Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1994, 39, 419-461 CONTAINMENT - AN ARCHETYPE? Meaning of madness in Jung and Bion JEF DEHING, Brussels Our body formed from matter, our soul gazing coward the heights, are joined into a single living organism. (C.G. Jung, The Zofingia Lectures, § 142) Can live since we are lived, the powers That we create with are not ours. (W.H. Auden, ‘New Year Letter’) Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. (Z.S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’, Four Quartets) PROLOGUE The constitution of the human psyche, founded on its archetypal basis, has been one of Jung’s main concerns in his work. In particular he studied the phenomenological aspects of this ‘individuation pro- cess’, thereby stressing the ubiquitousness of the archetypal images. Psychotic disease was considered to be the consequence of an engulf- ment of ego-consciousness by archetypal forces. Jung frequently stressed the containing function of the archetypal structure, and the necessity for ego-consciousness to keep in touch with it. On the other hand he also emphasized the importance of the containing function of ego-consciousness: he even states that the archetype is dependent on the ego for its very existence. But he is less explicit about the genetic aspects of this subtle interaction: how does psychic development come into being in childhood, and how does the psychotherapeutic situation get it going again when it has been deadlocked? In this paper I shall try to approach these questions, introducing the difficult problem of psychosis as a contrapuntal subject. I shall ‘021-874/3904/419 © 1904, The Society of Analytical Psychology420 J. Dehing make extensive use of Wilfred R. Bion’s work: his themes, simul- taneously related to Jung’s and complementing them, will hopefully enrich the polyphony of this dialectical search. 1. JUNG AND PSYCHOSIS 1.1. The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease Freud ardently hoped that Jung would extend his psychoanalytical theory and practice (elaborated in work with presumed ‘neurotic’ patients) to the domain of psychosis. He wrongly assumed that his structural model would be suitable for the understanding and treat- ment of psychotic diseases. Jung, in ‘The psychology of dementia praecox’ (Jung 1907), at first seems to acknowledge the mechanisms described by Freud: the repression and reappearance of repressed representations in the form of delusions and hallucinations. As in other passages where he attempts to explain psychoanalytical theory, his wording is rather inaccurate: interestingly ‘dissociation’ and ‘splitting-off’ are used as if they were synonyms of ‘repression’. And from the outset he keeps his distance: ‘Nevertheless, the mechanisms of Freud are not compre- hensive enough to explain why dementia praecox arises and not hys- teria’ (para. 76). From 1907 onwards Jung develops his own conceptions on the subject; he does so in his usual dialectical style, apprehending the problems of psychosis against the background of a series of oppo- sitions: 1.1.1, Psychogenesis versus organic causes A. Jung strongly combats the organicistic conception of ‘psychiatric ‘materialism’ or ‘brain-mythology’ which claims that ‘Mental dis- eases are diseases of the brain’ (Jung 1908, para. 322; 1919, para. 467; 1928, para. 496). He advocates the psychogenetic origin of psychotic diseases: . . . ‘schizophrenia has a “psychology”, i.e., a psychic causality and finality.’ (Jung 1928, para. 498) 1. The illness often breaks out at a moment of some great emotion (Jung 1908, para. 333); the immediate cause of the disturbance is a violent affect (Jung 1958, para. 560); a shock or an intense moral conflict (Jung 1919, para. 480). 2. a) Its content, which cannot be understood from the anatomicalContainment — an archetype? 421 standpoint, becomes comprehensible when considered from the standpoint of the individual’s previous history (Jung 1908, para. 333): When we penetrate into the human secrets of our patients, the madness discloses the system upon which it is based, and we recognize insanity to be simply an unusual reaction to emotional problems which are in no way foreign to ourselves. (ibid., para. 339) « [iJm dementia praccox there is no symptom which could be described as psychologically groundless and meaningless. (ibid., para. 387) b) These personal vicissitudes have a collective basis; schizo- phrenic patients ‘are lost in the maze of a magic garden where the same old story is repeated again and again in a timeless present’ (ibid., para. 356). Already in 1908 Jung hinted at ‘the silent activity of the unconscious, preparing new solutions for [an] insoluble problem’ (ibid., para. 353). In later writings he will argue that archetypal forces and contents, ‘normal constituents of our unconscious psyche’ (Jung 1939, para. $18) appear in psychotic expressions. The fact that schizophrenia disrupts the foundations of the psyche accounts for the abundance of collective symbols, because it is the jatter material that constitutes the basic structure of the personality. (ibid., para. 527) It was this frequent reversion to archaic forms of association found in schizophrenia that first gave me the idea of an unconscious not consist- ing only of originally conscious contents. (Jung 1958, para. 565) So the conditions under which a psychosis breaks out, and its manifes- tations, can be considered as being ‘psychological’. But what about its primary cause? B. .... {iJt was just my psychological approach that led me to the hypothesis of a chemical factor . . . I arrived at the chemical hypothesis by a process of psycho Jogical elimination. (Jung, ‘Appendix’ to Coll. Wks 3) In 1957 Jung is still consistent with his hypothesis of somatic causes, ‘toxins’ damaging the psychic functions as a whole, which he formulated fifty years earlier (Jung 1907, para. 76). This ‘toxin’ would injure the brain in a more or less irreparable manner (ibid., para. 75), thus causing ‘something like a debraining’ Gibid., para. 196). It would explain the ‘quite central disturbance’ (ibid., para. 76) typical of psychotic disease. . [the biological foundations of the psyche are affected to a far greater extent in [schizophrenia] than in the neuroses. (Jung 1958, para. 566)422 J. Dehing Experiences with mescalin and related drugs encourage the hypothesis of a toxic origin. (Jung 1957, para 548) although the disturbance is not identical (Jung 1958, para. $70). This intuitive assumption of a ‘toxin’, very unpleasant to Freud at the time, has been corroborated by modern neurophysiology and biochemistry. But it ‘eliminates’ the difficult question of the psychological difference between psychotic and neurotic phenomena (see 1.1.4. below). 1.1.2. Psycho-analysis versus complex psychology From 1907 on, Jung ‘goes a little beyond the scope of Freud’s views’ (Jung 1907, para. 77) by introducing the concept of the ‘feeling- toned complexes’, higher psychic unities (ibid., para. 82), consisting of mutually associated sense-perceptions, intellectual components and feeling-tone (ibid., para. 79). The ego-complex, ‘the whole mass of ideas pertaining to the ego’ (ibid., para. 82), ‘the psychological expression of the firmly associated combination of all body sensations’ is normally the highest psychic authority: ‘( [glood health permitting) it weathers all psychological storms’ (ibid., para. 83). Apparently Jung is unaware of the radical structural change he is propounding with regard to Freudian psychoanalysis: Freud con- sidered the ego as the repressing agent and liked to represent it on top of the psychic apparatus, kept apart from the unconscious by a horizontal bar. Jung boldly ranges the ego among the other ‘complexes’, suggesting a vertical division: the ego’s supremacy all of a sudden becomes quite relative, and the fundamentally new perspective allows for a better understanding of the psychotic phenomena: in hysteria the pathogenic complex causes a limitation of the adaptation to the environment (ibid., paras. 141, 194) but elaboration, displacement, compromise formation and even partial overcoming of the complex remain possi- ble. ‘But if the complex remains entirely unchanged, which naturally happens only when there is very severe damage to the ego-complex and its functions, then we must speak of dementia praecox’ (ibid., para. 141, Jung's italics). Another opposition is touched upon here: 1.1.3. The ego-consciousness versus the unconscious Dementia praecox has, so to speak, pierced holes in the ceiling of consciousness . « $0 that it is now possible to see from all sides into the automatic workings of the unconscious complexes. (ibid., para. 256) Any complex can be supposed to have an archetypal substructure, belonging to the collective unconscious; its ‘personal unconscious’Containment — an archetype? 423 portion originates from the encounter of these collective structures with elements of personal experience, and its degree of consciousness depends on its connections with the ‘ego-complex’. With regard to the ‘ego-complex’ itself, this description poses a logical problem: what determines the degree of consciousness of the ego-complex, and, consequently, its ‘strength’? The other, ‘autonomous’, complexes are, by definition, mainly unconscious: making them conscious leads to their assimilation, integration. These preliminary remarks are necessary because Jung, in his studies on the psychogenesis of mental disease, departs from the promising path of complex psychology: a new opposition is proposed between conscious and unconscious, the latter being somewhat unsatisfactorily defined as ‘the sum of all psychic processes below the threshold of consciousness’ (Jung 1914b, para. 441). . .. [t]he function of the unconscious in mental disturbances is essentially a compen- sation of the conscious content. But because of the characteristic one-sidedness of the conscious in all such cases, the compensating correctives are rendered useless. . . . [tJhese unconscious tendencies will break through . . . in a distorted and unacceptable form. (ibid., para. 465, my italics) “These corrective impulses . . . should really be the beginning of a healing process ...’ (ibid., para. 458); two years later Jung will describe the ‘transcendent function; which makes this transition possi- ble (see Dehing 1993). But in the psychotic crisis the compensating influences have to struggle against the resistances of a one-sided ego, ‘and so present themselves in a quite thoroughly distorted way’; moreover they ‘must of necessity present themselves in the language of the unconscious — that is, in subliminal material of a very heterogeneous nature’ (ibid., para. 463). ‘The greater the gap between a one-sided, defensive and in fact weak ego on the one hand, and the unleashed unconscious forces on the other hand, the less chance there is for the compensating mechanism to work properly: this conclusion bears heavy consequences for the prognosis and the psychotherapeutic possibilities in psychotic disease. And indeed Jung is ‘not altogether optimistic in this respect’ (Jung 1919, para. 482); milder cases ‘can be cured by psychotherapeutic means’ but ‘such cases are rare’. ‘The very nature of the disease, involving as it does the disintegration of the personality, rules out the possibility of psychic influence, which is the essential agent in therapy’ (Jung 1928, para. 503). The therapeutic technique proposed by Jung in psychotic cases will be discussed later (1.1.6.). Up to now we have considered the group of psychotic patients with424 J. Dehing weak ego-consciousness. Jung proposes the interesting hypothesis that there may be a second group in which a normal consciousness is ‘confronted with an unusually strong unconscious.’ Jung links this ‘almost overwhelming strong unconscious determination’ (also found in some cases of neurosis) with ‘creative impulses (artistic or other- wise)’ (Jung 1939, para. 531). But he notes: ‘However, the psychologi- cal gulf between the creation of the artist and the insane person is great’ (Jung 1908, para. 355). 1.1.4. Hysteria versus dementia praccox We have already considered one criterion which differentiates neurosis and psychosis: the vicissitudes of the feeling-toned complex (1.1.2.). Jung proposes other structural differences: on the one hand the schizo- phrenic patient ‘cuts off his emotional rapport with human beings entirely’ (Jung 1919, para. 492), on the other hand ‘in schizophrenia the normal subject has split into a plurality of subjects, or into a plurality of autonomous complexes’ (Jung 1928, para. 498, Jung’s italics). ‘The split is not relative, it is absolute’ (Jung 1939, para. 506) and ‘very often it is irreversible’ (ibid., para. 507). The potential unity of the personality is lost. ‘[The schizophrenic patient] has the same complexes, the same insight and needs [as the neurotic], but not the same certainty with regard to his foundations.’ (para. 559, my italics): he is always at risk of ‘an irretrievable disintegration’. ‘The dangerousness of his situation often shows itself in terrifying dreams of cosmic catastrophes, of the end of the world and such things’ (ibid.) So the psychotic condition is characterized by a ‘fundamental disturbance of relationship’ with oneself and with the others. : [t]he schizophrenic complex . . . takes possession of the conscious mind so completely that it alienates and destroys the personality. It does not produce a ‘double personality’ but depotentiates the ego-personality by usurping its place. (Jung 1958, para. 579, my italics) In contrast to [the neurotic complex], the schizophrenic complex is characterized by a particular deterioration and disintegration of its own ideational content, (Jung 1957, para $46, my italics) The self-destruction of the schizophrenic complex manifests itself, in the first place, in a disintegration of the means of expression and communication. (ibid., para. 547, my italics) In contrast to [the neurotic compensation], the schizophrenic compensation almost always remains stuck fast in collective and archaic forms, thereby cutting itself off from understanding and integration. (Jung 1958, para. $67) [The complex] remains alien, incomprehensible and incommunicable. (ibid., para. 581)Containment ~ an archetype? 425 1.1.5. Dream versus psychosis “The nearest analogy to [schizophrenic] thinking is the normal dream’ which ‘cannot be understood by anyone who does not understand Freud’s method of analysis’ (Jung 1907, para. 298). Which does not mean that the psychoanalytical interpretation has the same effect on the ‘metaphorical modulations’ of the psychotic complexes as on the ‘neurotic’ dream! In both cases the association-phenomena are marked by a state of abaissement du niveau mental (Jung 1939, para. 505); but the dream ‘occurs normally under the condition of sleep, while the other upsets the waking or conscious state.’ ‘To say that insanity is a dream which has become real is no metaphor’ (ibid., para. $23, my italics). In schizophrenic symptoms ‘there is a mixture of personal and collective material just as there is in dream. But in contradistinction to normal dreams, the collective material seems to predominate’ (ibid., para. 525). 1.1.6. Analytical-reductive versus synthetic-constructive understanding In the psychotherapy of psychotic phenomena, understanding plays an essential part. In 1952 Jung states: ‘In border-line cases such as this a real psychological understanding is often a matter of life and death’ (Jung 1912, para. 681), and ‘How can you treat something that you do not understand?’ (ibid., para. 685). But in the same breath understanding is associated with the neur- otic’s longing for the embrace of the mother, ‘the only one who really understands us’ (ibid., para. 682). In another passage Jung states: “Understanding is clearly a very subjective process . .. in the end it makes very little difference whether the doctor understands or not, but it makes all the difference whether the patient understands’ (Jung 1934, para. 314), and ‘nothing is more unbearable to the patient than to be always understood’; the patient ‘relies far too much anyway on the mysterious powers of the doctor. . .” (ibid., para. 313)! And understanding can be applied as a means of defence! (Jung 1945, para. 436, et seq). ‘Our modern consciousness’ hopes to appro- priate the power and the energy of the unconscious contents by insight. This materialistic use of understanding disregards the alchem- istic adage: ‘The philosopher is not the master of the stone, but rather its minister’ (ibid., para. 436-7). In 1914 already, in ‘On psychological understanding’, a supplement to ‘The content of the psychoses’, Jung describes Freud’s method of psychological understanding as ‘analytical-reductive’. This under- standing is retrospective (Jung 1914a, para. 391): ‘Like Ahriman, the426 ‘J. Dehing Persian devil, it has the gift of hindsight’ (ibid., para. 397). (In Persian religion Ahriman is the personification of lies, malice and darkness!) It is in keeping with ‘the modern scientific method of explanation . . . based entirely on the principle of causality’ (ibid., para. 392, my italics). In my opinion Jung’s critique of psychoanalysis is only partly correct, doing no justice to Freud’s prospective genius. But we agree with Jung that the understanding of psychotic phenomena requires more than a ‘causal explanation’: Only on one side is [the human psyche] something that has come to be, and, as such, subject to the causal standpoint. The other side is in the process of becoming, and can only be grasped synthetically or constructively. (ibid., para. 399, my italics) On the one hand [the psyche] gives a picture of the remnants and traces of all that has been, and, on the other, but expressed in the same picture, the outlines of what is to come, in so far as the psyche creates its own future. (ibid., para. 404) ‘Constructive understanding also analyses, but it does not reduce. It breaks the system down into typical components’ (ibid., para. 413, Jung’s italics). Jung is referring to ‘countless typical formations which show obvious analogies with mythological formations’. These ‘fan- tasy-structures . . . are based essentially on the activity of the uncon- scious (ibid., para. 414). ‘Jung applies his ‘constructive understanding’ to President Schreber’s delusional system, and states: “The question is: What is the goal the patient tried to reach through the creation of this system?’ (ibid., para. 408). And he notes: ‘There are patients who elaborate their delusions with scientific thoroughness, often dragging in an immense amount of comparative material by way of proof’ (ibid., para. 410). ‘Their aim is obviously fo create a system that will enable them to assimilate unknown psychic phenomena and so adapt themselves to their own world’ (ibid., para. 416, my italics). The psychotic patient remains stuck in this necessary transitional stage; ‘he understands himself merely subjectively, and this precludes intelligible communication’ (ibid., para. 416). In the psychotherapeutic treatment of psychotic patients Jung stresses the importance of increasing the psychological understanding (Jung 1939, para. 539): ‘Since fascination by archetypal contents is particularly dangerous, an explanation of their universal, impersonal meaning seems to me especially helpful . . . I have therefore made it a rule to give the intelligent patient as much psychological knowledge as he can stand’ (Jung 1958, para. 575). Jung pleads in favour of keeping ‘the patient's mind at a sufficiently safe distance from the unconscious, for instance by inducing him to draw or paint a picture of his psychic situation. . . . In this way theContainment — an archetype? 