingmechanism, a kind of anti-introjection, comparableto theformation of a cocoon around the chrysalis, which we have called inclusion.3

Livingin a CryptIndeed, the "shadow of the object" keeps on straying about the crypt end-

4


4/17

Poetics of Psychoanalysislessly until it is finally reincarnatedin the very person of the subject. We willsee that this kind of identification, far from displaying itself, has as its callingto remainutterlyconcealed.Wethought it expressiveto completeFreud'smeta-psychological formula, showing "theEgo under the guise of the object"by itsopposite, which reflects a first clinical appearanceto be taken into account-the"object,in turn,carriesheegoas its mask.The ego or some other facade. For,necessarily, we are talking about an imaginary and covert identification, acryptofantasywhich, given its unutterable nature, cannot show itself in thelight of day. The identification concernsnot so much an objectwhich no longerexists, but essentially the "mourning"hat this "object" llegedly carriesout asa resultof losing the subject;the subject, consequently,now appearsto be pain-fully missed by the "object." t is obvious that an identifying empathy of thiskind could not say its name, let alone its aim. Accordingly, it hides behinda mask, even in the so-called "periodicstates." This mechanism consists ofexchanging one's own identity for a phantasmic identification with the "life"-beyond the grave-of an object lost as a result of some metapsychologicaltraumatism. Awaiting something better, we have named this very specificmechanism endocrypticdentification.A phantasyof identifyingempathy!What does it mean?Firstthe phantasy.We hold that it is never a simple translation of the psychicprocess;on the con-trary, it is the illusoryand painstakinglyreiteratedproofthat no processwhat-ever has or should take place. Only in this one sense can phantasy refer toa metapsychological tate of affairs.With this much set in place,we can glimpsethe status of the identification now known as endocryptic. To state that it isthe work of sheer phantasy means that its content is governed by a concernfor maintaining the illusion of the topographicalstatusquoas it had been priorto the transformation. As for the inclusion,t is not phantasy. It points to apainfulreality, foreverdenied,he "gapingwound"of the topography.It is there-fore essential to set down the following. The melancholic'scomplaints trans-late a phantasy- the imaginary sufferingsof the endocryptic object- a phan-tasy that only serves to mask the real suffering, this one unavowed, causedby a wound that the subject does not know how to heal.This, in short, is our argument. It is obvious that the poetics born of thecrypt brings to life as many poems as individual cryptophores. great numberof creations of a definitely nonmelancholic appearance also turn out to comefrom the same school of thought."Melancholy,"n fact, seems to occupya rathersmall area of the possible uses authorized by the notion of intrapsychiccryptas well as endocryptic identification. In point of fact, these notions had beenfamiliar to us before they were found appropriateto circumscribethe manic-depressive. For years we have been talking about "preservativerepression,""unutterable ibidinal experiences,"and "covertidentification."Now that thenature of melancholic identification is finally stated clearly, quite a few othermodes of being, just as enigmatic, are becoming crystallizedaround the samenotions. We are going to mention- in addition to the manic-depressive twoother modes, commonly called "fetishism" and "neurosis of failure." It seemsto us that these inventions of the mind also rest on some "gaping wound," opened

5


5/17

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Toroklong ago within the ego and disguisedby a phantasmicand secretconstructionin the spot and place of the very thing from which, through the loss, the egowas cut off. To disguise the wound is, in all cases, the destination of this typeof construction- to disguise the wound because it is unspeakable, for to stateit in wordswould be fatal to the entire topography. Individual cases only differin the manner of the wound and the particularform of arrangementinventedin order to reveal nothing about it.The Wolfman'secret

Recently we thought it necessary to violate with impious hands the (hypo-thetical) "sepulcher"he Wolfman supposedly carries within him in order touncover-behind the utterable memory of a seduction by the sister-thememory of another seduction to which the sister herself must have beensubjected by the father. To be sure, the Wolfman was only vicariouslya melancholic. His crypt did not contain his ownillegitimate object (as wouldbe the case with a truemelancholic),but someone else'sobject-his older sister.His wound does not seem to be-as Freud was inclined to think-the loss ofhis own object, the sister, but the fact that he was neither able to participatein the scene (which, according to us, had been narrated by the sister andrenewed with him), nor tell anyone about it and thereby legitimize it. The dis-appointment at not having been the one seduced by the father would connecthim with the hysteric who is never quite seduced enough; the impossibilityof exposing this fact without bringing down the whole world has apparentlyforced him to transform his vindictive tendencies into an intrapsychicsecret.Otherwise he would lose his other wish as well - supplantinghis sister in thescene. The solution he found to this square circle, as we established it, was-let's admit it-most ingenious.4 He managed to make, from the ideas relatedto the account so marvelously illustratedby the sister, a crypt within the ego.With the same care and intent, he preserved in the crypt the words of theaccount, words which proved truly magical since they were good both formakingstatementsand forproducingpleasure.Thus preserved,the wordswerereadily available. To use them, all he had to do was apply them innocentlyin a differentsense and construct thanks to astutehomonyms- quite anotherscene, not recalling in the least the encrypted one. This other scene, althoughaltogether different, was no less effective in producing pleasure. One of thesewords seems to have been the Russian verb teret, irst used to mean "to rub"(the penis is understood) and then applied, for the benefit of the cause, in thealtered sense of "topolish,""to shine."Thus, in the new scene translated fromthe old one, the woman rubbing the penis becomes one polishing the floor.A fetish image taken from a fetish word whose meaning has been forgotten:shine-gleam-glisten.TheMan of Milk and his Fetish

All of us must have had a Wolfman on the couch or other similar cases.

