Szondi Course .

Part I a
(this one correspond to page 1 - 15 of the French original)
The structural problem of Fateanalyse. Le problème structural de la Schicksalsanalyse
6.1.3. The ontogenetic vieuwpoint and the drive circuit theory. Page 9.
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We are proud to publish this translation in English of an article by Jean Mélon. He allowed us to publish the
French original on our Forum. The article explains how to interpret the Szondi test, according to the
principles of Pathoanalyse.
Any deviation of the original text in this translation is the whole responsibility of your editor. However, as
neither one of the translators is a professional we hope you have some patience with our mistakes. David
Tharp, London, has promised us to make the final touch as for orthography and syntax. (The French original
of this article you can find on the Forum with the title: “Cours de Szondi”, 1,2,3).
Leo Berlips, editor.

PART 1
Jean Mélon, professor
The structural problem of Fateanalyse.
Le problème structural de la Schicksalsanalyse.

In contradistinction to other projective techniques, the Szondi test contains its own theory; it is intrinsically a
part of the test. SZONDI's main discovery is his "Drivediagram (Triebschema). This is due to the fact that
the diagram guided both the making and the definite form of the test, as well as the theoretical elaborations
of the empirical data resulting from using the test. Starting on the base of the main clinical categories of
classical psychiatry, the drive diagram (Triebsystem) permits, according to SCHOTTE, "the transition from
classes to categories" (2).

The classes are those of an original nosographical regroupation, product of the inter junction of the works
by KRAEPELIN and BLEULER, who had the intention to create a better order (structuration) of psychiatric
entities by using the opposition between cyclophrenies (C) and schizophrenies (Sch) and moreover using
FREUD's viewpoint about the rapprochement between sexual perversions (S) and neurosis. The latter
defined as "the negative of the perversion", a paradigm of which is hysteria, redefined as a paroxysmal
disease, (P).

As for the categories, they are those of the human existence, reviewed in an antropo-psychiatrical
perspective which, according to the “crystal principle (3) is prone to consider the pathological forms of
this existence as "the royal way" to understand the working of the normal psyche. The individual being
viewed as having the potential to develop (an ontogenetical point of view), and whose development is
submitted to a system of laws (a structural point of view) which are constant and universal.

Szondi joins explicitly FREUD's basic opinion, as when Freud states, among other things:

"We know for a long time that we are to expect to meet the same complexes and the same conflicts in the
patients as in normal, healthy people. We are even accustomed to suppose that even every civilised
individual has a certain dose of repression of perverse tendencies, of anal eroticism, homosexuality etc., as
well as a part of a father or mother complex. It is just as in elementary analysis of organically matter were
we likewise doubtlessly could find out the elements: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a little sulphur.
What distinguish organic matter one from the other is the quantitative proportions and the nature of the
connections these elements establish between themselves. It is not the question if these complexes and
conflicts exist in both normal and neurotic people but the problem is to know if they have become
pathogenic, and if so, what kind of mechanisms have been called into play.

Szondi’s main ambition has always been to found psychopathology as a science, with its own objects and
rules, to create an "auto-logical" science, like all the other basic sciences. Doing this in such way that there
would be no need to import its concepts from other areas of knowledge, and not to work forever in a bastard,
analogical way.

To this end SZONDI tried to separate the essential from the accessories in the psychiatric nosography of his
time. He succeeded by putting facts into a certain new order, by setting out from the drive concept (Trieb),
doubtlessly borrowed from FREUD. His crucial action, which FREUD had refused to do, and which nobody
else had ever succeeded with, was to enumerate the number of the drives, to order them in between into a
system, to delimit this ensemble and to state that this ensemble formed a structure.

A structure which is precisely the one making the human being to function as an animated person, not by
immutable instincts, like the animal, but by a play of pulsions of which the outcome is unpredictable. By this
making man not only determined by nature but also by laws which guide his fate. Laws, it has to be said,
which are of an extreme complexity in so far, as NIETZSCHE said, Man is "the animal which is not yet
defined" (das noch nicht festgestellte Tier), in the meaning of a not yet, and never to be, defined specie.

It is the delimitation of the summing up of the drive factors and vectors and their setting on the test's
protocol sheet that gives the drive diagram table its structural character. From now on, every factor and
every vector belonging to the table will define itself in relation to the other ones. (Like the words in a
Chinese sentence or the interpretation of the Rorschach factors LB)

"Nothing has anymore an autonomous existence, all is remade in and by the networks of meaningful
relations: at last we leave the approach in which the mental diseases are considered to be "partes extra
partes", with the intention to set up a single structure in which the ensemble recuts them instead of
regrouping them. (5)

By this setting up into a table, each member gets, beyond its own meaning, a positional significance for the
ensemble. (6)

This brings us to speak of "drive positions", in the Kleinian meaning of the term, rather than of drive
tendencies or reactions as SZONDI did.

For SZONDI, psychical or mental diseases are not brain diseases (Hirnkrankheiten) or diseases of the soul
(Geistteskrankheit), but drive diseases (Triebkrankheiten).

When Szondi creates his drive system he distinguishes four drives as fundamental: They are the: Contact
drive (C) Sexual drive (S) Affect drive, called Paroxysmal (P) drive, the Ego drive (Sch), Sch corresponding
here to the first three letters of the word "schizophrenia".

Drives, FREUD already said, are not directly recognizable but only by their representatives
(Repräsentanten).

In the best case, when we are lucky, they present themselves - in the form of the affects (Affekte), mental
images (Vorstellungen), or actions (Sache), and of words (Worte) - in an extreme form, which causes that
one or the other of these drives dissociates from the whole in which they were supposed to live in harmony
with each other.