427 apparently incomprehensible and unmanageable chaos . . . is visual- ized and objectified; it can be observed at a distance by his conscious mind, analysed, and interpreted... . The tremendum is spellbound .’ (ibid., para. 562). Obviously Jung remains pretty close to a rather defensive attitude, stuffing the patient with explanations and keeping the unconscious at a ‘safe distance’, while on the other hand proposing techniques to metabolize the psychotic contents. Anyway, Jung is of the opinion that ‘it would be a mistake to suppose that more or less suitable methods of treatment exist. Theoretical assumptions in this respect count for next to nothing’ (ibid., para. 573). This statement, made in 1957, is rather surprising and a little disappointing. Jung only gives us a few rules of thumb which are of little comfort: {l]n psychotherapy enthusiasm is the secret of success. (Jung 1939, para. 539) The thing that really matters is the personal commitment, the serious purpose, the devotion, indeed the self-sacrifice, of those who give the treatment. (Jung 1958, para. $73) He states only en passant that the therapeutic effort aims at re- establishing psychic rapport with the patient, and that the treatment may induce psychic infections in the therapist (ibid.). 1.2. Jung’s ‘psychotic’ crisis (1912-16) Lhave already commented quite extensively on the severe crisis which Jung himself had to struggle through after his break with Freud and the psychoanalytic movement (Dehing 1990, 1993). I connected this difficult period with Jung’s childhood neurosis and the ‘dissociation’, described by himself in his autobiography, between his ‘well-adapted” No. 1 personality and a rather uncanny No. 2 personality. The out- come of the crisis yielded two important texts, real milestones in Jung’s oeuvre: the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos, a metaphorical pre- figuration of Analytical Psychology as a whole, and ‘The transcendent function’, a description of a radical change in psychotherapeutic tech- nique. In this context I will try to show how Jung’s statements about psychosis can largely be applied to his own crisis; this includes the numerous assertions formulated before his breakdown. Does this prove that Jung was ‘mad’, as Winnicott (1964) boldly stated? Or does it merely indicate that Jung’s experience had certain428 J. Dehing ‘psychotic’ characteristics? I shall leave these questions unanswered for the time being. 1.2.1. Psychogenetic origin ‘After the parting of the ways with Freud, a period of inner uncer tainty began for me.’ The non-recognition by Freud of his originality caused Jung more than sore disillusionment. ‘It would be no exagger- ation to call it a state of disorientation. I felt totally suspended in mid- air, for I had not yet found my own footing’ (Jung 1963, p. 194). ‘The psychological origin of this confusion appears to have been obvious to Jung all the time, and he paid particular attention to his dreams, but the inner pressure persisted. He then engaged in playing ‘childish games’, accumulating stones and building a whole village (ibid., p. 198). ‘Gradually ‘an incessant stream of fantasies’ (ibid., p. 200) was released, and Jung found himself standing ‘helpless before an alien world’ (ibid., p. 201). Finally overpowering visions and delusional phenomena completed the picture. I suspected there was some psychic disturbance in myself. (ibid., p. 197). . . It is, of course, ironical that I, a psychiatrist, should at almost every step of my experiment have run into the same psychic material which is the stuff of psychosis and is found in the insane. (ibid., p. 213) Only by extreme effort was I finally able to escape from the labyrinth. (ibid., p. 202) 1.2.2. A new psychotherapeutic approach Clearly the then available psychoanalytical interpretations were quite useless to Jung: the psychic contents that assailed him were not repressed ‘outmoded forms’, but expressions of ‘our living being’. Thus | consciously submitted myself to the impulses of the unconscious. (ibid., p. 197) This ‘confrontation with the unconscious’ brought him face to face with quite a lot of autonomous complexes, personified in a number of fantasy figures. ‘I knew that I had to let myself plummet down into [these “‘underground” fantasies]. I felt not only violent resistance to this, but a distinct fear. For I was afraid of losing command of myself and becoming a prey to the fantasies - and as a psychiatrist I realized only too well what that meant’ (ibid., p. 202). 1.2.3. Ego-strength Apparently Jung disposed of a pretty robust ego-consciousness: ‘My enduring these storms was a question of brute strength’ (ibid., p. 201).Containment — an archetype? 429 Still he was aware of the need for ‘a point of support in “this world” *: ‘My family and my profession remained the base to which I could always return, assuring me that I was an actually existing, ordinary person. The unconscious contents could have driven me out of my wits’ (ibid., p. 214). Nevertheless he ‘felt the gulf between the external world and the interior world of images, in its most painful form’ (ibid., p. 219). The pressure of the compensating unconscious forces came to a head in 1916, to clear up with the frenetic editing of the Septem Sermones. Thus the self-healing function of his venture went hand in hand with the creative founding of a lifework. And in fact the two aspects supported each other: ‘My science was the only way I had of extricating myself from that chaos’ (ibid., p. 217). 1.2.4. Hysteria or dementia praecox? In spite of the most impressive intensity of ‘psychotic’ phenomena, we find none of the ominous stigmata of a schizophrenic dissociation: Jung continually remained in touch with himself and with the others, and the schizophrenic self-destruction remains at bay. ‘A naughty little voice may then suggest: maybe Jung was just an ordinary hysteric? Did he not frankly admit himself that he had a hysterical structure (Freud reacted to this confession by pointing out to Jung that ‘in analysis we guide hysterics on the road to dementia praecox’) (Freud 1974, 110 F). Paradoxically the aura of madness healed by self-cure is more gratifying for the narcissism of Jung's followers than the disparaging diagnosis of hysteria, Fortunately an outstanding Freudian like Winnicott did not begrudge us the flattering insanity hypothesis. Anyway, we should not allow Ahriman to beguile us into reducing hysteria to its popular depreciatory denotation. Its ‘neurotic’ features might well conceal an underlying psychotic structure. 1.2.5. Dreams Dreams, visions and dream-like delusions play an important part in Jung’s ‘confrontation with the unconscious’. Apparently ‘collective’ contents were rather predominant, but the abaissement du niveau mental was always kept within reasonable limits. 1.2.6. Understanding In my case it must have been primarily a passionate urge towards understanding which brought about my birth. (ibid., p. 353)430 J. Dehing ... there was a demonic strength in me, and from the beginning there was no doubt in my mind that I must find the meaning of what | was experiencing in these fantasies. (ibid., p. 201) The ‘remnants and traces of all that [had] been’ were quickly exhaus- ted, and that made the ‘analytic-reductive’ method redundant. Jung then addressed his ‘synthetic-constructive’ approach to the ‘typical components’ of the unconscious, the ‘archetypes’ which he had not yet discovered at that time. Not unlike President Schreber, Jung was creating a system that would enable him ‘to assimilate unknown psychic phenomena’; he most certainly elaborated his findings ‘with scientific thoroughness’, . ‘dragging in an immense amount of comparative material by way of proof’ (Jung 1914a, paras. 410, 416). Jung formulated these comments on Schreber in the very middle of his own tempestuous confrontation with the unconscious. The load of ‘comparative material’ accumulated and analysed by Jung over more than fifty years is very impressive indeed: Gnosis, alchemy, mythology, eastern philosophy and Christianity. And we know how deeply pleased he was whenever a new piece of evidence appeared to corroborate his findings. In contrast with Schreber, and any psychotic patient, Jung suc- ceeded in maintaining the link with external ‘objective’ reality. He did not subside into a merely subjective delusional morass, thus pre- cluding ‘intelligible communication’. His disease was truly ‘creative’, as Ellenberger termed it (Ellenberger 1970). 1.3. Questions I can now formulate the questions that I want to amplify in this paper: 1.3.1. Without denying the importance of biochemical and neuro- physiological disturbances in psychotic illness, my approach will be strictly psychological: how can we understand the psychotic experi- ence, and its relationship to the individuation process, in analytical terms? In cutting off the escape route of the ‘toxic’ theory, I intend to penetrate a little further into the structural differences between mad- ness and sanity. 1.3.2. Classical psychoanalysis proved unable to provide satisfactory answers to most of the structural problems of psychosis; Jung’s com- plex psychology was much more promising in this respect. But theContainment — an archetype? 