The International Journal of

Int J Psychoanal (2012) 93:1238–1248 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2012.00582.x

On construction in Freud’s work

André Greeny1
9, avenue de l’Observatoire, 75006 Paris, France – andregreen@wanadoo.fr

The fruit of the very last period of his thought, and written two years before
he plunged into definitive silence, Constructions in analysis (1937a) is a pre-
cious jewel in Freud’s work. This text, inspired by remarkably vigorous
thought, constitutes, moreover, an example of authentic psychoanalytic think-
ing, freed of the rationalizing prejudices which stand in the way of the develop-
ment of a specific form of theory that Freud possessed to the highest degree.
Constructions in analysis is a sort of postscript to Analysis terminable and
interminable (Freud, 1937b). This latter text, written in 1937 and published
in June 1937, was followed in December of the same year by Constructions.
Despite the late date of publication, Freud had in fact been preoccupied by
this subject for a very long time. Already in ‘Little Hans’ (Freud, 1909a), we
find the germ of a concept that Freud would only develop much later on.
But it was with the ‘Wolf Man’ (Freud, 1909b) that the idea took shape in
connection with the primal scene, as well as in his study on the psychogene-
sis of a case of female homosexuality (Freud, 1920).
As is often the case in Freud’s work, it took time before the idea finally
gave birth to a concept in 1937. There is more than one way of defining this
work. The most convincing seems to me to be to consider it as a late solu-
tion to the problems posed by the impasses of the theory of technique which
confer a somewhat pessimistic tone on Analysis terminable and interminable.
This, anyway, is how I understand this energetic leap of Freud’s thought
leading him to return with surprising vitality to questions from which he
had seemed to recoil.
In fact, Constructions offers clinical reflection a depth never attained
before. It may be argued that this text represents Freud’s last word on
unconscious memory, and, in a more general way, on the particularities of
psychical organization according to psychoanalysis. This is where its value
lies and, furthermore it brings together in a few pages the essential elements
of psychoanalytic thought.

I. Constructions in analysis (1937)

Let us look again at the stages of Freud’s line of argument. The article opens
by considering a critique addressed to psychoanalysts to the effect that they
take advantage of a false subtlety which leads them to adopt a somewhat

yDeceased
Editor’s note: We are sorry to inform our readers that Andr Green passed away on January 22, 2012.
Andr Green’s death is a great loss to the field of psychoanalysis. The Journal will publish an obituary
of Green in a later edition.
1
Translated by Andrew Weller.

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Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
 On construction in Freud’s work 1239