6


6/17

Poetics of PsychoanalysisLet us draw briefly on one from our practice. A middle-aged man. A lengthyanalysis with a colleague: improvement. Feelings of inadequacy, not alwaysfounded. Persistent fear of impotence, rarely justified. Married, the father ofa large family. Consistent and effective in his professional life, but has diffi-cultyplayinghis rolein public, assertinghimselfin accordancewith the demandsof his position. What is "wrong"s "inthe head" and sometimes "inthe body."In listening to him, one wonders how sturdy common sense can coexistwith crankyphantasiesdevoid of any apparentlink traceable to some tensionwithin the topography. It is the same with his sometimes phantastical feelingswhich are out of place, and which never fail to surprisehim, though he hasbeen accustomed to them since childhood. A few themes recur over the yearsin the flood of enigmas he pours out while on the couch. It takes some timeto understandthathe speaksandlives someoneelse'swords and affects. Whose?It will be established later, those of his encrypted father. It is now possible tograsp the theme of the cemetery, apparentlyvisible to the analyst through thewindow, but not within view of the patient. With good reason, for he himselflives in this tomb. A lethargic beauty is waiting in a glass coffin, is still waitingto be awakenedby a magicalkiss. Why is he dead, if indeed he is dead? Becausehe is a monster. "Here comes the monster,"they say when he comes forwardwith a wish. But what kind of wish? Who will find out?A strangemytho-maniactheme. Once in South America he was a front-wheel drive champion [tractionavant,literally, front-pull drive].5 He doesn't understand it. Is he mad to beso convinced of the truth of his account?"AmI mad?"and then, "agoat herd,goatherds, milking [traite],goat'smilk."(Front-pull:drawingmilk, goat'smilk[laitdechevre];eche, he word for milk in South America, thinks the analyst.)This confirmsa hypothesis formulated several months earlier: the physicaland mental demise of the father and the older sister'spsychosis have some-thing to do with each other. This relationship s inpulling heudder[pis]. "Punch,the puppet,"he says, "Icould never stand him. He moves and jumps about.I especially hate the pasty paint smeared all over his head and that white stuffdripping down"(leche . .). These must have been the words the sister usedin telling him about her "scandalousencounter"with the father'spenis. Thishad presumably taken place on a South American farm during a family trip.A recurringdream. Game of billiards,one billiard ball hits another, the secondone a third on the rebound. Yes, that's it precisely. He is hit on the rebound.But when he wants to playwith himself, one name is enough:Letitia[lait,milk],to fall in love with and marry a woman on whom he will often perform cun-nilingus (leche[lecher,ick]). The magic word leche(i.e., sperm), the outcomeof the "front-pull" n the penis, thus leads to a sexual practice which is theopposite of its original model. Cunnilingus correspondsto a dreamlikestagingof the magical word leche.The analyst only learns about this toward the end when he learns aboutanother key, the one which explains how endocryptic identification with thefatherbecomesmanifest.First,the analysthad to undergolengthyand insidioustesting. (Would he be able to hear everything? Would he feel sympathy forthe fatherwho considers himself a monster? Could he listen without spurning

