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    Elena Tiron
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    On not being able to dream

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    18 views16 pages

    On Not Being Able To Dream

    Uploaded by

    Elena Tiron

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 16
    CHAPTER FOUR On not being able to dream: the role of maternal containment in the therapy of a young child who suffered from night terrors Christine Anzieu-Premmereur ‘The French psychoanalyst, Jean Bertrand Pontalis (4972), wrote: “dreaming is fist of all the effort to ‘sintain an impossible union with the mathe". In his theory ofthe Skin Ego, Le Moi-peau, Didier -Anzien (2980) explored the way in which the infant's first experiences of being touched by the mother ‘organises a container in the relationship for psyehie funetioning capable of providing « mental space in ‘which representations and fantasies can be stored. If this maternal container is stable and flexible enough, an infant’ early fears and anxieties are transformed into less violent experiences and can then be associated with dreams Wilired Bion (1962) spoke of a “mental skin” that will lle the introjection ofthinkable elements, But if archaic fears are too intense, they will block this process and so interfere with the infant's access to jeaeuiineelitihiiesieibisieatMaatiaed. My work with young children has made me avare ‘of their ability to create representations that give a sense of their early, disorganised experiences, and of hhow these have been integrated. The transference enables a process of representation and symbolisation, through play and through the ‘exchange of feelings that ean be taken in, contained, ‘and processed during the session, Reports of dreams are frequent in child analysis; ‘you merely have to ask children while they are playing ‘or draving, “Like something in your bad dreams, is 82" Young children absorbed in their activities are very close to their preconseious and this makes it easy for them totalk about or demonstrate their dreams. Primitive anxieties associnted with defects in the maternal object are at the core of most analytic treatments with these ebildren, Dreams help to show the connection with the object and to mai ‘protection against the fear of an omnipotent maternal figure. ‘The capacity to dream and create representations: that are sufficiently well-organised to be remembered is, however, linked to good emotional regulation and symbolisation. Some children never attain this ability because ofa lack of containment of their disorganised and often traumatising experiences. Peter T shall now present the fist sessions with Peter, who vwas five when T met him. He suffered from bouts of night terror; he was unable to sleep without acting out his fears, and he was an anorexic and depressed child. Tn the analytic setting, a dream is an important representation that helps the analyst to capture the child's fantasies in the transference, and i ea allow access to the preverbal and pre-symbolle experiences of early infancy. is a process of representation with a function of wish fulfilment, but itis also associated ‘with traumatic experiences of pre-symbolie origin, Ferenczi hypothesis (1931) was that dreams serve to recover memory traces of painful sensations. This possibility of working through experience, which Ferenczi called the traumatolytic funetion of dreams, is close to the idea of “healing dreams” in Winnicott's “Hate in the counter-transference” (1049) In order to become communicable, emotions must {g0 through a process of transformation and take on a symbolic form: emotional experiences are thus transformed and new connections are set up. In ion’s theory (1962), it is from dreams that the ‘unconscious develops. Dreaming is seen as the most important component of the “psyeho-analytie function of the personality”. For Bion, a chil is bora ‘with a rudimentary consciousness and senses stimuli, Dut is unaware of himself Bion noted (1962), “The mother's capacity for reverie isthe receptor organ for the infant's harvest of self-sensation gained by its conscious.” Through her reverie, her ability to receive and transform the chilé’s projective identifications, the mother expresses her love forthe ehild, contains his anxieties, and provides him with the means of forming an alpha-function of his own based on the experience of being cared for by her. What is important is the child's ability to create representations: that he can eteate representations fand images out of sensations and perceptions, and can develop images of his relationship with his parents. The support and the holding that the mother provides for her baby ensure the continuity of his ‘memory of sensations, pleasant or unpleasant. With the aid of her mirroring funetion, the mother returns his experiences tothe child, transformed in a way that ‘makes them fel “its own”. ‘The capacity of the mother's unconselous to bind

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