dishonest attitude. In this game of ‘heads or tails’, the analyst is seen as prof-
iting from a certain ambiguity by using in turn contrary arguments: ‘Heads
I win, tails you lose’. Freud shows his customary honesty here by denouncing
this attitude. He concludes by saying that it is worthwhile giving a detailed
account of ‘‘how we arrive at an assessment of the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ of our
patients during analytic treatment – their expression of agreement or denial’’
(1937a, p. 257).
If we wish to resolve this question, it is necessary to remind ourselves of
certain characteristics that are specific to analytic work. The role of repres-
sion deserves to be stressed here. This means we have to recognize the dis-
persed character of analytic material which lacks any kind of unification
that could facilitate the work. Faced with this dispersion of psychical forms,
the task of analytic work is to restore what we are in search of; in other
words, to produce a reliable picture of the ‘‘forgotten years’’ (ibid., p. 258).
Now the first point to make is that this work cannot be achieved by the
analysand alone; the analyst must participate in it. This is to recognize that
the work is carried out in two different localities: two localities, two psyches;
two people whose tasks are complementary. Freud recognizes this for the
first time, while claiming that it had not been necessary to point it out
before as it was self-evident. This idea, however, had not been clearly formu-
lated before, as clinical work showed.
The analyst’s task, as Freud clearly writes here, is to ‘construct’ what he
has already glimpsed from the traces of what has been forgotten. Construc-
tion, reconstruction, Freud does not make a clear distinction between the
two. A long digression leads him to compare the work of the psychoanalyst
with that of the archaeologist. He goes on to proclaim the following funda-
mental truth: the analyst does not work on a dead object, even if preserved,
but on living matter. For the analyst, the construction is not the end of the
investigation, but its preliminary labour. He then considers the difference
between interpretation and construction. Interpretation is directed at iso-
lated elements of the material; construction proposes a fragment of forgot-
ten prehistory.
A question of the utmost importance arises: how can we be sure of the
truth of the construction? Error, which is always possible, can be recognized
a posteriori. If it is repeated too frequently, the analyst loses his credibility.
Suggestion cannot repair the damage. To the objection of the adversaries of
psychoanalysis, Freud replies that neither the ‘No’ nor the ‘Yes’ of the anal-
ysand is to be taken at face value.
Freud’s reply is brilliant. It accords interest to the reaction of the patient
who responds: ‘‘I didn’t ever think’’ (or ‘‘I shouldn’t ever have thought’’)
‘‘that’’ (or ‘‘of that’’) (ibid., p. 263).2 Another valuable reaction is indirect
confirmation from associations that fit in with the content of the construc-
tion. In short, the construction is no more than a supposition awaiting
examination.
A new problem now arises: construction has shown its advantages in rela-
tion to interpretation, but what is its outcome? It does not lead to recollec-
2
It can be seen that Freud is drawing here on his article, Negation (1925h).

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1240 A. Green

tion of what has been repressed in the analysand. Freud proposes a

new solution which is not devoid of boldness. He says that the construction
produces in the patient an assured conviction of its truth, which achieves
the same effect as a recaptured memory. We can grasp the interest of the
point he is making: a conviction in the absence of recollection has the same
effect as a recaptured memory, which shows that remembering is no longer
indispensable for gaining access to the truth. And if one cannot obtain con-
firmation of the truth of the construction, other phenomena stand in for it.
Freud then observes the appearance of ‘‘lively recollections’’ (ibid., p. 266)
which do not directly concern the object of the construction but are related
to it, at its periphery, as it were, bearing on details surrounding the object
of the construction. Such a phenomenon is connected for Freud with the
‘‘upward drive’’ (ibid.) which has operated a displacement of the construc-
tion on to one of these contexts. This shows once again that resistance can
be bypassed in favour of displacement.
The hallucinatory nature of the phenomenon raises the problem of its
relation with real hallucinations. Here it indicates events experienced in
infancy relating to:
something that the child has seen or heard at a time when he could still hardly
speak and that now forces its way into consciousness, probably distorted and dis-
placed owing to the operation of forces that are opposed to this return.
(Freud, 1937a, p. 267)
In these cases, the act turns away from reality and is used by the upward
drive of the repressed in order to force its content into consciousness. We
can now understand that repression cannot be interpreted as a purely
repressive force, but that it should be completed by the tendency to the
return of the repressed which Freud calls the ‘upward drive’, in contrast
with the downward drive, characteristic of repression. And Freud concludes
by making an analogy with the mechanisms of dreams, which are henceforth
equated with madness.
Freud contends that madness contains a ‘‘fragment of historical truth’’.
This means that the vain effort of convincing the patient of the madness of
his delusions can be abandoned, while giving recognition to the fact that
they are marked by historical truth. In conclusion, the ‘delusional’ produc-
tions of patients thus seem to be analogous with the constructions of psy-
choanalysts. We know that the similarity which Freud recognizes between
the two is a profound truth that only he was capable of proposing. Finally,
the formula of the early period to the effect that ‘the patient suffers from
reminiscences’ proves to be applicable to a large spectrum of phenomena,
hence the importance of the concept of historical truth.
This article raises several questions:
1. Is it true that no psychical formation can undergo total destruction?
That remains to be seen.
2. Is it possible, by virtue of construction, to form a complete picture of
the forgotten years? We know that this question is relativized by the
mechanism of construction.