7


7/17

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torokhim, without condemning him to death, and so not repeatwhat the fatherhaddone to himself?) The patient finally reveals that the father had gone nearlyblind for refusingmedical care and that, to end it all, he had slashed his wrists.Many things clear up: the patient's recurring experience of losing his sight inlarge areas of his visual field-not due to scotoma or negative hallucination,as one would think, but as a result of his identification with his father'sblind-ness- preciselywhile coming to the analyst'soffice . . . . An exampleof empa-thetic identification with the phantasmic remorse of the "guilty" ather. Thisalso causes his truly unjustified panic at having scratchedhis wristswhile doingoddjobs. The effectof the same empathy was that he experienced(unaccount-ably for himself and, for a long time, for the analyst) "affects" hat were nothis own. Now we understand that they were the father'saffects, his rumina-tions, his remorse,his phantasies,his desires- all imagined and surmised.Thepatient's ong walksinvariably ed him to the same spot. Once there, an internaldialogue, always the same, emerged in him: "Isthere somebody here?"-"No,there'snobody. . . . We'realone."At a clearing,he has the impressionof beinga character in a fairy tale, SleepingBeauty.One day, anxious before entering the door to the analyst'soffice, he hasa suddenimpressionthat thereis someone inside. The meaning of the phantasyhe is acting out: father(the patient) is goingto see hisdaughterthe analyst). Arecollection: the sister gone mad shows her clenched fist while her other handmoves up and down. The father cannot standto see it. Besidehimself,he shakesher. Shortlyafterwards, he is institutionalized."Whatdid yourfatherfeel then?"asks the analyst. Then, for the first time after a very long period of analysis,the patient bursts out in tears. "My father must have been so awfully miser-able,"he says in his own name this time. Officially he has revealed nothing,but he understands that his drama is known. The father cannot stand hisdaughter's gesture, whose tragic and ironic meaning he alone is supposed tounderstand: she replayed the secret scene, clenching the father'spenis in herhand while he caresses her. It is also clearwhy he thinks his mother is so "cold."Yes, the father (whom he believes himself to be) deserves a wife who behaveslike an "ice statue"toward him. Another dream for confirmation. "Agang ofshady characters[touteunefaune].There was going to be a brawl. I was stifling,I was stifling."Father is a goat [faun], but the scandal has to be stifled. If thescandal is stifledinside, shut up in a crypt, only the word of the desire returnswith an alteredmeaning- the word thing-the only survivorof a topographiccatastrophe. A silent witness to the unspeakable Leche(r),ick-yes-and allcan live.

Fetish:TheSymbolof Non-symbolMany points of this type of analysis seem instructive compared to certainreceived ideas. If a fetish is to be understoodas a penis attributedto the mother

who is devoid or deprived of it, then the meaning of this deprivationbecomesmore precise: it is linked o theparallelfateof theson and themother, othbeingex-

8


8/17

Poetics of Psychoanalysiscludedfromhe ibidinal nd llegitimatecene.The "fetish" nd its counterpart,"thepenis of the mother,"are invented, among other things, to compensate for themother'slack of pleasure and the son's loss of his ideal, while the topographyis maintained as it is without the son's having to give up his own pleasure.In fact, if it werenecessaryto accept"castration"i.e., the lack of sexualpleasuredue to an exclusion beyond repair), it would unleash a lethal aggressivenessand, as a consequence, push the young subject (now inseparable from thewronged mother) into betraying the illegitimate scene, annihilating it alongwith its participants. By the same token, what has secretlybecome one's ownlibidinal ideal, one's own raisondevivre,would also be annihilated. How canwe find a way out of this impasse?By creatingfor one's"hysteria"whichvariesaccording to age) an internal or narcissisticublic, so to speak; by creating aself-to-self"hysteria."All that survives of the relationshipto others will be thedynamic repression, not of the desire to have pleasure, but of the desire tospeak out. Apart from this relational residue, everything can work in seclu-sion; there need be no witnesses for the fetish to be effective, except preciselyto test its opaqueness. The analyst who "will never understand"has no otherapparent vocation than to bring to the fore the constant temptation to speakout while permitting to verify, day in day out, that the crypt has remainedunscathed.Let us return to the split in the ego that in 1938 Freud finally surmisedin order to provide an explanation for cases like the Wolfman's. In our view,these belatedyet new findingsneed only one finalcomplement.The split showsup in a "double endency"which, in thesecases, feeds the patient'swordsduringanalysis. There is, on the one hand, a conformist tendency which lacks ade-quate affective charge and, on the other hand, an enigmatic tendency whichtranslates, in a crypticmanner, the identification with one of the participantsin the scene. This secondtendencyis-as we saw in our patient'scase- entirelyparallel to and independent of the first, and is usually expressed in incompre-hensible terms or in the descriptionof "feelings"hat are experiencedas incon-gruous. If this were the case of a phantasmic empathy with someone who isbereavedby the loss of the subject(i.e., his beloved), we would speakof melan-cholia. But, in this case, the subject was simply a witness and excluded fromthe idyll. Not having either to give up or to use what had become his libidinalideal, he has created a symbol-the allosemeof the wish wordmade into a thingand acted out, in short, the fetish word, strictly speaking. What creates thesymbol here is not, as in a neurosis, related to prohibition, but the intrinsicimpossibility of having recourse to it.The impossibility itself bears no name and, therefore, becomes one withthe very word of the impossible wish-this is the structure of the symbol leche.As for cunnilingus, the fetishisticact, it is not symbolic in this case, but worksinstead as a veritablesymbol-cover.he magic word (i.e., the true symbol), theauthentic and full creation of the subject, remainsconcealedby the fetish. Thetriple complement of such a hidden symbol (the desire to participate in theillegitimate scene, the desire of aggressive intrusion, and the desire to speakout) does not appear, therefore,as the latent counterpartof some manifestdis-

9


9/17

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torokcourse, since this discourse is itself concealed behindacts, dreams, and symptomsthat disguise the symbol emerging from a different world which cannot be sym-bolized. The analyst's work does not consist in condoning this concealment,but in bringing to light the wish word, in recognizing it precisely as a symbol,i.e., as an exceptional work [of art] and therefore all the more precious: thevery symbol of non-symbol-of what cannot be symbolized.Freud's splitting of the ego thus gains in precision. The enigmatic trendissues from the crypt or the inclusion in the same way as the magic word itself.As for the conformist trend, it results from the wish to conceal the symbol;it is a product of the crypt and includes, however paradoxical this may seem,the description and the development of the fetishistic act as well as other every-day trivialities.