It is this excessiveness of one- or more - drivedemand(s), which unbalances the whole structure and makes
it/them stick out in its/their exaggerated singular form.

For example, the need to revenge (e-) or, conversely, to restore (e+), to assert oneself by his or her own
merits; these needs could become so strong as to decide the entire fate of the subject. Sometimes making this
fate a grandiose one, but sometimes also his misery; making the subject ill or a madman, an infernal being
for both himself or his fellow creatures.

2
If we consider the four main drives, or the four vectors (as SZONDI calls them), we may say the following:

The Contact troubles are troubles of the mood, called thymopsychopaties, in their extreme form represented
by mania and depression; (m) and (d), the initials of mania and, respective, depression, the two factors of the
Contact vector. They are the ones of our basic relation with the environment, of tuning in (in its musical
sense of the term, Stimmung) to the rhythm of life. They are troubles in relating to the surroundings
(atmosphere, environment); bad mood, in short, a mood out of tune.

Sexual troubles are perversions; the perverse unbalance is produced when the entire life is dominated by the
wish to posses the sexual object in its whole. When the jouissance (sensual pleasure/but here... ), in an
almost juridical meaning of this term, becomes the only goal, or the supreme one; the typical representants
of the perversions are the homosexual and the sadist.

Paroxysmal troubles are neurotic troubles. Szondi's definition of neurosis is not the common one. The
definition, which Szondi gives, is not the common one. For Szondi, neurotic troubles, stricto sensu, are those
interfering with the affective life, and which manifest themselves by blatantly breaking out in crises, by
paroxysms, hence the concept of paroxysmality.

But what produces the affects? It is not, says Szondi, the relation with the object or the environment. But the
confrontation, always surprising and always conflict laden, with the principle (norm) of the Law, and of the
two great fundamental interdictions which are the ban on killing the father and the prohibition of incest, in
other words of the Oedipal wishes.

The prototypical representants of neurosis, defined as a more or less permanent state of crises, are according
to Szondi, not the obsessional and hysterical patient, as FREUD states, but the epileptic and hysteric, just
those who react violently to the (oedipal) crisis with “crises”.

At last the distortions of the ego, which have to do with the ontogenesis of the ego, to the ego's "self-
construction" as it’s self-preserving. With in a negative form, the destruction of the relation between subject
and himself which leads to the extreme forms of identity problems we are meeting in psychosis, and
especially in Schizophrenia, of which the prototypical figures are catatonia and paranoia .

THE STRUCTURAL VIEWPOINT AND THE REFERENCE TO THE PRIMAL PHANTASIES:

Seen from a structural perspective SZONDI has never doubted that his drive schema, with its eight factors
regrouped in four vectors, build up a system or a structure (8), in other words a whole which was something
more than a mere sum of its elements. These elements, like the language phonemes, the musical notes or the
atoms in Chemistry, don't define themselves and don't receive and don't receive any determination, except by
the relations they establish with all the other elements of the system, which even when genetic nevertheless
is not at random.
But SZONDI has never been really concerned to justify the structural quality he had ascribed to his schema,
nor to consider it necessary to explain the way he had borrowed the drive concept from FREUD. SZONDI
had the qualities and flaws specific to intuitive geniuses. When he was asked: Why four vectors and eight
drive factors, he just answered: "Show me some other and we'll see". In such games, he always won. During
the time the speaker recovered his vocal cords, SZONDI had already arrived at another matter, mostly
casually with an irresistible Jewish humor, entirely discouraging the collocutor to come back to these
epistemological questions which seemed to be so manifest idly and unworthy to SZONDI.

This is the weak spot of his theoretical approach. As the theory is not epistemologically grounded, its
systematization seems to be unwarranted if not completely fanciful. If we add to this the still more fanciful
character of the "genotropic" theory, it shouldn't seem surprisingly that SZONDI got (found) little success in
the scientific world, although he had not any other ideal except that of being a scientist. (9)

3
It is a fact that FREUD has always avoided defining too precisely the concept of drive, by joking about its
(invoking its "grandiose uncertainty", which he refused to account for (10) and that he likewise rejected any
attempt of systematisation, suspected a priori of "philosophism". He was content with the sharp but loose
summaries opposing ego drives to sexual ones, object libido to ego, life instincts to the death ones.

We think (11) we have pointed out the structural aspects of both SZONDI and FREUD, by establishing the
factual homology between the Szondian vectors and Freudian primal phantasies.

In the final discussion on the Wolfman case, FREUD defined most precisely what he had understood by
primal phantasies (Urphantasien), here assimilated to inborn "phylogenetic schema", to "categories"- in the
Kantian meaning of the term- of the primal thinking (unconscious) and to the animal instinct. Which shows
very well, if it still would need to be proved any more, that FREUD's equivalent for the animal instinct is not
the drive but, the primal phantasies as a "previous knowledge" ("Vorbereitung zum Verständnis"), literally:
preparing for understanding) as obviously in the following text:

"I have finished what I have had to say about this morbid case. Two of the numerous questions it arouses
seem to require a particular mention. The first is related to the phylogenetic schemas the child brings with
him at birth (the primal phantasies). These schemas, similar to philosophical "categories", play the role of
"classifying" the further sensory experience which life brings to the child (Schemata, die wie philosophische
"Kategorien" die Unterbringung der Lebenseindrücke besorgen)....

The Oedipal complex, which includes the relations between the child and his parents, is one of them; it is, in
fact, the best known example.

(13) The second problem is not very far away from the first; however, it is much more important. If we
consider the 4 years old child's behavior in presence of the reactivated primal scene (the dream about wolves
as a moment of the emergence of the castration phantasy and of the anxiety provoking the hysterical phobia
in little Serge), and likewise when we think of the even more simple reactions (the defecation as stirring the
anal excitation) of the 1 1/2 years old child in presence of this scene, we can hardly give up the idea that
something like a previous knowledge in the child is activated.