431 perspectives of the two approaches are radically different. Can they be reconciled? 1.3.3. The respective strength of ego-consciousness and the uncon- scious may be partly determined by constitutional factors. But which are the psychological factors contributing to an adequate ego-strength in front of the unconscious forces? 1.3.4. Which are the structural criteria allowing for differentiation between ‘neurotic’ and ‘psychotic’ phenomena? And how can we account for the dramatic difference between a degenerative schizo- phrenic process and a ‘creative (psychotic) disease’? 1.3.5. Is it possible to render the structural difference between dream and insanity more explicit? 1.3.6. What are the dynamics of psychological understanding both in the therapy of psychosis and in ‘sane’ development? Beyond these issues I shall try to tackle a more fundamental ques- tion: how does the inborn psychic structure acquire psychic quality? 2. BION AND PSYCHOSIS 2.1. A psychogenetic hypothesis Wilfred R. Bion elaborated a comprehensive theory about the origins and development of psychic existence, largely deduced from his psychoanalytic work with psychotic patients, I shall give a fairly extended outline of those of his thoughts which are relevant to our search, Readers familiar with Bion’s work will, I hope, forgive this digression; those for whom Bion is still virgin territory may be a little bewildered by his original approach and his peculiar wording. 2.1.1. Projective identification I shall state the theory first in terms of a model, as follows: the infant suffering pangs of hunger and fear that it is dying, wracked by guilt and anxiety, and impelled by greed, messes itself and cries. The mother picks it up, feeds and comforts it, and eventually the infant sleeps. Reforming the model to represent the feelings of the infant we have the following version: the infant, filled with painful lumps of faeces, guilt, fear of impending death, chunks of greed, meanness and urine, evacuates these bad objects into the breast that is not there. As it does so the good object turns the no-breast (mouth) into a breast, the faeces and urine into milk, the fears of impending death and432 J. Dehing anxiety into vitality and confidence, the greed and meanness into feelings of love and generosity and the infant sucks its bad property, now translated into goodness, back again. (Bion 1963, p. 31) This dramatic description of the hunger experience of the baby pro- vides a rich example of the process of projective identification (Mel- anie Klein): ‘an omnipotent phantasy that it is possible to split off temporarily undesired, though sometimes valued, parts of the person- ality and put them into an object’ (Bion 1962b, p.31). The phantasy is not completely omnipotent though: ‘The patient, even at the outset of life, has contact with reality sufficient to enable him to act in a way that engenders in the mother feelings that he does not want, or which he wants his mother to have’ (ibid.). Successful, and ‘realistic’, projective identification is at the very basis of psychic development; it is in fact an indispensable preliminary stage of our capacity to think. 2.1.2. Alpha- and beta-elements Bion proposes another ‘abstraction’ to picture the hunger experience: initially the sense impressions and especially the emotions (which are ‘likewise objects of sense’) of the baby do not have psychic quality. Bion calls such ‘undigested’, raw sensorial impressions ‘beta- elements’. The mother receives these beta-elements and ‘works upon them’ by her ‘alpha-function’, thus ‘digesting’ them, granting them psychic quality and making them available for thought: ‘alpha-clements’ are thus produced and imparted to the child which can now re-introject these contents in metabolized form. Beta-elements are ‘the earliest matrix from which thoughts can be supposed to arise’ (Bion 1963, p. 22); they are chronologicaly prior to alpha-elements. In contrast with the alpha-elements the beta-elements are not felt to be phenomena, but things in themselves... . [They] are not amenable to use in dream thoughts but are suited for use in projective identification. They are influential in producing acting out. They are objects that can be evacuated or used for a kind of thinking that depends on manipulation of what are felt to be things in themselves as if to substitute such manipulation for words or ideas. . . . Beta-elements are stored, + + [but] as ‘undigested’ facts. (Bion 1962b, p. 6-7) Not only are beta-clements particularly fit for use in projective identi- fication; they also badly need this mechanism in order to acquire psychic quality. This does not mean however that the contents of projective identification are exclusively composed of beta-elements. Some degree of alpha-quality is probably present very early in the projected contents.Containment — an archetype? 433 Beta-elements do not have psychic quality; being ‘things-in-them- selves’ they are not re-presentations. Neither do they re-present some- thing else (the absent object) nor do they form an image in the mind: as long as they are not ‘worked upon by alpha-function’ they are psychically not re-presented. Irrepresentable and unspeakable, they are unavailable for any purpose other than evacuation. 2.1.3. Maternal ‘reverie’ For the transformation of beta-elements into alpha-clements the infant depends on the mother’s capacity for reverie (which is a factor of the mother’s alpha-function): ‘reverie is that state of mind which is .. . capable of reception of the infant’s projective identifications whether they are felt by the infant to be good or bad’ (ibid., p. 36). In addition, successful reverie transforms the infants beta-elements into alpha-elements, which are then returned to the infant. Normal development follows if the relationship between infant and breast permits the infant to project a feeling, say, that it is dying into the mother and to reintroject it after its sojourn in the breast has made it tolerable to the infant psyche. If the projection is not accepted by the mother the infant feels that its feeling that it is dying is stripped of such meaning as it has. It therefore reintrojects, not a fear of dying made tolerable, but a nameless dread. (Bion 1962a, p. 116) 2.1.4, Conscious and unconscious To leam from experience, alpha-function must operate on the awareness of the emotional experience. .. . Alpha-function is needed for conscious thinking and reasoning and for the relegation of thinking to the unconscious, . . . If there are only beta-elements, which cannot be made unconscious, there can be no repression, suppression, or learning. (Bion 1962b, p. 8) Thus, according to Bion, the conscious and unconscious of Freud’s metapsychology consist exclusively of alpha-elements. A ‘contact~ barrier’, made up of proliferating and cohering alpha-clements, thus continuously in process of formation, marks the point of contact and separ- ation between conscious and unconscious elements and originates the distinction between them... The term ‘contact-barrier’ emphasizes the establishment of contact between conscious and unconscious and the selective passage of elements from one to the other. (ibid., p. 17) Beta-elements have no direct access to this sophisticated conscious- unconscious system which obeys the laws of repression according to the symbolic principles of displacement and condensation (metaphor and metonymy). We can therefore consider beta-elements to be struc- turally ‘psychotic’, excluded as they are from direct psychic process-434 J. Dehing ing. Ego-consciousness will experience them as extraneous and even alien. 2.1.5. The dream According to Bion the dream functions as a barrier between conscious awareness and unconscious mental phenomena. The ‘dream’ has many of the functions of censorship and resistance: these are instruments by which the ‘dream’ creates and differentiates consciousness from unconsciousness. (ibid., p. 16) Ordered thought depends on this operation. In this theory the ability ‘to dream’ preserves the personality from what is virtually a psychotic state. (ibid.) Failure of alpha-function means the patient cannot dream and therefore cannot sleep. As alpha-function makes the sense impressions of the emotional experience available for conscious and dream-thought the patient who cannot dream cannot g0 to sleep and cannot wake up. Hence the peculiar condition seen clinically when the psychotic patient behaves as if he were in precisely this state. (ibid., p. 7) 2.1.6. Container and contained Melanie Klein has described an aspect of projective identification concerned with the modification of infantile fears; the infant projects part of its psyche, namely its bad feelings, into a good breast. Thence in due course they are removed and re~ introjected. During their sojourn in the good breast they are felt to have been modified in such a way that the object that is re-introjected has become tolerable to the infant’s psyche. From the above theory I shall abstract for use as a model the idea of a container (Q) into which an object is projected and the object that can be projected into the container: the latter I shall designate by the term (C’). . . . Container and contained are susceptible of conjunction and permeation by emotion. Thus they change in a manner usually described as growth. When disjoined or denuded of emotion they diminish in vitality. . . . (ibid., p. 90) Container and contained ‘are dependent on each other for mutual benefit and without harm to either’. Mother and child derive benefit and achieve mental growth from the experience. The relationship is ‘commensal’ (ibid., p. 91). This activity ‘becomes introjected by the infant so that the 9 apparatus becomes installed in the infant’s part of the apparatus of alpha-function’ (ibid.). Beta-elements certainly constitute an important part of the ‘contained’; and they probably are those most in need of being contained. But it is clear that the ‘feelings’ in search of contain- ment may have a certain degree of alpha-quality already.Containment — an archetype? 