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 On construction in Freud’s work 1241

3. Should we not distinguish between dream processes, linked to the dream

work, and hallucinatory processes, outside the dream work? In dream
processes, the dream work is accomplished thanks to a-function (Bion)
which makes it possible to unite dream and reverie (for the patient and
his ⁄ her mother). Finally, hallucinatory processes cannot be separated
from the phenomenon of negative hallucination which stands in the
way of the mechanisms of the system of representation.
We may suppose, then, that there is a permanent process of construction
in the functions of the mind, in contrast with the work of the negative which
resists it. The relation to historical truth leads us to recognize the notion of
a historical truth that is identifiable in psychoanalytic work.
In his article on the fear of breakdown, Winnicott (1974) enriches the
questions explored by Freud. What is feared in the future has already taken
place, but without being integrated.
I will conclude with a word on the modern usage attributed to construc-
tion, especially when we are dealing with early traumas. Finally, the theoreti-
cal propositions of analysis taken as a whole are the result of a construction
aimed at giving them a certain coherence.
This brief overview of Freud’s article bears witness to its inventiveness
and extraordinary richness. Freud could not have offered a better conclusion
to the problems raised by the impasses of interminable analysis which often
gets bogged down in repetition. His revolutionary conclusion was that
remembering no longer had the decisive role that had previously been attrib-
uted to it.

II. Some brief remarks on the relations between interpretation

and construction3
It will be worthwhile to throw more light on the circumstances in which we
resort to interpretation and construction. It seems to me that the recourse
to construction is not indispensable in cases of neurotic patients, for their
psychic functions are intact and they produce spontaneous constructions
more or less by themselves. On the other hand, when we are dealing with
patients who can only be understood in terms of the second topography,
that is, where the representative agencies are more or less out of play, con-
struction becomes indispensable. In the first case, construction remains silent
in the analyst, or at least is used to a limited extent. On the contrary, in the
second case, the analytic work makes recourse to construction almost oblig-
atory.
In other words the relations between the agencies Cs–Pcs–Ucs permit this
form of psychoanalytic creativity, grounded in the transference, although the
role of resistance must not be neglected. The raison d’Þtre for this situation
is that the functions of representation, which are an integral part of the
unconscious structures, are absent from the theorizations on the id, as Freud
suggests. Here the instinctual impulses now play the role formerly attributed

3
This section draws its inspiration largely from an earlier contribution: see Green (2005).

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1242 A. Green

to unconscious representations. We must not forget that since the Ego and
the Id (Freud, 1923), Freud has dethroned the unconscious from the place
that he had hitherto attributed to it. The unconscious pursues its activities
but is now attached to the unconscious structures of the ego, remaining out
of reach of the id, which, for Freud, is rooted in the somatic. Analytic work
will endeavour to transform the expressions of the instinctual impulses into
unconscious representations to facilitate the transformation of thing-presen-
tations into word-presentations, a transition that is illustrated by verbaliza-
tion. When this transition cannot be accomplished, it is because it is
hampered by archaic anxieties.
Historical truth is subjective truth inasmuch as it is connected with what
appeared to be real and true at a certain moment in the subject’s history. At
this time, only the subjective object exists for the psyche which does not as
yet have the possibility of cathecting the objectively perceived object, which
is felt to be independent of the subject and placed outside him (Winnicott).
This throws light on the modern clinical experience of non-neurotic struc-
tures which present various forms of repetition-compulsion: acting out, so-
matizations, hallucinatory episodes, states of depersonalization, negative
therapeutic reactions, etc. In French psychoanalytic clinical practice inter-
pretations are generally discreet and deliberately superficial in order to avoid
their traumatic effects. At the end of his life, Winnicott was in favour of a
high degree of interpretative discretion, expressing his disagreement with the
frequency and supposed depth of the interpretations given by the Kleinians.
The mirror role of the transference object allows the material to be trans-
formed into a form of sharing. It sometimes takes the analyst a long time to
thwart the traps of sterile repetition. One of the difficulties of interpreting
primitive structures is to avoid the temptation of interpreting the narrative.
How can the id be interpreted in analysis? The answer is scarcely evident. A
great deal of patience and unlimited tolerance is required.
Ultimately, the unity of analytic work appears in the diversity of the mate-
rial. I propose to call this the return to oneself via the detour of the similar
other. Interpreting the transference through the setting allows for all the
nuances between interpretations in the transference and interpretations of
the transference, in keeping with the distinction made in the French clinical
tradition. It has to be admitted, though, that not everything in the material
that comes to light is transference.