We absolutely can't imagine of what such a "knowledge" (Wissen) consists; we have at this point only one
but excellent analogy: the instinctive knowledge of the animals.

If the human being also possesses an instinctive patrimony of this type, we may not be puzzled there is no
reason to be surprised that this patrimony especially refers to the sexual life processes, although it is not
limited to these alone. This unconscious patrimony would form the core of the unconscious (Kern des
Unbewussten), a kind of primitive mental activity (eine primitive Geistestätigkeit), destined to be
subsequently set aside and later be recovered by human reason (Menschenvernunft), when reason will be
acquired. Nevertheless, often, and maybe in respect to all of us, this instinctive patrimony keeps the power
to draw to itself the higher mental processes.

The repression would be a return to this instinctual stage and in such a way man would, with his aptitude to
neurosis, pay the price for his great new achievement; by this he witnesses moreover the fact that neurosis
depend and are made possible by the earlier instinctual stages.
The important role of the trauma occurring in the early years of childhood would be to furnish to the
unconsciousness a material that will preserve it from wearing out during the further evolution.

The primal fantasies, as a "core of the unconsciousness" (Kern des Unbewussten) and as inductors of a
precomprehension- to which corresponds the theories of the infantile sexuality- of what occurs to the little
man, defined as a subject of/to the drives, are the organizers of the human wishes, as these wishes dig their
roots precisely in the fantasies.

4
As LAPLANCHE and PONTALIS have significantly pointed out, the primal phantasies have the task to
account for the origin as well as for the sudden emergence of the first constitutive elements of the human
wish as they offer at the same time a matrix and give it a shape by setting up a scene in which the roles of
subject and object are not given in advance.

The final lines of their article raises the problem of why and how:

"But the phantasy is not the object of the wish, it is a scene. Indeed in the phantasy, the subject doesn't aim at
the object or its sign; he is appears taking part in the scene. He doesn't represent the wished object, but he is
represented as taking part in the play.
However without that, in the most elementary phantasy form, a fixed place could be ascribed to him (hence
the danger, in the analytical therapy, to make such an interpretation).

The consequences: by always placing himself in the phantasy, the subject can be there in an unsubjectivated
form, which means in the syntax itself of that specific sequence. On the other hand, as the wish is not a
direct (pure) emergence of the drive, but is articulated in the phrase of the phantasy, it is here we find the
selection place of
the most primitive defensive mechanisms: turning round against the subject's own self, reversal into the
opposite, projection, negation. These mechanisms are even inextinguishable bound to the phantasy’s primary
function - the setting up of the desired scene -. if it is true that the wish itself appears as forbidden, that the
conflict itself is an original conflict. (conflict originaire)

As for to know what the significance is of the "setting up of the show" and to decide, the analyst should not
rely any longer neither on the mere resources of his own science nor even those of the myth. He should
moreover become a philosopher. "

If we refer to the Lacanian trilogy of Symbolic, Imaginary and Real, we may say that
the Real, impossible to be known as such, is represented by the drive; that
the Imaginary is made up of the subject's idiosyncratic series of phantasies, "the connecting and transitional
ideas" (15) and
the Symbolic is the whole, the structure of the rules (laws) guiding the psychical reality function of which
the primal phantasies, as organising schemas of the wish, represent in a certain way the matrix.

It is easy enough to see that in Szondi's Sexual vector the major topic is that of the relation to one's body,
viewed as an object of sensual pleasure and seduction, that the Paroxysmal vector confronts the subject to
the Law, to the main interdictions of incest and parricide, the primal scene being the place where the two
incompatible sexualities: the infantile and the adult one are meeting, and that the Ego vector, is setting the
question of the differential identification between "to be" and "to have", and points out to the decisive
question of 1) the difference between sexes through phantasy and 2) the castration theory.

With respect to the Contact vector, it is put in relation to the primal phantasy of the regression into the
mother's uterus, phantasy which Freud has always hesitated to insert in the series of primal phantasies
because he has seen it as a kind of mythical idealized transposition of the primal scene phantasy. What he
writes in his commentary in connection with the case Wolfman, referring to the symbol of the "veil" (17),
permits us to grasp the basic meanings of this symbol, which is to catch the complementary and opposed
wishes to a) find again the mythical happiness of the maternal paradise, where life and death are mixed up
(C - +) and b) to be given birth again by breaking the cocoon and "throwing oneself out". or jump down.

The putting in relation the Szondian vectors and primal phantasies allows us to consider them, from a
topographical point of view, as the places and scenes of a topic, of a trauma or of a complex (18), of an
anxiety, of the priority of a differentiated drive (19), of a wish (20) and of a drive fate (21), each of them
being set up with relative specificity:

5
One sees there how the Szondi diagram makes it possible to gather in a coherent way, and to format, a series
of concepts whose homogeneity is thus underlined but which, with FREUD and others, generally arise to the
state " disjecta membra ", for example the series of the primal phantasies, modes of the anguish, drive
destinies etc. With each of the Szondi vectors a particular field of psychic operation with its own problem
corresponds, in particular with regard to:

the report/ratio with the body,

the relation subject-object,
the grammatical position of the person,
a certain type of aggressive aiming etc.

The passage from one field to another is carried out through a channel die where each time must be worked
out a well-defined type of dialectical conflict. The following table gives a diagrammatic representation of it.