435 2.2. Inborn pre-conceptions 2.1.1. A priori knowledge The pre-conception may be regarded as the analogue in psychoanalysis of Kant’s concept of ‘empty thought’. Psychoanalytically the theory that the infant has an inborn disposition corresponding to an expectation of a breast may be used to supply a model. . . . (t]he pre-conception (the inborn expectation of the breast, the a priori knowledge of the breast. . .) when the infant is brought into contact with the breast itself, mates with awareness of the realization. (Bion 19622, p. 111) The mental outcome is a conception. Conceptions will therefore be expected to be constantly conjoined with an emotional experience of satisfaction. I shall limit the term ‘thought’ to the mating of a pre-conception with a frustration. I shall suppose that an infant has an inborn pre-conception that a breast that satisfies its own incomplete nature exists. . . . (Bion 1962b, p. 69) The term ‘a priori’ knowledge can only apply to psycho-analytic objects where y [the inbom pre-conception] is an unknown whose value can be determined by identification of (£) [the unsaturated element, the emotional experience provided by the realization of the breast] without restriction. (ibid., p. 70) {t]he pre-conception corresponds to a state of expectation, ... a state of mind adapted to receive a restricted range of phenomena. . . . (Bion 1963, p. 23) [t]he pre-conception awaits its realization to produce a conception. (ibid., p. 88) 2.2.2. Inborn pre-conception and archetype Claiming ‘Plato as a supporter for the pre-conception, the Kleinian internal object, the inborn anticipation (Bion 1965, p. 138), Bion goes as far as to postulate an alpha-element version of a private Oedipus myth which is the means, the pre-conception, by virtue of which the infant is able to establish contact with the parents as they exist in the world of reality. The mating of this alpha-element Oedipal pre-conception with the realization of the actual parents gives rise to the conception of parents. (1963, p. 93) As we shall see later (3.1.5.) the idea of alpha-elements existing at the level of the pre-conception raises some logical questions, but the analogy with the Jungian archetype as an inborn psychic structure is very striking indeed, When speaking about a ‘primordial mind’, ‘gen- etic inheritance’ of psychic qualities, especially at moments when ‘some development . . . is striving to take place’, as in adolescence, Bion admits that Jung ‘was probably talking about the same thing’ in his archetypal theory (1976, pp. 4-5).436 J. Dehing ‘I don’t see why [Jung] should not call the Oedipus figure an archetype if he wants to, or say that an equivalent of the Oedipus figure exists in every human being’ (Bion 1977, p. 422). But as a good Freudian he does ‘not see any need to augment Freud’s facts and theory’, and the postulate of a collective unconscious seems to be unnecessary to him: ‘I would not use an expression which might risk an increase in ambiguity. . .” (ibid.). Although Bion’s caution might be pertinent (cf. Dehing 1990) he cannot be completely cleared of the charge of ambiguity himself. And it is regrettable that he did not go more deeply into analytical psychology: his exacting way of thinking would have enabled him to formulate a much sharper, and fairer, critique of Jungian psychology. So for instance the hypothesis of inborn qualities should never beguile us into disregarding the external influences: ‘Consideration of inborn or primary [qualities] must not interfere with the possibility that the qualities of any object are a function of its relationships’ (Bion 1965, p. 120). 2.2.3. The need for an external container The inborn pre-conception cannot acquire psychic quality by itself: another human being is needed, both to provide the matching reali- zation and to get the production of alpha-clements going. That is another mystery. . . . Why is an external person necessary? . . . Why can’t one have a relationship with oneself directly without the intervention of a sort of mental or physical midwife? It seems as if we need to ‘bounce off” another person, to have something which could reflect back what we say before it becomes comprehensible. (Bion 1976, pp. 34-5) The (counter)transferential relationship in analysis is a particular instance of this interaction: ‘The relationship with the analyst is only important as a transitional affair - it would be useful if the word ‘transference’ were used in this more polyvalent sense’ (il Bion’s italics). 2.2.4. The pre-conception as container The inborn pre-conception itself, with its a priori knowledge, pro- vides a structure which receives and contains the sense impressions: Conception is that which results when a pre-conception mates with the appropriate sense impressions. . . . The abstraction from the relationship of pre-conception to sense impressions is 9 to G' (NOT C' to 9). (Bion 1962b, p. 91) This containing function of the pre-conception bears strong resem-Containment — an archetype? 437 blance to the containing aspects which Jung ascribes to the archetypes, especially the Self. I shall return to this idea later (3.2.2.). poe ee oy In 1965 Bion introduced the arcane concept of ‘O’ which again looks suspiciously like Jung’s archetypes, not to say the collective uncon- scious. I shall use the sign O to denote that which is the ultimate reality, absolute truth, the godhead, the infinite, the thing-in-itself (Cf. Jung: ‘Consequently the “‘self” is a pure borderline concept similar to Kant’s Ding an sich.’ (Jung 1936, para. 247).] O does not fall in the domain of knowledge or learning save incidentally; it can be ‘become’, but it cannot be ‘known’, It is darkness and formlessness but it enters the domain K when it has evolved to a point where it can be known, through knowledge gained by experience, and formulated in terms derived from sensuous experience; its existence is conjectured phenomenologically. (Bion 1970, p. 26) Incidentally, ‘K’ is used by Bion as an active link. ‘x K y’ means ‘that x is in the state of getting to know y and y is in a state of getting to be known by x’. (Bion 1962b, p. 47): this ‘getting to know’ implies both tolerance of doubt and tolerance of a sense of infinity: ‘If the learner is intolerant of the essential frustration of learning he indulges in phantasies of omniscience and a belief in a state where things are known’ (ibid., p. 65). Anyway, ‘O’, not unlike the archetype, can never be ‘known’ in a direct way. [T]he messianic hope, the Oedipus myth, the Babel myth, and the Eden myth «are evolved states of O and represent the evolution of O. They represent the state of mind achieved by the human being at his intersection with the evolving ©. (Bion 1970, p. 85, Bion’s italics) This conception has far-reaching consequences for analytical practice. In order to be more receptive to the ‘evolutions’ of ‘O’ as they emerge in the session, the analyst is invited to eschew any memory, desire and understanding: L use © to represent the central feature of every situation that the psycho-analyst has to meet, With this he must be at one; with the evolution of this he must identify so that he can formulate it in an interpretation. (ibid., Bion’s italics) «+. {the more ‘real’ the psycho-analyst is the more he can be at one with the reality of the patient. (ibid., p. 28) ‘The analyst has to become infinite by the suspension of memory, desire, understand- ing. (ibid., p. 46, Bion’s italics) The ultimate goal of analysis is not knowing but being:438 J. Dehing [Reality is not something which lends itself to be known. . . . Reality has to be ‘been’. ... The point at issue is how to pass from ‘knowing’ phenomena to “being® that which is ‘real’. . . . Is it possible through psychoanalytic interpretation to effect a transition from knowing the phenomena of the real self to being the real self? (Bion 1965, p. 148) 2.2.6, Vicissitudes of pre-conceptions An emotional experience is associated with the coming together of a pre-conception and a beta-clement (a sense impression): a. If the sense impression is appropriate a conception is produced; Bion is not explicit about the necessity of alpha-function in this process. It appears logical to assume that pleasant experiences too have to be worked upon by alpha-function in order to acquire psychic quality; b. In the case of a painful emotional experience the baby can, depend- ing on his personality: (a) eject the beta-element and lay the foundation for incapacity to think; (2) accept the beta-element with juxta-position with the pre-conception, tolerate the intrinsic frustration, and thus be in process of alpha-function and the production of alpha-elements. (Bion 1962b, p. 103) In both cases the same name may be employed for objects that are essentially dissimilar: If evasion dominates, the name denotes a beta-element, that is a thing-in-itself and not the name that represents it. If modification dominates, the name denotes an alpha-element, that is the name of the representation of a thing-in-itself. (ibid., p. 84, my italics) The first eventuality clearly inaugurates a pathological psychotic devel- opment: eventually the psychotic patient ‘can never “know” anything but the thing-in-itself” (Bion 1965, p. 40, Bion’s italics), without any symbolic articulation, whereas ‘sane’ people ‘can never know the thing-in-itself, but only secondary and primary qualities’ (ibid.). 