III. Construction at the Congress for French-speaking

Psychoanalysts (2007)
In 2007, the Congress for French-speaking Psychoanalysts chose the theme
‘Construction in psychoanalysis’. Two reporters presented their thoughts on
this occasion: Jacques Press and Michle Bertrand. I will recapitulate briefly
on their ideas.
I will begin with Michle Bertrand (2008), whose contribution seemed to me
to be more focused on the chosen theme. Naturally, each report gave a lot of
space to discussion. A quick glance at the literature is enough to realize that,
since 1937, the analysis of the concept has often raised contradictory questions.

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 On construction in Freud’s work 1243

After recalling the content of the 1937 article, Michle Bertrand discusses
the topic of construction today. She stresses the role of countertransference
and makes the hypothesis of a co-construction of a transitional space (Rous-
sillon, 1984).
The most extreme critical line of argumentation on this topic was put for-
ward by Serge Viderman (1970), who defended the exclusive origin of con-
struction in the material of the analysis without claiming to find support for
it in the reality of the past, which, by definition, is inaccessible and unverifi-
able. Viderman argues that to reconstruct a patient’s history is, in fact, to
construct it. The radical character of Viderman’s ideas was initially wel-
comed with enthusiasm. Then, with time, this same radicalism seemed exces-
sive to his contradictors (Pasche, 1984). The ideas of Ferenczi were recalled.
The discussions returned constantly to the question of reality opposed to
the real nature of a lived experience.
Another problem was the question of narrativity (Spence, 1982). Narrativ-
ism was put forward as a theory of replacement in face of the impasses of
classical theory. Narrative truth was thus opposed to the Freudian concept
of historical truth. Here again, the consistency of the discourse is preferred
to any historical reference, even to that of historical truth.
Roy Schafer (1976) has proposed a renewal of the theory drawing on
recent theories of language, such as pragmatics, which has had scarcely any
impact in Europe. Generally speaking, Freudian metapsychology has been
the object of a rejection. The language of action has tried to impose itself,
without really succeeding. Psychoanalysis is a shared narrative construction.
While these ideas seemed to be attractive for a time, their duration has
been short lived. Metapsychology, as Michle Bertrand says, is not a narra-
tive genre.
In conclusion, constructing a past involves rediscovering the significant
moments of a psychical construction. This construction is shared between
two people within the analytic space, a space of linking. The countertrans-
ference makes up for what has not been (or could not be) lived: it is about
inventing the possible. Transference and countertransference are linked.
The debates on construction have been pursued relentlessly between repre-
sentatives of opposing sides. Viderman’s ideas call into question construc-
tion as we know it in Freud’s work. If construction exists, it depends on
what analysis has allowed us to theorize. These ideas had a great impact on
French psychoanalysts. Thereafter, various authors have returned to the
question, such as Blum (1980) and Brenman (1980), Pasche (1984) and Loch
(1988), as well as Wetzler (1985) and Brenneis (1997). The authors opposed
one another according to their axes of reference, whether it was ego-
psychology or the ideas defended by the Sandlers (opposition between past
unconscious and present unconscious [1997]).
More recent debates have centred on the contributions of Target (1998),
Gabbard (1997), Blum (2003) and Fonagy (2003). The literature is so abun-
dant that a complete list would take up too much space. If I had to formu-
late a general opinion, I would say that, after Freud, the question has been
considered most of the time from a positivist angle. That is to say, many
authors agree on emphasizing the uncertain character of reconstructions