Coming back to the Wolfman, we had no idea until late that he had alsobeen attracted, through some semantic contagion, not only by the squattingposition of the floor scrubber, but by the sight of a "shining nose." For con-firmation, it will suffice to read carefully Freud's essay On Fetishism(1927). Itis easy to guess that in this "sheen of the nose" the Wolfman alludes to the wordteret("rub," "shine")-the very symbol of his interred desire. The ailments ofthis same nose - pimples, holes, blackheads - symbolize the desire to break intothe scene, while the choice of the nose as their place (the nose betrays lies)tells of the desire to speak out. This is a good example of the covert and three-fold purpose of the fetish work, which had been fated to remain obscure. Onlyafter it has been deciphered, understood, and appreciated can it render to itscreator his own "part divine" - hiding under enigmas, yet demanding the lightof day.

Some Model CryptsBoth the Wolfman and the Man of "Milk" created their crypts not because

they knew of an illegitimate sexual scene, but in order to overcome a doubleimpossibility: to make the scene into an admissible ideal or to reveal it and,thereby, destroy the libidinal ideal. This contradiction is not characteristic ofneuroses. The impossibility of telling curbs neurosis, as it were. Relinquish-ing, at least apparently, supplants the betrayal of both the libidinal ideal andany wishes for revenge. Preservative repression safeguards public opinion, whilethe fetish, a most ingenious conceit, reduces the danger of a "cosmic cataclysm"to a harmless oddity capable of reviving desire.There is another form of crypt, the crypt of the blameless and guiltless object[of love] which, after the idyll, left the subject for good reason, so to speak,or in spite of himself. This object has been totally good, absolutely perfect,and no one should suspect it as his secret love. The loss of such an object-always innocentof desertion-produces, instead of an impossible mourning, anendocryptic identification free of any aggressiveness, at least as far as thepartners themselves are concerned, if not the outside world. This is the cryptpsychiatry calls "melancholic."

10


10/17

Poetics of PsychoanalysisAltogether different is the fate of those who personally benefited from anunutterablefavor. Not being able to put their loss into words, or to communi-

cate it to others and resign themselves through grief, they chose to deny every-thing-the loss as well as the love. Deny everything, shut up everything inthemselves, both pleasure and suffering.The concrete variety of such cases is infinite. There are some who, at thetime of the loss, suffered a disappointment in their object, in their sincerityor value. Their crypt is under double lock while, due to a tragic split, theydesperatelytry to destroy what is dearest to them. These people are deprivedof even the hope of ever being acknowledged.It is also possible, in some cases, that a trend of covert aggressiveness,directed against the object, remains in the deserted partnerin addition to hisendocryptic identification. This creates a useful arrangement on the couch,as the presence of the patient'sown aggressivity directed at the object-firstmanifested in a "failuresyndrome"-favors the opening of the crypt.

"Victor"nd "Gilles,"r How to Keep?"I'llbash your head against the wall, that'llcure you fromloving me." Thissentence, never uttered but put into action, was an ending. It was preceded

by another that did not have to be said either: "I'llbash your head against thewall if you tell anyone what we did together."No more was needed to cut offspeech. To say everythingonce and forall, there was only one recurringthemeleft: contrition-failure, failure- contrition. "No, I should not have!""I can'tcontrol myself!"Words laboriously illustrated by deeds.Victor is also middle aged. "I am neuroticallyunsuccessful,"he says rightaway. "Yet,I am like any other man, married, children, executive position.Yes, power, giving orders! . . . that'swhat I'd like most. But I can'tbringmyselfto do it. Something always makes me side with my subordinates. I am alwayson the verge of fighting with my superiors. It ends in dismissal."He is awareof it and contrite, but the analyst is perplexed. Acts and words recur beforehis eyes, and he obviously understands nothing.Fromthe start,the fightwith repression s missing, the neuroticcompromisethat signals the existence of an "I."Above all, the transfer onto the analyst islacking. Forwant of it, what is said seems empty of any presentcontent. Time-less words directed at no one. The present--if it exists, and we are justifiedin doubting that it does- is the indefinitely reiterated account of day-to-dayfailures and the regret over having sunk so low. No accusations, no projec-tion; everything is taken on almost too conscientiously. Boredom sets in, stag-nation. . ..If the analyst thinks for a minute that he should feel affected, that he isgoing to be involved in some repeated experience, in some affective recollec-tion, he is greatly mistaken. Whatever he does know, he did not learn fromassociations, but by drawing his own conclusions. At this rate, he would havebeen better off becoming a detective. For how on earth could a "boat ride"at