PSYCHIC Type Subject- Type specific Place of body Pronominal Original Fantasy
ACTIVITY Object aggression Category
VECTOR relationship

FUSIONNAL No object Refusal of the The body as the The indefinite Return to the
VECTOR Nor subject in mother (or of the place of sensations “IT” (the German mothers womb
(pre-Objectal, pre- the proper space of the “Es)
narcissistic sense family, as global
-- --- environment
Dialectic problem ----
ANAL
SEPARATION
(depressive)

MIRROR Subject and Murder of the The body as a The third person. Seduction
VECTOR object double objectified totality “HE”
Seduction corresponds (the brother)
problem/
Sado-masochistic
Dialectics
(perverse)

Transgression The subject The murder of The body as The second person Primal Scene
VECTOR (desiring) is the Tyrant forbidden/desired “YOU” (coit of parents)
(Objectal, oedipal) distinct from (father of the (vocative form)
Problem with “the the (desired) horde)
Law”/dialectics object
(HYSTERIC) of
the “forbidden”
and of the “desire”

SUBJECTIVE The subject The body as The first person “I” Castration
VECTOR confronts Destruction of representation. (the (the subject of the
(secondary himself the self. ‘Ego” as the heir word)
narcissistic of the body)

Problems with
CASTRATION/
Dialectics of “to
be” and “to have”

THE ONTOGENETIC VIEWPONT AND THE DRIVE CIRCUIT THEORY.

6
In 1975, Jacques SCHOTTE proposed to generalise to the four vectors of Szondi’s drivediagram the idea of
the drive circuit (Triebesumlaufsbahn) which Szondi had introduced (24) only for the Sch vector.
Szondi put this concept of a circuit in connection with two ideas:
At one side that normality or mental health depends on a certain drive mobility, in contradistinction to the
petrification of certain cleavages, and in certain rigid structures which are a sign of pathology.
At the other side the concept of a circuit which evokes the idea of an order with an increasing complexity
between the different functions of the Ego. The cicuit proposed by Szondi is the following: from 1. (p-) to 2.
(p+), to 3. (k+) and 4. (k-)
This circuit, with the shape of a question mark, raises a problem.
According to SZONDI, it is actualized through the habitual development of an analytical or
psychotherapeutical cure where it is supposed that “every psychical content is successively tackled in the
life of the Ego according to the hierarchical order of the so-called defense functions”...
The content would emerge first in the form of projection (p-) as if coming from the outside, then it would
become conscious (p+), permitting it to assimilate the mental image. Afterwards the introjection of a part of
the contents assimilated by consciousness would take place (k+) for at last, the non-introjected contents
would be repressed (k-).

For instance, if someone experiences a homosexual attraction, first he experiences it as if this feeling is
arousen by a homosexual object, from the outside. Thus, he identifies in a projective way- the Kleiniens call
this “projective identification”- his own homosexual tendencies. Put in other words, he feels the original
experience in a projective way (p-). In a second phase, if one follows SZONDI’s opinion, he gets aware (p+)
of his own homosexual desire. In a third phase, he has to decide (k: “the Ego which takes position”: “Das
Stellungnehmende Ich”). He will introject (k+) certain specific characteristics (“Einzige Zuge”, the
expression comes from FREUD) particular to the homosexual object, other ones being rejected (k-) in the
same time by negation (Verneinung), repression (Verdrängung) or rejection (Verurteilung).
When making this type of circuit, SZONDI invokes textually the development of the analytical cure, more
rational than classical. The subject actualises his own wish phantasies in the transferential relation, which
corresponds in fact to a activity of “projective identification” (p-); afterwards, ideally, he “identifies” his
wish by getting aware of it (p+), then works it through, divides the parts, put apart something, conserves
another part. Introject or incorporate it (k+) or represses it, or if he can (k-) mourns the rest.
Such a schema can very well reflect the apparent global development of the analytical cure, but stands in
contrast with the empirically provided genetical or developmental data. The tendency of getting aware of the
wish (p+) appears only after the denying tendency (k-). Put in other words, we always say no before yes; a
yes is not really a yes except for following a no. Actually, the philosophers have always known this: “Omnis
negatio est affirmatio”.
From a genetical point of view, at least concerning our culture, the rational-denying tendency (k-) emerges
more and more firmly along the latency period (from 6 to 10 years) , the awareness of the wish (p+: das
Wunschbewusstwerden) gets a certain importance only in the late adolescence period .
On the other hand, we there are good reasons that ego ontogenesis takes place according to the schema
proposed by Susan DERI (26):
Sch
1. (0 -) The indistinction between the ego and the other (until one
year) .
2. ( + - ) The magical-autistical omnipotence (pre-oedipian period)
3. ( ± - ) The turbulence phase (oedipien age)
4. (- - ) The latency period
5 (- 0 ) The start of adolescence
6 ( - +) Adolescence

First the subject discovers him or herself in a fellow creature or in his or her owns image in the mirror. This
corresponds to projective identification mechanism (Sch 0 -). Afterwards, he introjects this image (k+) to
make it the core of his or her own ideal ego (Sch + -), a body-instance endowed with a magic omnipotence.
7
Thus emerges the primary narcissism- stricto sensu-, by the privileged cathexis of the object-ego, produced
on the base of a reflected image, (which is so well illustrated by the Narcissus myth.
This primary narcissist imago which is the result of a process of seduction, creating in the subject the
illusion that he himself is the centre of the world and the exclusive object of the desire of the other. In other
words this means to be the object - the phallus- that is missing in the other.
This imago will necessarily suffer a deflation under the double impact of the revelation of the difference
between generations- “You are not yet anywhere!” - and between sexes: “ You miss something, or there is
something everybody misses and thus you too could become deprived of it or lose it”
The reaction (k-), with by its function negation and repression is in contrast to the affirmation and
introjection of (k+), initiates and makes sure the process of transformation in the paradoxal meaning of
neutralizing (Aufhebung). In other words by a mutation where the repression of the old state does not imply
its total destruction (pure and simple) but on the contrary assures its maintenance under the form of a new
species.
The Aufhebung / Neutralization fullfils the double function of replacing the primary narcissim by the means
of self-critics / the birth of the super-ego/ and at the same time preservs the same narcissism, by means of a
negation of the injuries suffered by the first ideal ego (Sch+ -, + 0). Together with the transfer of the
primary narcissistic libido to the secondary instance of the ego ideal (p+) which the subject “projects” in
front of himself, as the heir of the lost narcissism of his childhood; when he was for himself his own ideal.
(27)