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1244 A. Green

related to sexual traumas and also on the probability that early traumas are
reinterpreted retroactively.
The position I shall adopt is different. Above all, I will attempt to reach a
better understanding of the question of construction by accepting its hypo-
thetical character and by leaving aside its possible verification according to
positivist criteria.
Jacques Press, the author of the other report to the 2007 Congress, has
made an important study of the question by taking a different approach. He
sets out to clarify the conditions required for construction rather than sim-
ply analysing it. Ferenczi’s contributions are in the foreground here, in par-
ticular, his contribution to the development of the sense of reality and its
stages, and the role played by the ego instincts. Winnicott’s ideas on the fear
of breakdown are also given serious consideration. The application of these
ideas to psychosomatics is stressed. An important place is given to the idea
that I have proposed, namely, of ‘being loved in distress’ (Green, 1999). This
is an idea that is not sufficiently familiar and which I thought it was neces-
sary to propose. We know how important it is for the child, and for human
beings in general, to have the feeling of being loved. Being loved refers here
to a vast field of manifestations whose positive value is unanimously recog-
nized. But circumstances can vary since distress can be engendered in
numerous ways: for instance, as a result of feeling rejected, of a loss of love,
or of object-loss; or due to narcissistic injury, misfortune of a physical or
moral nature, or any of the other various afflictions imposed by the circum-
stances of life. It seemed to me that the benefits derived from the feeling of
being loved are never more necessary than when the circumstances I have
just evoked have created a sense of distress in the subject. In this connection
Freud employs a very eloquent formula, when he refers to the sense of being
abandoned by the protective forces of destiny. It is under these circum-
stances in particular that the impression of being loved ‘in distress’ is of
irreplaceable value. In other words, it is primarily when the subject is
afflicted by misfortune that the object’s love is a source of indispensable
consolation. In analysis, these circumstances are frequently encountered;
however, it is not necessary for the analyst to express kindness openly to
attenuate the effects of the misfortune. He ⁄ she is not expected to utter
words of consolation or to behave in ways that overstep the limits of neu-
trality with the aim of playing a reparative role. That is not what is
required: it suffices to recall the time-honoured expression of ‘benevolent
neutrality’. Often, attentive silence, marked by sympathy, is likely to produce
effects recognized as being very positive.
Winnicott is cited once again in connection with his important distinction
between regression and withdrawal. Equally, Jacques Press draws attention
to ‘the internal traumatic potentiality’. He proposes some fruitful consider-
ations on the nature of traces that may be seen as scars left by traumatic
impressions of the products of destruction; for Press emphasizes the role
played by the drives in the circumstances in which construction is involved.
He also insists on the role of splitting in its Ferenczian sense. Like Freud,
he recognizes the importance of historical truth as a source of the internal
coherence of beliefs. He makes some important remarks with regard to

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 On construction in Freud’s work 1245

Freud’s variations on the nature of dreams, which are henceforth called

attempted wish-fulfilments. The traumatolytic function is recognized by Press
and Sra Botella alike (see below). Here it is the manifest meaning that has
to be taken into consideration. Hallucination takes on a new meaning. The
potentiality of hallucination, already envisaged by Freud in 1937, is recog-
nized. The important idea here is that the essential role is played by the
presence of the object. The application of these ideas to psychosomatics
forms the basis for the distinction between illnesses involving regressive cri-
ses, playing the role of actual psychotic enclaves, and disorganizations (seri-
ous illnesses). The quality of the analyst’s presence or the quality of the
relational fabric of the object plays the essential role here and must therefore
be taken into account in construction. The setting modulates the effects of
presence and absence. Presence should pave the way subsequently for hallu-
cinatory negation.
Such is the nature of this important work, although it is perhaps con-
cerned less with construction itself than with what makes it necessary and
indispensable.