11


11/17

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok

age eleven, with his elder brother of seventeen, have caused an almost fatalillness the following day? Complaints about his wife who, according to whathe says, is jealous, shrewish, possessive, frustrating.Another question, if sheis this way, how could he have stood her for so long? Yet, he seems to desireher intensely on occasion, his potency never letting him down. "WhenI seeher in the bathroom in certain positions, I cannothold back.Why doesn't shetolerate the least bit of interest on my part for anyone else, man or woman?She is jealous even of the reading I do. Does she expect me to succeed profes-sionally?No sooner do I achievesomethingthan she despisesit. - -She wantsme to be hers, totallyand only hers. - - During intercourse he acceptsreadilyall positions, except the one I would want most."Does Victor like suffering?humiliation? Nothing in the analytic relation-ship leads one to believe this. Does he perhaps say all of this after an oedipalfashion to pacify his father? If this were indeed the case, the analyst wouldhave no reason to fret. And then there is the brother: "He was so mean andso stupid. When he got engaged, he gave me such a thrashing, I had to stayin bed for three days-which, by the way, kept me from taking part in thefestivities."

The detectivethen surfaces.Was the patient possiblyin love with his brotherto the point of provoking him, out of frustration, at the time he was beingunfaithful?The analyst,however, has not the faintest idea about anything. ...Then, one fine day comes the account of one of the numerous car accidentshe is used to having, an accident which almost cost the life of a young friendwho was with him. "Ionly had a concussion, but after the coma I could nolonger find my young friend. Dazed and confused, I sleepwalkedfrom houseto house in the village where I had been taken in, asking: 'Where is the littleone? Where is little Viki?' "Finally! The detective is let go. The analyst reas-sumeshis function.With hindsighthe finallyhears, behind the dreary everydayof failures and regrets, the sounds of the love Victor attributes within himselfto his brother Gilles. And hehimself s this older brother, even in the coma.That's clear. Strange paradoxof action. The elder one searching orthe youngerone. In real life was it not the reverse?Gilles, the elder, had jilted Viki, firstto act macho, then to marrya woman. Gilles, oncehis guardianangel in school,his pride in front of everyone, this handsome guy, virile and muscular; Gilles,delight of their mother, who could be tough with their father;Gilles the pure,the ultimate, with a temperworthyofJupiter. Yes, Victor was this ideal brotherinsecret; e was this brotherwhile driving with his young friend;he continuedto be him even in the coma and the subsequentdaze as he desperatelysearchedfor his young friend after he had awakened. According to his phantasy, thelittle one lives on in the big one whomVictor hasbecome-as remorse,as a lack.But why the accident?This lackof attentionon a deserted road? . . . Therelies the question mark of Victor's whole life: He is Gilles, sure enough, thatmuch we now know, but he is him in order to upset him all the time, to defeathim all the time: that'swhat"Gilles," is lover, deserves forhaving rejectedhim.

Our understanding opens up at long last. What appears now and later is"Gillesn loveandcontrite, emorsefult not being able to stop loving and then

12


12/17

Poetics of Psychoanalysisat being unfaithful."Meanwhile, Victor deserts himselfby taking up residencein this Xanthippe-likewoman, his nagging and quarrelsomewife. She will sayto "Gilles" he big brother all that "Victor" he little one has on his mind. Asfar as "Gilles" s concerned, "Gilles"his lover, Victor recoups him as well bybecomingGilles" or "Victor." . . Yet, it is a shaky solution. He contemplatesdivorce. But how could he go through with it if, with his wife'sdeparture, hewould also have to give up Victor whom she embodies? Day by day, he andshe will thus jointly defeat "Gilles"andhis egoideal-the recognized cause oftheir traumatic separation. Does he expect to get ahead in business? We aregoing to thwart him. He wants to look at women? He's going to have a hardtime. Blocked in all acts of life, "Gilles"remains, "Gilles"will not leave. Hiswings clipped, he will not fly from the hiding place Victor has set up for him.One day the analyst announces: "Victordoes not want Gilles to make it, togo out with women; he straps him down, he wants to keep him for himself."This moment marks a turningpoint. Recollections, then contours of a transfer.