But “behind this instance of the ego ideal is hidden the first and the most important of all the identifications,
that with the father from the personal pre-history, an immediate identification before any other object choice.
(28)
Accepting this point of view brings about to consider that the “primordial” identification with the primary
father, (Urvater) prototype of the Superego and of the Superman (Uberich, Ubermensch) can be placed at the
origin (arch) as well at the end (teloz).
As well the “becoming-a-Self”, as an ancient imago (Urmensch) and as a teleological prototype for
“becoming-the Superman to be”. (Ubermensch)

This remark is very important because it emphasizes how the genetic point of view is subordinated to the
structural point of view that contains it, following the principle of the ontico-onthologic reversibility.
This means that from
the onthologic point of view, following the order of the being (l’être), the position p+ is placed at the origin
of the circuit, while from
the ontic point of view, following the order of the state (l’étant), p+ is placed at the terminal stage of the
development and of the circuit of the ego, which gives a sense to Goethe’s adage: “Become what you are!”
The final identification (secondary) with the father replaces the primary, originary identification.

By that we understand that in the ontic order (development), due to the fact of the prematurity and of the
neoteny that specifically characterizes the human being, the identification process begins and has its roots in
the primary projection (p-).
This consists in placing the ideal of the omnipotence of the ego into another, concrete exterior, invested with
this omnipotence, “another” in which the subject “participates” (p-), as FREUD shows in his “Collective
psychology and ego analysis” (29). The other might be incarnated, as in the exemples of Freud, by the chief,
the hypnotiser, the loveobject but also the mother.
The introjection (k+) consists in including the whole or only a part of the ideal loveobject, in which the
subject participates (Sch + -).
The negation and repression (k -)operate in the name of a superior agency: the Superego-Ideal of the ego
(Sch - +). It leads to the desexualization and to the mourning of the primary object, having as a corollary, the
transfer of the libido to outside objects and the abandonment of the primary narcissism (body-related) to the
benefit of the secondary one (spiritual).
Hence, we get an ego circuit in the form of an eight-reversed shape.
1. k+ p+ 4.
3. k- p- 1.

8
SCHOTTE propose to generalize this vieuw of the circuit to the other four drive vectors.

S P Sch C

h+ s+ e+ hy+ k+ p+ d+ m+

h- s- e- hy- k- p- d- m-

In the interior-of each vector, a certain order of succesion is set up between the four poles consisting of the
positive and negative positions of each factor. These circuits create an asymmetry between the both factors
of each vector. From now, there exist in every vector a factor- called director (m, h, e, p)- the inner dialectics
of which is mediated by the other one.
The passing from the first to the final position is made by means of the second factor, which is used as a
mediator (d, s, hy, k)..
Finally the circuits create a temporal dimension, the progressive way of which can be seen when reading the
schema and the positions where before Szondi only had suggested an exclusiv spatial arrangement.

The genetical reading we plan to apply from here on, is of course, a development of this latter (temporal)
quality.
If every circuit is a reflection of the whole schema, conversely, the reading from a periodical perspective,
based on the sequential order C-S-Sch-P, is by this completed or enriched. The entire schema could be from
now on the object of a “circular” reading.
This means that the relations between the vectors in the schema are homologous with the relations between
the positions within a vector.
The introducion of the drive circuits makes the drive diagram a structure with two levels. This is a
characteristic, which proves to be fundamental for our present development, as well as from a theoretical
point of view as for the interpretative applications, based on the ground of the testresults.
This double level of the circuits allows the introduction of the 16 drive positions into a table with two
entrances, which presents them
in series e.g (C: m+ d- d+ m-) ) and
on the level 1-4; (e.g. level 1: m+ h+ e- p-), evoking something analogous to the periodical table of the
elements conceived by MENDELEEV:

Level 1 2 3 4
C m+ d- d+ m-
S h+ s- s+ h-
P e- hy+ hy- e+
Sch p- k+ k- p+

Let us try to describe very shortly the specific features of the various levels represented by the columns of
the table, for which we suppose that they are disposed in an order of a rising complexity.
Level 1 and the Contact vector.
The first level refers to an essentially dependent subject, from all points of view, tributary to that which is
happening in his environment, hence susceptible to be easily frustrated if the others don’t satisfy his
expectations.
Level 2 and Sexual vector.

9
The second positions of the circuits correspond to a moment of auto-erotic return into phantasy (30) ; it is a
mirrorlike imaginary moment. In this sense it markes a first tendance to autonomy compared to the
precedent positions.
If on the first level the idea of the environment or ambiance prevails, on the second level appears the notion
of the object. Especially of the body apperceived as an objectified totality, isolated opf the background in the
visual vectror. This emphasis the imaginary dimension of the object category, because as for the object it
refers here before anything else to the investment of an image, the image of the narcissistic body.
Level 3 and Vector P
On the third level, the subject pulls out himself from the self-compliance of the 2-nd position, due to the
impact of the law: deprival, exclusion and interdiction. The passing from 2 to 3 calls into play the negation
of the cathexis of the objects, the latter having been made in the second position, where the phantasy
dimension prevailed. The anticathexis process, a necessary counterpart of the repression, gives the subject
acces to external objects, this time really other ones. The 3- position is defined as the lawful-realist-rational
position.