2.3. Psychotic mechanisms 2.3.1. Beta-elements I argued (2.1.4.) that beta-elements may be considered to be structur~ ally ‘psychotic’ insofar as they are not directly accessible to psychic processing. Be they ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ego-consciousness cannot assimi- late them, and even on the unconscious level they cannot be repre- sented. This raises the difficult question of the articulation between theContainment — an archetype? 439 beta-elements and the more sophisticated psychic system of conscious and unconscious: how do they present themselves to ego-conscious- ness, and what regulates the transition from sensorial impression to image and ‘thought’? Any human being can be supposed to ‘have’ a certain number of beta-elements (or to be inhabited by them); this ‘non-psychic’ part of the psyche does not inevitably produce psychotic phenomena, but we can assume that a surplus of them could put ego-consciousness to the test. 2.3.2. Nameless dread We saw (2.1.3.) that a failure of maternal reverie, her refusal to accept the baby’s projective identifications, leaves the infant with ‘nameless dread’, which can also be considered as a psychotic experience. This intolerable fear - in Bion’s description — is not merely com- posed of beta-clements: the fear of dying of the infant is stripped of its meaning by the mother’s rejection. This means that at least some alpha-clements were present, which in the failing projective identifi- cation are deprived of their alpha-character. 2.3.3. The inability to dream Failure of alpha-function affects the possibility of discerning emotional experiences connected with (unconscious) phantasies from emotional experiences linked with conscious awareness of external reality. A man talking to a friend [normally] converts the sense impressions of this emotional experience into alpha-elements, thus becoming capable of dream thoughts and therefore of undisturbed consciousness of the facts whether the facts are the events in which he participates or his feelings about those events or both. (Bion 1962b, p. 15, my italics) [cJonscious and unconscious thus constantly produced together do function as if they were binocular therefore capable of correlation and self-regard. Because of the manner of its genesis, impartial register of psychic quality of the self is precluded. (ibid. p. 54, my italics) In psychosis this dream-barrier made up of alpha-elements is lost: there is no intermediary zone which at the same time keeps conscious and unconscious apart and ensures a continuous exchange between them. Binocular view of inner and outer reality is lost, and so is the symbolic articulation: the psychotic only ‘knows’ the thing-in-itself which is radically unknowable for the sane. No wonder that psychotic ‘knowledge’ exerts a strangely fascinating and confusing effect on the ‘sane’.440 J. Dehing 2.3.4. Differentiation of the psychotic from the non-psychotic personalities We already mentioned the basic difference proposed by Bion in order to differentiate psychotic from non-psychotic development (2.2.6.): an essential factor is the tolerance/intolerance of pain and frustration. The link between intolerance of frustration and the development of thought is central to an understanding of thought and its disturbances. . . . The choice that matters to the psycho-analyst is one that lies between procedures designed to evade Srustration and those designed to modify it. That is the critical decision. (Bion 1962, P. 29, Bion’s italics) Bion prudently nuances the concept of ‘intolerance of frustration’: = [pleople exist who are so intolerant of pain and frustration (or in whom pain or frustration is so intolerable) that they feel the pain but will not suffer it and so cannot be said to discover it. (Bion 1970, p. 9) In other words, the painful experiences do not transcend their beta- element status; no connection between pre-conception and beta- element is established, and the process of alpha-function is foreclosed. The patient cannot ‘think’ about his predicament; he can only try to get rid of the beta-elements. This results in ‘excessive’ projective identification, ‘a resort to omnipotent phantasy as a flight from reality’ (Bion 1962b, p. 32). Projective identification is no longer used as a ‘realistic’ part of the learning process; on the contrary it is used as a stubborn defence mechanism: unwanted feelings are massively evacuated. The repeated use of the evasion procedure leads to a vicious circle: the systematic elimination of alpha-processing precludes any possi- bility of learning from experience. The steps taken by the patient to rid himself of the objects . . . which to him are inseparable from frustration, have then led him to precisely the pass that he wished to avoid, namely to tension and frustration unalleviated by the capacity for thought. (ibid., p. 84-5) Failure to use the emotional experiences produces a. . . disaster in the development of the personality; I include amongst these disasters degrees of psychotic deterio- ration that could be described as death of the personality. (ibid., p.42) However, this ‘evasive’ tendency is by no means restricted to the frankly psychotic personalities: any human being dreads pain, and as a rule growth and learning are painful: ‘Change is feared and is then felt as from good to bad; too often, from bad to good is effected by acheat. . . (Bion 1975, p. 128). ‘Of all the hateful possibilities, growth and maturation are feared and detested most frequently. At-one- ment or unity with O is in prospect fearful’ (Bion 1970, p. $3), or,Containment — an archetype? 441 to phrase it in Jungian jargon: ‘At-one-ment’ with the Self appears frightful to the controlling, conservative ego-consciousness. Bion even interprets some myths as expressing this opposition to growth and knowledge, in particualr the myth (Eden) that an omniscient and harsh god, opposed to knowledge, is dominant. The Babel myth of the god that confounds language, or the myth of fate attending the Sphinx in the Oedipus myth would serve equally well. (Bion 1965, p. 58) Didn’t Jung mention the vengeance of some angry deity as a myth explaining mental disease? (Jung 1908, para. 321). 2.3.5. Destruction of alpha-function The central feature characterizing psychotic processes however is the minute splitting of all that part of the personality that is concerned with awareness of internal and external reality, and the expulsion of these fragments so that they enter into or engulf their objects. (Bion 1957, p.43) In other words, the ‘apparatus of alpha-function’ is destroyed and fragmented; alpha-elements are deprived of their alpha-quality and projected into external objects, which are thus transformed into ‘bizarre objects’: In the patient’s phantasy the expelled particles of ego lead an independent and uncontrolled existence, either contained by or containing the external objects. . . - Each particle is felt to consist of a real object which is encapsulated in a piece of personality that has engulfed it. (ibid., p. 47-8) Besides, these ‘bizarre objects’ carry hostility towards the psyche that ejected them. This extremely destructive attitude towards alpha-function occurs, according to Bion, under certain preconditions: besides environmental factors (cf. 2.3.2) he describes four personality features which he considers ‘essential’: 1. a preponderance of destructive impulses so great that even the impulse to love is suffused by them and turned to sadism; 2. a hatred of reality, internal and external, which is extended co all that makes for awareness of it; 3. a dread of imminent annihilation; 4. a premature and precipitate formation of object relations [which becomes mani- fest in the] prematurity, thinness and tenacity [of the transference]. (Bion 1957, p. 44) Inborn characteristics such as envy, hate and primitive destructiveness442 J. Dehing thus play an important role in the psychogenesis of psychotic deterio- ration, Interestingly, Bion assumes that envy, greed or sadism also have a destructive effect on the level of the pre-conception (Bion 1963, p. 93): this implies that the splitting may affect both the apparatus for alpha- functioning and the inborn pre-conception (in Jungian terms: the archetypal structure). 2.3.6. Constructive aspects of beta-elements We stated that ‘realistic’ projective identification is the first necessary step in the development of thinking (2.1.1.) and that beta-elements are the earliest matrix from which thoughts arise (2.1.2.). So we have to acknowledge, besides the defensive use of beta-elements in the evasion procedure, their potentially healing function: paraphrasing Bion we could regard them as proto-thoughts ‘in search of a thinker’ (Bion 1967, p. 166). The assumption turns out to be extremely rich in its clinical impli- cations. Bion describes a condition in which the (psychotic) patient produces a ‘screen of beta-elements’ (Bion 1962, p.22-3): clinically indistinguishable from a confused state, this beta-screen appears to have a defensive, destructive and anti-communicative (unconscious) purpose if considered from the commonplace standpoint of articulate speech; but on closer examination it turns out to have another inten- tionality: ‘Thanks to the beta-screen the psychotic patient has a capacity for evoking emotions in the analyst; his associations are the elements of the beta-screen intended to evoke intepretations or other responses which are less related to his need for psycho-analytic inter pretation than to his need to produce an emotional involvement’ (ibid., p. 24). Bion supposes that the purpose of this conduct ‘must be controlled and dictated by the non-psychotic part of the person- ality’ (ibid., p. 100). The analyst is expected to receive the beta-elements thanks to his capacity for reverie, to function as the thinker for these pre-thoughts, and to return them to the patient in the shape of interpretations, thoughts which the latter may introject, thus enabling him to become a ‘thinker’ himself. 