IV. An illuminating contemporary interpretation

I have chosen to limit myself to just one text by Sra Botella (2010), who
has defended the idea of a memory of the Id. I am giving a place here to this
work because I think it is of decisive importance.
Sara Botella raises an essential issue when she questions the role attrib-
uted to remembering in the investigation of the analysand’s psychic world.
In opposition to this, she poses the hypothesis of a memory of the Id, prior
to remembering.
To back up her argument, Sara Botella returns to The Interpretation of
Dreams (Freud, 1900). I recommend the reader to refer to Freud’s text and
to examine it in detail, for it is in re-reading this passage that one sees that
Freud expresses himself with clarity, which enables us to avoid confusions.
Sra Botella returns, then, to Chapter VII of this work. She recalls Freud’s
hypothesis according to which memory is formed by different successive sys-
tems of traces that are perceived endopsychically and simultaneously. These
primitive traces are received simultaneously at first and are subsequently
arranged and ordered by later successive systems. Diachronic deployment
and simultaneous condensation go together. Sra Botella puts forward the
hypothesis of a non evolving field of traces that cannot be transformed into
lasting inscriptions that can be recalled. The primitive character of these
traces is such that they will not subsequently evolve into more developed
forms. Freud describes them as ‘untameable’. It is these traces, along with
traces of visual, acoustic and tactile images that Sara Botella proposes to
call memory of the Id. In other words, the character of this memory is such
that it will not be transformed into more evolved forms. The specific charac-
teristics of the id, which is more primitive and less open to more developed
forms, facilitate their identification. In the schema of Chapter VII of The
Interpretation of Dreams, Freud distinguishes a first system of memory, situ-
ated just behind the perceptual pole that receives the stimuli presented

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1246 A. Green

simultaneously, which is marked by the stimuli but retains no trace of them,

thereby excluding the possibility of any later transformation; and a second
system which transforms the momentary excitations of the first system into
permanent traces. Remembering proper depends on the second system. Fur-
thermore, the structure of the schema brings to light other properties. The
occupied space in the schema takes up only a third of the available field. On
the other hand, the space occupied in the first system takes up two thirds of
the memory field. This fact is not due to negligence on Freud’s part, but
must have a precise meaning. So only a third of the space remains to shelter
the mnemic traces proper. It is this space which is called the psychical appa-
ratus, comprised of the three agencies of the first topography. These obser-
vations that have attracted Sra Botella’s attention can only be properly
understood if full importance is given to Freud’s schema in Chapter VII
which leaves nothing to chance. On the one hand, this schema stresses the
place of remembering attributed to the systems that are furthest away from
the perceptual pole; and, on the other, it obliges us to recognize that the
first system, earlier than the second, is already described by Freud as
possessing specific qualities that are unsuited to diachronic development,
thus justifying the expression used by Sra Botella of a ‘memory of the
Id’. A too hasty interpretation of Freud’s schema in Chapter VII and of his
theoretical system prevents us from detecting the existence of this memory
of the Id, which merits recognition prior to the classical forms of dream
interpretation.
This leads us to conclude that the understanding of current analytic prac-
tice limits the question of remembering to the unconscious memory of rep-
resentations; in other words, remembering chiefly concerns neurosis. On the
other hand, those forms that are not linked to representation and that are
dependent on primitive forms of expression independent of representation
pertain to non neurotic structures.
The question arises, then, of knowing how to gain access to these primi-
tive psychical organizations. The study of dreams often allows us to divine
their presence behind the classical forms of dream interpretation. The
regressive life facilitated by sleep provides an alternative pathway for excita-
tion to that of liquidation through discharge, allowing it to go back as far
as possible towards the hallucinatory perceptual pole, thereby attaining a
surprising degree of sensory vividness.
Henceforth primitive, unrepresented forms of remembering are considered
to be similar to hallucinatory structures of psychosis. Drawing on Freud’s
second topography, Sara Botella postulates the existence of a memory of the
Id. As a consequence, the conception of the dream work is modified and is
now understood as an anti-traumatic function that allows these primitive
organizations to be elaborated. These ideas prefigure those that would later
be presented in Constructions. From this perspective, the dream work tries to
integrate early unrepresentable experiences within the hallucinatory phase of
dream formation and to elaborate their traumatic character. The evolution of
Freud’s thought makes it possible to confer the essence of dreams with the
quality that is characteristic of traumatic dreams. This work aims to dissoci-
ate in a convergent manner the heterogeneous elements of the dreamer’s real-