Level 4 and vector Sch

The 4-th level marks the appearing on the scene of the subject in the first person: the subject who projects,
who desires, the subject of his own word. It is the time of the subject’s maximum autonomisation, which
gets a pathologic (psychotic) form if it correlates with the breaking off the relations with the environment.
The 4-th level is also potentially the level of sublimation and of creation, where the subject projects to be
free and responsible of his (owning) deciding owing his fate, the latter conceived as a history to be made.
(end of page 15 of the original) Continues with page 15 - 23 “La lecture périodique des circuits pulsionnels”
(6.1.4). The reading from a periodical perspective of the drive circuits.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
1) Jacques Schotte. De la 1) Schicksalsanalyse a la Pathoanalyse. Liege, Cahiers du CEP, no. 3, 1993, p. 4 "
The essential thing for us, - in the genial discovery of Szondi -, is the constitution of the drive system. This
system is, of course, at the source of the test; it is tightly bound to the test, being the base of its practical use.
But, it goes beyond its testological use as a tool, because it has been there from the beginning, because it
was the instrument used to analyse of the whole genotropic theory.

"We know pathology is able, by amplifying the symptoms, to make them more evident, to call our attention
to the normal conditions which, without this, wouldn't have been noticed.

In the points where pathology shows us a break or a breach, normally there might only be a breach,
(Gliederung). Casting a crystal to the ground, it will break, no matter how, according to its own cleavage
lines (Spaltrichtungen), When we throw a crystal on the ground it will break into pieces, but not anyhow but
cracking down following the lines
established in advance by the structure of the crystal. (Spaltrichtungen). These cracked or fissured structures
(rissige und gesprungene Strukturen) although invisible are also those patients suffering of a mental desease.
In respect to the madman, we still feel a little the respectuous fear that the ancients felt of them. These
mental patients have retreated from the contact with outside reality, and that is why they rightly know more
than we do about the inner reality and can show us something which without them, would have remained
impenetrable".

7) It is Jacques Schotte's merit to give a purely etymological definition to what FREUD had called before
"ego drives" (Ichtriebe) and "self-preservation drives" (Selbsterhaltungstriebe), as he had opposed them, in
his first theory of drive dualism, to the "sexual drives".

Etymologically, (sich - Selbst-erhalten) means "to hold oneself". This permits us, by the mediation of only
one and the same signifier, to re-unite the questionable data of psychoanalytical ego-theory which means a)
the articulation of the basic question of its base, of its sexual origin and of its essential narcissistic-imaginary
nature with b) the question of its functions –self conserving – of defense and control of the drives.

10
8) Leopold Szondi (1947). “Diagnostic expérimental des pulsions” (Experimental drive diagnostic). Paris,
PUF, 1952, p. 1.

"We may use the following metaphor: a drive system must show us a synthetic view of the whole ensemble
of pulsional life, which can be compared with the global perception of the white light, but it must be able to
show the drive "spectre", in the same way as the light is decomposable in its own colours. This is a very
difficult task and it's not surprisingly that nobody has ever achieved it"

"Szondi's theory, in its original version, always arouses skepticism on several points, particularly where it
states that psychical heredity is based on eight pairs of alleles. Everybody knows how unlikely this thesis
seems in the light of modern genetics theory. To give nevertheless credit to SZONDI's theory under these
circumstances means to perceive and deal with it from a new point of view and that one researches its
reliability in a different way".

"Once finished our researches, I doubt if ever will be possible, based on our psychological data, to get some
crucial index in order to separate and classify the drives".

As for SZONDI, the paradox is that, though calling himself a pure empiricist, he has taken, at least in his
basic creative approach, a modern scientific attitude, in the textual meaning of Kant, namely of a
transcendental idealism, which produces a model according to Goethe's adage: " Everything In science is to
get an insight (survey, outline of the whole), which means an apperception of what lies at the bottom of
phenomena. Such an insight is immensely fertile. "
Quoted by Schotte in "Szondi avec Freud", op. cit., p. 20.

SZONDI COURSE 1 b
Pages 15 -23 of the French Original. (Total 31 Kbytes)
6.1.4. The reading from a periodical perspective of the drive circuits
6.1.5. Positions and the fate of the drive (sid. 5)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1.4. The reading from a periodical perspective of the drive circuits
The interpretation takes here into account
the sense of the direction, progressive or regressive, taken in each vector, and
the way the drives are processed, according to the drive circuits theory, and exploited following its own
logic.

Each vector covers thus four periods, marked with Latin numbers. Depending on if the most charged factor
which is called dominant, with (+ ) or (-) and -, belongs to a certain level or period of the circuit.
For instance, if in the Contact vector (C ), (m+) is used in a constantly stable and quantitatively position and
superior to (d+) or (d-), one says in principle that it places itself in the first period of the Contact circuit; if
(d-) prevails one is in the second period and so on. The fourth period would mean that (m-) has the dominant
position.
The dominant factor may be called a modulating one, as it regulates, ascertains, modulates the direction
adopted by the complementary reaction, in this exemple, the reaction (d).
(In the classical Szondi interpretation, as formulated by Juettner, the s, hy, k and d are called the modulating
factors. In “Umformulierung des Triebsystems, Szondiana 10 Jhrg. 1990, s 20-34. Your editor)
Depending if the reaction in d is null (0), negative (-), positive (+), or ambivalent ±), the reaction (m+) being
the dominant-modulating one, we establish the times- or moments, or stages: the first (C 0 +), the second (C
- +), the third (+ +), the fourth (C ± +), belonging to the first period of the Contact drive.