3. SPECULATIONS 3.1. From inborn structure to psychic quality It is nowadays generally accepted that the baby’s experience (including the intrauterine period) is structured by innate patterns. The young ofContainment — an archetype? 443 other animals appear to have inborn structures too, and any newborn mammal will spontaneously search for its mother’s dug, hopefully find it, and start suckling as if its life depends on it (which is actually the case). These, and other, ‘instinctive’ patterns, both in the human being and in other animals, often display a surprising degree of sophis- tication; they are the more astonishing since we know that the ‘infor- mation’ which governs them is present in the genetic material, from the stage of the germ cell onwards. Biologists are slowly penetrating the mystery of how this genetic information gets translated into behavioural patterns. 3.1.1. Instinct and training The ‘higher’ an animal species moves up in the evolutionary order, the more the innate patterns of behaviour have to be supplemented by ‘education’: social behaviour, hunting, and, in certain species, even mating, although founded on genetic determinants, have to be learnt. Young animals raised out of contact with their congeners will display severe deficiencies, and even disturbances which we would call ‘neur- otic’, ‘psychotic’ or ‘autistic’ in the human (incidentally, these cases are nearly always occasioned by human interference). The human being, who readily fancies he represents the highest level of evolutionary development, probably has the longest duration training in the whole animal realm. The extreme prematurity of the human baby did not escape Freud’s notice; he saw the prolonged dependence produced by this characteristic as a major source of psy- chic distortion. Another peculiarity, possibly linked with the imma- turity of the newborn, is the fact that the human develops reflexive consciousness. We shall assume that an innate structure must exist in the newborn which makes this typical characteristic of humanization possible: an archetype (or a cluster of archetypes) supporting the development of consciousness. But on the other hand it is obvious that this mechanism must be elicited and fostered from the outside by other human beings. The evolutionist will raise no objection to accepting that the internal factor (the archetypal pattern) and the external factor (the human socio-cultural environment) have gradually evolved in a constant mutual interaction; the starting point of this fascinating development vanishes in immemorial prehistoric times. We can only conjecture about the origins of humankind, and indeed many creation myths do. 3.1.2. Internal and external factor Psychoanalysts however have the nasty habit of arguing about the primacy of the internal or the external factor. Freud himself first444 J. Dehing assumed that psychic troubles could be explained by actual sexual abuse in childhood; he fairly quickly abandoned this theory, arguing that the sexual abuse was merely a fantasy dictated by intrapsychic elements. Much discussion has been devoted to the question: ‘Was the incest real or fantasied?, leaving little room for any intermediary position. The dispute between Freud and Jung largely revolved around a similar opposition (although both men were mostly unconscious of their different perspectives): against Freud’s extraverted standpoint (ooking down on the unconscious while firmly identifying himself with the repressing ego) Jung opposed his introverted approach, searching for the unconscious forces that sustain — and sometimes jeopardize — the constitution of ego-consciousness. The conflict came to a head when Jung proposed his incest theory, which was pretty remote from Freud’s sexual approach: Jung refers to the mythical vicissitudes of the relationship between the male heroic ego-conscious- ness and the great-motherly, nurturing and devouring (collective) unconscious. Jungians are by nature more inclined to privilege the internal factor, the archetypes and their manifestations. Some of them tend to neglect the external factor and the indispensable interaction of the inborn structures with the environment (both in childhood and in analysis); some others, advocating a more genetic and clinical attitude in an attempt to counterpoise the former group, may run the risk of throw- ing away the archetypal baby with the bath water. I shall try to preserve the dialectical tension between the internal and external factors, but the progression of my argument will some- times impel me to highlight one of the two poles to the detriment of the other. I entreat the reader never to lose sight of the perpetual interaction between the archetypal expression and the psychosocial environment. 3.1.3. Experience as the matching of sense impression (beta-element) and pre-conception We assumed that the archetypal structure, or the inborn pre-concep- tion, if it exists at all, must be transmitted through the genetic material. This does not mean that it must be reduced to this material carrier; the double helix structure of the chromosomes is certainly astonishing enough, but it tells us nothing about the provenance of the organizing principle that brought it about. It is merely one of the realizations of the archetype which, with Jung (and Bion when he dwells on ‘O’), we consider as radically unknowable. ‘We used the hunger experience (2.1.1.) as a paradigm of anyContainment — an archetype? 445 experience in which sense impressions, ‘mated’ with the correspond- ing pre-conceptions, give rise to beta-elements. The quiet rest of the infant is upset by painful sensations and by spontaneous crying and gesticulating; we assume that during this ‘deintegration’ (Fordham) the different sensorial elements mect their approximate pre-concep- tion, thus generating beta-elements. In addition an inborn expectation of the breast, ‘a belief that an object exists that can satisfy his needs’ (Bion 1962b, p. 60), is supposed to exist in the baby. The meeting of this central pre-conception with sense-impressions correlated with the absent/present breast also begets beta-elements. 3.1.4. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ experiences Beta-elements will have a ‘positive’ or a ‘negative’ valency, in accord- ance with the satisfactory or frustrating (painful) character of the experience involved. An emotional experience of satisfaction, accord- ing to Bion, generates a ‘conception’, because it corresponds with the junction of a pre-conception with its realization: the expected breast is really there. A ‘thought’ can occur when the pre-conception mates with a frustration, a no-breast, or an ‘absent’ breast. The emotional experience ~ be it good or bad — has to be worked upon by alpha-function in order to acquire the status of ‘conception’ or ‘thought’ (both terms are supposed to have alpha-quality in Bion’s order). I want to emphasize that this applies to the satisfying experi- ence too: a mother who feeds her child mechanically, without emotional response nor reverie, may nurture it physically, but very little psychic quality will be transferred. Undoubtedly the relation between thinking and frustration is extremely important and highly relevant in pathological processes, but this does not mean that all thinking processes originated in that relation: pathology should not be taken as an exclusive model for sane development. I would suggest that the main trunk of thinking came into being silently out of many series of repeated satisfying experi- ences. And I believe that the same unobtrusive growth can take place in the therapeutic situation, beyond the explicit analytical work, pro- vided that the container be sound and reliable, thus allowing repeated structuring experiences even if they are unspoken. Pathological disturbances not only give evidence of a surplus of undigested thoughts, but also of a deficiency of sound thinking: the set of links between pre-conceptions and psychic activity (in E. Neu- mann’s terminology the ‘Ego-Self-axis’) is impoverished, sometimes in an extreme way. The restoration of this axis runs via at least two only partly overlapping tracks: the transformation of beta-clements into usable thoughts and the reception and more or less silent446 J. Dehing recognition of new experiences (see also Dehing 1985). Both trails depend on alpha-activity, but in the first case a pathological distortion has to be repaired, whereas the second situation has more to do with the sustaining of an originally healthy development. Maybe Bion, when stressing the importance of the analyst’s being ‘at one’ with the evolution of O in the session, is hinting in the same direction. 