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 On construction in Freud’s work 1247

ity (internal sensations, impulsions, instinctual impulses, representations of

affects of repressed wishes, waking residues, perceptual residues) and to
transform it according to the endopsychically perceived coherent unity that
is intelligible for the dreamer, all of which has an anti-traumatic aim.
These remarks taken together show the necessity of following the progres-
sion of Freud’s thought. However brilliant The Interpretation of Dreams is,
one must not neglect the logic of Freud’s thought which led him to modify his
first intuitions in order to arrive at the idea that the dream is akin to psychosis,
which makes neurosis lose its place as the principal referent of Freud’s ideas.
These considerations allow us to shed light on the enigmas of contempo-
rary clinical experience.

Discussion
It is clear to see that the posterity of Constructions has been rich and varied.
The two reporters of the Congress of French-speaking Psychoanalysts each
deployed their reflections starting from different references.
For Michle Bertrand, it was the ideas linked to the theses of Serge Vider-
man, Donald Spence and Roy Schafer that held her interest and stimulated
her report in which she both expressed her interest for these ideas while at
the same time offering a critique of them, bearing witness to a current of
thought in favour in American psychoanalysis.
For Jacques Press, whose purpose was to penetrate more deeply into the
foundations of construction, the contribution of Ferenczi on the role of the
ego instincts was emphasized, as well as all the factors which shed light on
the mechanisms that make construction necessary. The contributions of psy-
chosomatic practitioners, including Marty and Fain, further enriched the
theorization by extending it to the psychosomatic field. Press forges links
between this theorization and the deployment of construction by applying
Goody’s ideas on generativity to it.
He insists on another version of traumatic experience which is connected
with a response of the object that has not occurred. This idea, which stems
from Ferenczi, proved to be remarkably fruitful. Finally, while absence is
often referred to in the construction of representation, the accent is placed
here on the quality of the object’s presence, hence the importance of the
analytic encounter with its qualities and its shortcomings. The importance
of the role of early mothering as well as of primary narcissism is empha-
sized. Likewise, certain ideas of Winnicott (on the fear of breakdown) are
particularly relevant here, in particular with regard to the hypotheses on
regression in psychosomatics. Michel Fain’s ideas on ego prematurity are
recalled. The importance of the idea of ‘being loved in distress’ (Green)
plays the role of a prior condition for all the subsequent solutions. Winni-
cott’s distinction between regression and withdrawal is used. Withdrawal
brings into play a mechanism ‘outside any object relationship’.
Press’s contribution opens out on to the internal traumatic potentiality,
and memory traces may be considered as ‘scars of traumatic impressions of
the products of the destruction of Eros’. Moreover, the role of splitting as a
consequence of trauma and its negative effects (Freud) are recognized.

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1248 A. Green

Finally, the question of hallucinatory functioning is recalled as well as the

late formulations of Freud on dreams as ‘attempted wish-fulfilments’. The
traumatolytic function of dreams – on which Sra Botella also insists – is
recognized. Here it is the manifest content that is of prime importance.
In conclusion, it has to be recognized that in Ferenczian introjection the
quality of the object’s presence prevails over latent meaning. Its bearing on
the fear of breakdown (Winnicott) explains both flight into health as well as
illnesses involving crises – which are no less than actual psychotic enclaves –
as means of resisting disorganizations.
If I had to add one last word, I would draw attention once again to the
important contribution of Sara Botella on the memory of the Id, which has
won my adherence.

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