11
The periodic table of the drive clivages.
C S P Sch
d m h s e hy k p
1 o + + o - o o -
2 - + + - - + + -
3 + + + + - - - -
4 ± + + ± - ± ± -

o ± ± o ± o o ±

II 1 - o o - o + + o
2 - + + - - + + -
3 - - - - + + + +
4 - ± ± - ± + + ±

± o o ± o ± ± o

III 1 + o o + o - - o
2 + + + + - - - -
3 + - - + + - - +
4 + ± ± + ± - - ±

± o o ± o ± ± o

IV 1 o - - o + o o +
2 - - - - + + + +
3 + - - + + - - +
4 ± - - ± + ± ± +

12
 o ± ± o ± o o ±

We will choose to illustrate the principle of this way of interpretation, the well-known example FREUD
uses, in the chapter VII in Traumdeutung, in order to introduce the concepts of psychic apparatus and wish-
fulfilment (Wunscherfüllung).
The best is to quote:
In the first place the needs of the body emerge. The excitation stirred by an internal need looks for a
descharge in motricity, what we call for an “internal modification” or “expression of a change in mood”. The
infant who is hungry will scream desperately or will stir. But the situation doesn’t change, as the excitation
coming from an internal need responds to an ongoing inner activity and not to a momentary disonance.
There cannot occur any change until, some way or other (in the case of the infant, as a consequence to an
outside intervention) one gets the experience of satisfaction which puts an end to the internal excitation.
An essential element of this experience is the emergence of a certain perception (here, the food), the mnesic
image of which will be associated with the memory trace of the excitation of the need. When the excitation
will occur again, it will release a psychic impulse (Regung), thanks to the prior established relation, which
will invest again the mnésique picure of this perception, and reconstitute the situation of the first
satisfaction. This is the movement we call desire/wish.
The new appearance of the perception is the wish-fulfilment and the entire cathexis of the perception. The
total investment of the pereception, starting from the exitation of the need, is the shortest way to the wish
fulfilment.
Nothing hinders us to admit the presence of a primitive state of the psychic apparatus where this road is
really passed by and where the wish, as a consequence, becomes a hallucination. This first psychique
activity has thus a tendency to create a perceptuel identity, which means the repetition of the perception,
which is connected to the need satisfaction.
A dour vital experience would have transformed this primitive psychic activity into a secondary, more
adaptative one.
The identity of the perception obtained in a fast [regredient] way within the psychic apparatus, has not, on
the other hand, the consequences of cathexis of the same perception coming from outside.
The satisfaction doesn’t occur, so the need pushes on. There is only one possibility to make this internal
cathexis equivalent to the perception coming from outside: it is to keep it continually, permanently. This is
the role played by the hallucinatory psychosis and by the phantasies of the hungry (starved), where the
psychic activity is absorbed trying to keep the desired object.
In order to use better the psychic force, it is necessary to stop the regression on its way, so that it not will
pass beyond the remembered-image and thus that we from there can look for other ways which allow us to
find out, from outside, the wished for identity (French translation, pp. 481-82)

Here we recognize the basic dichotomy of the Freudian theory, between pleasure principle and reality
principle, primary process and secondary one, perceptual identity and thought identity.

When the infant is at the breast, or the breast is near him, immediately available, the need to cling to the
mother can vary in intensity - from m+ to m+!!! - but the question of the missing of the object is not raised,
because the situation is as if the infant doesn’t doubt at all that the object is at present real and at any
moment available.
If the object is taken away, the infant will express his need for the breast by agitation and screams... and, as
FREUD correctly notices, that which will change will be before anything else his general mood.

Although the term used here by FREUD wouldn’t be Stimmung, but Gemüt, it is just the basic way to find
oneself, for the better or worse, in the “Befindlichkeit” (the experience of one's own state of being. LB), and
this is the topic tackled in the Contact vector.

13
It is only in the second phase of the first period of the Contact circuit (C - +) when, holding back (d-) the re-
presentative engramm of the real breast, the infant could hallucinate the breast, thus getting an autoerotic
satisfaction. Put in other words, the passing to (d-) involves calling into play the work (activity) of the re-
presentation. This means the returning to the phantasy, which supports the autoerotical satisfaction.