Why did it take years to unmask "Gilles"hidden under Victor's guise? Forthe simple reason that there is no crypticidentificationwhich does not emanatefrom a crypt, an inclusion, or from an unspeakablecene.This scene had takenplace, we learn bit by bit, during a boat ride. Once more, this ride recalls theimage of an impassable wall: "I'llbash your head against the wall if you saya word,"saysthe analyst.It is not yet Victor who recountsthe scene but"Gilles,"with reserve, embellishments, and omissions. In the boat, between his legs,leaning back on his penis, is little Victor. The day after his account there isno longera seriousillness, as therewas after the event, but a dream. "Achickenhe is disembowelingwhile pullingon the esophagusandwindpipe[trachee-artere].But the chicken won't relinquishlife [n'arriveas a mourir]. t becomes his littledaughter. He wants desperately to take her life [lui donnera mort]so she nolonger suffers.No use."Yes, Gilles can "windup"(ejaculate, windpipe) [cracherpar terre, pit on the ground; trachee-artere,indpipe], but little Victor has toswallow(esophagus)his orgasm. His own penis is reallyonly a "littlegirl"whose"life"(love) [la mort,I'amour]annot yet be had. This was the situation whenVictor'sorgasmwas taken abroadby Gilles- rightup to his returnwhichimme-diately preceded his marriage. Only at age sixteen and a half, after he hadreceived his brother'sthrashing, did the aggressiveness of despair finally setoff the process of puberty. Being unable to dislodge "Gilles"(whom he hasbecome) from his two-fold and incompatible position of being both his loverand his ego ideal, Victor spends his life attacking him by attacking himself,by thwartinghim- in hisownendeavors prescribedby their shared ego ideal.In the same way, the ostensible belligerence he directed against his wife fornot wantingto performcoitus tergos in fact"Gilles's"elligerence.As forVictor,in his heart of hearts,he can only gloatover it. "Itserveshim right,thatbetrayer,who used to love me so much and then left me." "Gilles" antasizes about wildorgies, . . . but alas, they don'twork out. "Fortunately," oots little Victor uphis sleeve.

We now understandthat, were it not for the aggressivenessdirected at theolderbrother,Victor would remaincrestfallen n his identificationwith a phan-

13


13/17

Nicolas Abraham and Maria Toroktasmic object, supposedly in mourning for him. If it has not turned out thisway, Victor has a special situation to thank. For, in his case, another conflic-tual element is present on top of his phantasmic identification with his elderbrother. This element works in the way a neurosis would. It is the fact thathis own and the brother'sego ideal coincide in Victor. It was precisely thisideal inherent in Gilles that had once separatedthem, and which explainswhyevery attemptto realize this shared dealbringswith it a largemeasure of aggres-sivity directed against the ideal. Hence the illusion, but only the illusion, ofa masochistic or self-destructive neurosis. Hence also the relative ease of apseudoanalyticdialogue. Indeed, thereis obviouslya conflict,but it is not whereit first appears to be.

TheAfflictedDeadThe following case is quite different. No conflict can be seen between the

cryptophoric subject and the object of the crypt. The two of them are accom-plices in secretly hating the outsiders who had long ago separated them.Together they shall live and die.

She had, at the time of her suicide attempt, just given birth. A wonderthat she could be saved. A few years spent in a sanatorium, then a lengthyand unwieldyanalysis.Themes of self-deprecation,worthlessness,void, internalrotting, refusal to get medical care; all of this alternating with periods ofbravado, contempt, feelings of superiorityfilling the universe. A psychiatristmightdescribeher in thisway. As for the analyst,he too, being unableto under-stand, is reduced to as much. Listening to her, he fixes on an enigma: whenthe little girl is still too young to go to school, her "irresponsible ather"desertsthe family for some obscure reason and is gone forever. Is he still alive? Thisquestion is to this day without an answer.The analysis begins in an atmosphereof elation. Here she finds again the"warmth of the fire"that had fed her bygone dreams. "Someones happy andfull of hope."If only the analysthad heard it this way from the start!He wouldhave been spared having to grope for several years, not fruitlesslyto be sure,but also not without runningthe risk of some serious errors. "Someones happy."Is it really the young woman or some other person?The father, perhaps. ...This is how we would formulate the question today. Short of this, the analystis disoriented. He looks for the transfer, or at least for the role he is meantto play. To no avail. He does not yet suspectthat it is possibleto disguiseunderone's own traits a phantasy person endowed with entirely fictitious greatnessand torments. Is it surprising that afterwardthe analyst'swords bounce offlikepeanutsthrownagainstthe wall withoutmaking any difference?The dreamsare monotonous: cuts, dislocations, scattered limbs. Are they ideas of castra-tion which torment her? Or is she cut off from her father? Or castrated byher mother? Or full of hatred against some people or the analyst? Still . . .nothing budges. Whose are these scatteredimbs?Is it she herself who has torecover a lost object, an object that could be projected onto the analyst, an