3.1.5. Pre-conception and alpha-quality We propose to consider the beta-element, the sensorial impression which matches the (archetypal) pre-conception, as a necessary stage between the inborn structure and the psychic experience. On the one hand the beta-element is ‘contained by the pre-conception, on the other hand it will need to be transformed by alpha-function, that is, to be ‘contained’ by the mother’s reverie and later by the growing child’s own apparatus of alpha-function. A difficulty arises when Bion ascribes alpha-quality to the inborn pre-conception itself, for instance when he speaks about the ‘private Oedipus myth’ (2.2.2.) of the infant. This alpha-element, Oedipal Ppre-conception exists before the emotional experience of contact with the actual parents takes place (Bion 1963, p. 93). ‘If, through envy, greed, sadism or other cause, the infant cannot tolerate the parental relationship and attacks it destructively, according to Melanie Klein the attacking personality is itself fragmented through the violence of the splitting attacks . . . the Oedipal pre-conception is itself destroyed’ (ibid., my italics). ‘This passage is interesting because it describes how the pre-concep- tion, i.e. the archetypal structure, is itself destroyed by the splitting attacks: the internal container of the emotional experience is thus fragmented itself, and Bion insists on the importance, in analysis, of distinguishing these ‘scraps’ of Oedipal pre-conception from frag- ments of the fragmented Oedipal situation. But the main question which occupies us here remains whether the archetypal level, the level of the inborn pre-conception, can possibly possess alpha-quality of its own. Despite the fact that an affirmative answer appears to be in contradiction with Bion’s main theorization, I propose to maintain the hypothesis, for mainly two reasons: 1. genetically it is difficult to understand how alpha-function orig- inated at all, if we do not ascribe a minimum of alpha-quality to the inborn pre-conceptions; 2. some spontaneous psychic manifestations are clearly more than a re-combination of already known elements: something entirely new emerges in them, the pattern of which may correspond to anContainment — an archetype? 447 archetypal structure. I am referring to certain psychotic phenomena which — as Jung noticed - seem directly connected with archaic, mythological material, and to certain creative expressions in artists and scientists of genius. Maybe madness and genius are pointing to a same mysterious zone in which inborn structures indeed are endowed with alpha-like characteristics. Jung has been severely criticized when, in his first approximations of archetypal phenomena, he conjectured that the representations, the images themselves, were inherited. Later he withdrew this hypothesis, claiming that of course only the organizing structure could be geneti- cally transmitted. The attribution of alpha-quality, i.e. direct psychic quality, to the inborn pre-conceptions nuances this restriction; once again Jung’s contradictory statements appear to be possibly meaning- ful. We will of course have to face Lacan’s scornful rejection of the notion of a ‘subject endowed with depths . . . that is to say a subject composed in relation to knowledge, a so-called archetypal relation’ (Lacan 1966, p. 858). So Bion counters Lacan on two levels. Firstly he clearly ascribes knowledge to the inborn pre-conceptions; generally he considers them as ‘empty thoughts’ that have to meet a ‘realization’ in order to generate an experience. But, secondly, he sometimes regards the pre~ conception as possessing alpha-quality of its own: in this case the ‘empty thought’ has direct access to psychic experience without need- ing to match a realization. 3.1.6. Beta-elements and alpha-quality Beta-elements cannot be processed by the psychic systems which we call ‘conscious’ and ‘personal unconscious’, since they are not yet represented at that level. To our conscious psychic experience, and even in connection with the personal unconscious processes, they appear as a borderline concept: raw sensorial data, unable to feed our psychic computer. Beta-elements however are very much at home in the body (just as is projective identification); can they be equated with what Jung desig- nated by the alchemical term ‘subtle body’, that part of the uncon- scious which he considered corporeal, non-psychic, still ‘semi-spiritual in nature’? (Jung 1937, para. 394). In 1935, in his seminar on Nietz- sche’s Zarathustra, Jung distinguished between a somatic unconscious (‘subtle body’) and a spiritual unconscious. The appellation is perplex- ing to me, because the experience, in analytical practice, of beta- elements is hardly ever ‘subtle’: more often than not the sense impressions are cumbersome and oppressing, tightening and painful.448 J. Dehing On the other hand it is clear that beta~elements, notwithstanding their grossly physical condition, at the same time contain the germs of psychic, and spiritual, activity. Bion chose an abstract term in order to name the function that makes beta-elements suitable for psychic representation: ‘alpha-func- tion’. He linked it with maternal ‘reverie’, with the ‘containing’ func- tion of both mother and analyst, and their detoxifying handling of unbearable anxieties. For the infant alpha-function clearly originates in the mother-child-dyad, to become gradually introjected. The transformation of beta-clements into alpha-elements runs paral- lel to the passage from the schizoid-paranoid to the depressive posi- tion, and conversely attacks on alpha-linking result in a reverse motion. Alpha-functioning countersigns the entry of the infant in the symbolic order. However much we try to grasp alpha-function (which after all is so familiar to our everyday experience), it remains elusive and mysterious in its essence. It operates in an intermediary zone between beta-elements (cor- poreal unconscious) and alpha-elements (psychic conscious and uncon- scious): the symbol, considered as ‘the best possible expression for a complex fact not yet clearly apprehended by consciousness’ (Jung 1957, para. 148) is probably to be located in this intermediate area in which the transformation takes place. Various factors will determine the possibility of the integration of beta-elements into the alpha-system: on the one hand we have to consider the energetic charge of the beta-elements, their valency, their more or less pronounced alien character, and their amount; on the other hand we must take into account the strength and the autonomy of the apparatus of alpha-function of the subject, and the availability and quality of an external container. The stronger the disproportion between the two sets of factors, the more the beta-elements will have a terrifying character. More especially, completely new emotional situations are likely to present a preponderance of the archetypal mark over the personal experience, thus provoking dread and possibly a psychotic crisis: this mechanism comes close to Jung’s hypothesis about psychosis as a flooding of ego- consciousness by archetypal contents, an absorption of the creatura by the pleroma. 3.2. Container and contained Archetypes have a tremendous force; I assume that any personal experience is regulated by inborn structures of which we are radically unconscious. Ego-consciousness for instance is largely dependent onContainment — an archetype? 449 archetypal support. But the archetype also has one terrible weakness: it depends on ego-consciousness in order to acquire psychic existence; it has to be mediated, and for this mediation the human being needs another human being. The prototype of this mediation is to be found in the mother-child-interaction, the psychotherapeutic relationship representing a more sophisticated form of it. Rephrased in Bion’s terms this would read: alpha-function is neces- sary in order to lend psychic quality to the emotional experience (the coming together of sensorial impression and inborn pre-conception), to the evolutions of ‘O’. But alpha-function itself is an evolution of ‘O’: it must be ‘contained’ and supported by innate pre-conceptions, and moreover its development in the individual needs the participation of another person offering an external containment. 3.2.1, The container contained Normally the mother provides this containment for her child. What enables her to do so? A first answer to this question can be formulated on a more superficial, genetic, ‘external’ level: it is necessary that the mother herself should have received sufficient containment in childhood, so that a sound alpha-function and a rich psychic activity could develop, enabling her to pass over this function to the infant. A second answer however obtrudes itself, appealing to a deeper, ‘internal’ level: as a matter of fact, the mother’s alpha function depends on inborn structures too (and constitutional disturbances may jeopard- ize it just as well as developmental deficiencies); but what’s more, the maternal reverie, that is the mother’s spontaneous, ‘instinctive’ inclinations to put her alpha-function at the baby’s disposal, must likewise be based on an archetypal foundation. In other words, the very possibility for mother and infant to realize this pair of container-contained, self-evident as it may appear to the external observer, is itself determined by inborn structures in both parties: the mother’s alpha-function, including its application in maternal reverie, is ‘contained’ by archetypal forces, as well as the baby’s propensity to project beta-clements (in the process of projective identification) and to re-introject alpha-clements, thus constructing its own apparatus of alpha-function. The paradoxical question: ‘Which contains which? must remain unanswered. The containing capacity of the archetype is ‘empty’, vain and inoperative unless it meets an external container which ‘realizes’ it, making the archetypal structure real by revealing its hidden con- figuration. But conversely container and contained are dependent on their inborn substructures that call them into being, shape and support them.