14


14/17

Poetics of Psychoanalysisobject that the oedipal mother, for instance, might have taken away fromher? . . . Very much the stuff of fairy tales with no other effect, all in all, thanthe benefit of a stable and secure relation. But whose are these scatteredimbs?The turning point comes, thanks to other cases, as soon as the hypothesis ofmourning arises-a cryptic mourning, however, phantasized as the incessantaffliction of another.Retroactively, it is easier to clarify the meaning of herrepetitiousand alternatingattitudesof depressionand activity. How could shehave transferredher feelingsof a little girl looking for her father when she livedentirelyn the concealed phantasy of herself beinghe fatherweeping over her,who suffersbecause he is bereft of her, and who, foreverdisconsolate, accuseshimself of the worst of crimes since he had to be subjectedto the punishmentof losing her. Or of being the father, equipped with every guile, who flies, in"manic"moments, to his beloveddarling, takingon giantproportionsand beingabsolutelyconfidentthat nothing will stop him. In these exalted moments, sheruns from dealer to dealer trying to add a precious doll to her collection: herfatherthirstingafterher is looking forher, is going to find her. Once she findsthe "littlespecimen,"her eagerness to acquire it knows no limits and pushesher into nearly criminal acts. Such must be the force of love.In sum, she was the "father," ut withoutts showingin her demeanor,whichhad remained most feminine, or in her professionalpursuits.Still, if the analysthad known about the mechanism of endocrypticidentification, he would haveunderstoodit prettyearly on. When quite small, she would daydream:"Some-one was charged with child murder, and finally I realized that the defendantwas myself."Was it not the lost fatherwho, in the littlegirl'sphantasies,enduredthe mother's accusations? The analyst'soffice is said to be funereal, to wit, aplace of sojourn for the beloved girl, long since dead for the father'sdesire.One day, she walkspast an "escalator"with her child (the father had been seenfor the last time near one). A sudden impression that the child is "devoured"by the machine. "Ifelt my arms fall crushed."This is what it was like for him(the father) to lose his little lover. Yes, all these speeches could have guidedthe analyst, had he not been sacrificing to such prejudices as that of the "I."In endocryptic identification, the "I" s understood as the phantasied egoof the lost object. On the couch, even more than in life, he stages the words,gestures, and feelings-in short, the entire imaginary lot-of the lover whomourns for his "dead"object. As the patient repeats her experience of theescalatorfor the nthtime (whereher arms fell crushed),the analystfinallystatesthat all the "fallen arms" and all the "scatteredlimbs" of her dreams, herphantasies, represent the dejected suffering of her father: his arms are as ifcut off, not having his little girl to carry.From then on, the incorporated ather becomes"decorporated,"o to speak,onto the analyst. Witness this dream: "Aquack doctor cuts off one arm whenhe loses his daughter.""As a sign of mourning,"says the analyst, the "quack."It is the end of endocrypticidentification.As proof:a drawingshe sketcheshastily on the back of an album, a relic of her father's. The drawing is entitled"Aida." Here, the characters of the drama find their places. Aida is theimprisoneddaughter dying of starvation.A living corpse, she awaits her former

15


15/17

16 Nicolas Abraham and Maria Toroklover to come and deliver her. This reworking of identities does take place,to be sure, in the crypt, but the edifice is swaying. Soon enough it will giveway to a true recollection:"It'sshameful, it'sdisgusting,"shouts the neighborin unison with the mother. "Thesewomen are tearing her father away fromthe child." No need to fill in the dots between the shame inflicted on the fatherand his subsequent disappearance. Henceforth the crypt is unlocked, the fightfor the father goes on openly. From this moment on, the infantile conflict re-appears as it was before the loss, before the entombment.

UnlockingheCrypt:Before ndAfterWe have sketched three very different cases of inclusion. In all three, weare disoriented by the unnoticed action of a covert identification that leads

apparentlyto unintelligiblewords and behavior- apparentlyunintelligibleforanalytic listening. Only when the analyst has shown his receptiveness to thismode of being can the inclusion slowlygive way to realmourning, whose nameis introjection. In this lengthy process, three successivemovements can be dis-tinguished.

The first one coincides with the onset of the relationship. Without partingwithhis endocryptic dentification, he subjectsecretlyprojects,onto the analyst,the childpartnerof the crypt. Secretly,t is importantto underscore; n the mani-fest relationshipnone of it must show. The partners' aithfulnessto each otheris surmised only in the regularity of the sessions and a certain degree of ani-mation. The first segment is followedby a very long period of seeming stagna-tion, but it is, in fact, used surreptitiouslyto study the listening capabilitiesof the analyst, i.e., his prejudices (and not his desire, as would be the casein objectalneuroses). During this whole phase, the regularreturn to the couchhas, by the way, the same libidinal significance for the patient as the regu-larity of his physiological functions: breathing, bowel movements, menstrua-tion; symbolicrecurrencesof the interredexperience.The illnessaffectingthesefunctions (asthma, colitis, painful periods or their cessation, involution, etc.),should it become eloquent, speaks onlyto thesubject nd not to othersas, forexample, would be the case in conversionhysteria).The illness tells the subject:"The return is there, but it is an illness."This return is the mirror image ofwhat happens on the couch-when coming to the sessions and speaking areconceived of as suffering, as torture. Thanks to this translation into words,the self-to-self affliction can register a respite from the onset of the analysis.The second movement takes place when the secret projectionof the childonto the analystgives way to the equallysecretive"decorporation"f the crypticobject. The impulse for this change may be quite contingent. But, above all,it will be the work of interpretation laying open, at the right time, the endo-crypticidentification.The false"I"will be reconverted nto a thirdperson,whilethe patient is given to understand that it is possible to evoke the prodigal loveof his object without subjectinghim to shame or losing him morally-all themore so since the transgression itself implies an authentic and privileged


16/17

Poetics of Psychoanalysisencounter with the depths of the object's psyche that the patient, henceforth,will attempt to fathom.

The great danger duringthis second phase is that, upon opening the crypt,the object is implicitly or explicitly condemned by the analyst; whereas whatis required is the capacity to mourn, namely, the capacity to acquire for one-self the libidinal resources owned by the object. To say, in this context, "Youwant to seduceme,"or "You'remaking a seducerut of me,"or "It's ime to forgetall that,"does not sound like a trivial comment, but like an irreversible sen-tence, capableof upsetting everything. If, on the contrary, instead of shamingthe object, the narcissisticvalue of the entombed experience(for bothpartners)is recognized with the cryptunlocked,its treasure aid into the open andrecog-nized as the unalienable propertyof the subject- the third and last movementwill come into being, thanks to a new elan, with the task of undertaking thefinal fight with the oedipal party-the last hurdleon the way to fructifyingthetreasure.At the close of this all too rapid overview of some effects of inclusion, andof endocryptic identification in particular, let us express the hope that thesenotions will lighten the arduous task of listening to certain patients. There isalso hope that, for them, we have increased the chances of being heard and,

finally, the hope that the treasureswhich lie buried in crypts can become thedelight of their owner and work to the benefit of us all.Translated by Nicholas Rand

University of Wisconsin-Madison

NOTES1. This image of the "phantom"-meant at first to point out a rift (inflictedupon the listening

analyst by some secret of the patient which could not be revealed) that creates a formation in theunconscious of the listener-lent itself to a variety of theoretical elaborations.The analyst, ready-ing himself to be keyed to the dictates of the couch, is surely, in some respects, comparable toa child maturing on the psychic nourishment received from his parents. Should the child haveparents"withsecrets,"parentswhose speech is not exactly complementaryto their unstatedrepres-sions, he will receive from them a gap in the unconscious,an unknown, unrecognizedknowledge- anescience- ubjected to a form of "repression" efore the fact.The buried speech of the parent becomes (a) dead (gap), without a burial place, in the child.This unknown phantom comes back from the unconscious to haunt and leads to phobias, mad-ness, and obsessions. Its effect can persist through several generations and determine the fate ofan entire family line.Could this be the "mysterious"primary repressionhypothesized by Freud? It is too early toprovide an answer. All the same, the clinical impact of the phantomheorys becoming ever moreprecise. In this text (delivered as a lecture in March 1973), the image of the phantom simply rep-resents a specificmalaiseof the analyst;it has since been transposed nto a metapsychologicalnotion,a matter for new research and renewed analytic listening. It has been furtherexpanded upon ina seminar on Dual Unity and one of its consequences: the metapsychologicalhantomsee "Notes duseminaire surl'Unite Duelle et le Fant6me," n L'ecorcet enoyau Paris:Aubier-Flammarion,1978],pp. 393-425). Furtherapplications an be foundin the followingarticles:NicolasAbraham,"Notulessur le Fant6me,"and MariaTorok, "Histoirede peur," n L'corce,pp. 426-433 and 434-446. [ Trans-

17


17/17

18 Nicolas Abraham and Maria Toroklator's ote:See also Abraham'sinterpretationof Shakespeare'sHamletwith his addition of a sixthact: Le Fantome d'Hamlet ou le VIe acte,"L'corce,pp. 447-474.]2. See "La Topique realitaire,"in L'ecorce, . 255.3. See our article"Introjecter-Incorporer: Deuil ouMelancolie,"in Lecorce,pp. 259-276. [InEnglish, see "Introjection Incorporation:Mourning orMelancholia,"in Psychoanalysisn France,ed. S. Lebovici and D. Widlocher(New York:InternationalUniversities Press, 1980), pp. 3-16.]4. See N. Abraham and M. Torok, Cryptonymie:e Verbiere l'Homme uxloups Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1976), pt. II, pp. 135-160 (forthcoming in English in 1985 from the University ofMinnesota Press). This chapter is a contribution to the psychoanalysisof dreams and phobia. Itelaborates upon the secret content of the Wolfman's"crypt"and the manner in which it returnsin his famous nightmare. The chapterwas originally a lecture given in Paris on 15January 1974to commemorate the centenary of S. Ferenczi's birth.5. Information in brackets supplied by translator.

abraham n torok m poetics of psychoanalysis the lost object me

Documents