The second phase of the first contact period (C - +, I 2) may be qualified, depending on the case, as
hallucinatory, auto-erotical, narcissistic or
imaginary. It is a phase regulated by the pleasure principle.
In the third phase,
the failure of the hallucinatory satisfaction on one hand, or on the other hand,
the necessity imposed by reality – the “Not des Lebens” –
will push the infant to search in reality (d+) for a substitut object - an “Ersatz” - which permits him to refind
the same satisfaction as the first one. As long as the wish to get again this satisfaction dominates the
instinctual life, one has not left the first period, dominated by the (m+) tendancy.
Thus, the reaction (C + +, I 3), is the one of
a subject continually searching an object in the environment which could give him back the “lost
happiness”.
This third phase of the first period of the Contact circuit could be named sometimes
realist, objectual, needy or another time
Illusive, but is always activated by the reality principle as FREUD understood it.
It is because the primal object, the real breast, is lost for ever and can’t be found again, neither in the
hallucination nor in the countless Ersätze, that a fourth phase will succeed the first three.
In the fourth phase (C ± +, I 4), the doubt appears concerning the possibility ever to find out an object
allowing to get again the primal and full satisfaction. The object is lost for ever.
The ambivalence occurring in the problem of searching the object (d±) possibly provokes the crise (C ± ± >
C 0 ±), which leads to question the principle itself of the ideal primal satisfaction and the object that gave
rise to it, that is, in fine, the primal mother, Urmutter.
If the subject follows his evolution in the cycle of the Contact drive, he reaches the second period, the first
phase of which is characterized by the narcissical turn upon his own body.
We can as we have done in the first period by invoking the mythic relation with the breast, use here the
paradigm of the installation of the anal phase of the libidinal development.
We represent the first phase of the second period (C - 0, II 1) as the moment when the infant in his fantasy
experiences his faeces as an integral part of his body, experienced as a narcissical prolongation of his own
body, the most precious object, as the miser makes of his treasure an integral part of his body, the mother of
her child, the father of his family, the worker of his labour, the artist of his creation, the man of his country,
his religion, his ideas etc...
The second phase (C - +, II 2), where (d-) regulates or modulats (m+) corresponds to the need of renewing
the contact with the environment. The narcissical self-sufficiency characterising the position (C- 0) became
as unbearable as (C - +) was in the first period. One notices here that, whether in a second or in the first
period of the Contact circuit, the same reaction (C - +) gets different meanings, as one can notice they are
diametrically opposed. This is one of the major problems in interpretation of the Szondi test; which is easy
to understand given this example.
It is because the “”demand put to (for) the other”, or the “wish to be the desire of the other fails, analogue as
it had happened when searching for a substitut object (C + +) that the subject tells himself that it would be
better to get away from the others and withdraw from the world
(C - -, II 3). The doubt arises about the question about the problem of the relation with the desire of the other
(m ±), mixed here with the relation to the world- “No one cares of me, whether I exist or not”! This doubt
concerning the problem of the relation to the world, of one’s own importance, its own worth and of one’s
necessity introduces the subject to the fourth phase of the second period (C - ±, II 4).
We hope to have been clear enough and that our approach will be understood when we use this method. We
add that, according to this theory, the most typical positions are, according to the periods in each vector:

C1 e.g. C0+
S II e.g. S+-

14
P III e.g. P+-
Sch IV e.g. Sch ± -

which can be translated in the following way:

A subject is never so explicit “in”
the contact position as in (C 0 +)
the sexual one as in (S + -)
the etico-moral one as in (P + -)
a subjectal one as in (Sch ± +)

The fourth phase of each period is always, as we hope you understood, the moment where the subject returns
to himself, raises questions about the kind of problems in a certain field, and reflects (about his situation).
In short when he is going to put himself in the position of being “subject of” the drive as well as being the
“subject exposed to the drive”, that is “subject against” (gegen) the drive. That is why we call this moment
“subjectal”.
The third phase may be called objectal ,
The second one narcissistic and
The first one pre-objectal.
It is possible to give other names too, under condition that they belong to a corpus of homogenous or
homologous concepts, such as, for instance, the way FREUD uses the serie of terms in his work on
Schreber:
Erotism > Narcissism > Homosexuality > Heterosexuality; or somewhere else the:
Principle of Constancy > the Pleasure principle > the Reality principle and > Beyond the pleasure principle;
Reality-ego (Anfangs-Real-Ich ) > Pleasure-ego (Lust-ich) > Reality-ego (Real-ich) > Final reality-ego
(Endgultiges Real-Ich)...

5. Positions and the fate of the drive

The theory of the circuits made us think there is an affinity between the drive positions - and their reactions -
which have in each vector an identical rank. The question is to know what these positions have in common:
1 C m+ h+ e- p-
2 S d- s- hy+ k+
3 P d+ S+ hy- k-
4 Sch m- h- e´+ p+
L
(Page 19 of the original)
One can say, for instance, that (e-) is the contactual-thymical position of the vector P, that (k-) is the
neurotical-adaptative-realistic-lawful position of the vector Sch etc... but we must be able to grasp what best
characterizes these quartets.
Jean MELON suggested to put them in relation to the concept of the fate of the drive.(33) as put forward by
by FREUD in “Drives and their vicissitudes” (Triebe und Triebschicksale) (34), without developping the
subject any more.
It is well known that FREUD had planned, editing his “Metapsychology” to tackle a series of topics,
especially the one concerning the projection and sublimation, but finally he dealt only with the problem of
the repression and of its basic relation to the unconsciousness.
He directed the issue of narcissism to the question melancholy. There is no doubt that, in his first article -
“Drives and drive fates”- he has the intention to tackle the most difficult topics, those of the projection, close
to the “Reversal into the opposite”, of narcissism, that has to do with the “Turning round upon own self” and
that which has to do with the sublimation. But finally, loyal to his habitual caution, he doesn’t tackle
anything but what he knew well: the neurosis, the repression and the unconsciousness, paying also attention
to that what destroys the narcissism: melancholy.
It is one of the most excellent virtues of the Szondian system to allow us to work out consequently a series of
concepts, which FREUD had only sketched slightly.

15
He limited himself to suggest that they were probably a part of a homogenuous conceptual serie, but without
self explaining nor justifying the meanings of such of regroupings.
However this does not hinder that it is just there where FREUD’s genius appears in a genuine state,that he
brings together, that what somehow is related to each other. (zusammenhängt), an ensemble.
We have seen that this was the case with the primal phantasies.
One can attempt to do the same, at least heuristically, in connection with the fate of the drives. Therefore, we
will assume there is a certain affinity between the positions:
C and “Reversal into the opposite” (Die Verkehrung ins Gegenteil)
S and the “Turning upon the subject’s own self” (Die Wendung gegen die eigene Person) (35)
P and “repression” (Die Verdrängung)
Sch and “sublimation” (Die Sublimierung).

The first positions are the ones, as we already said, where

the subject is most dependent on the environment, where the need for a container, a cover, a propp-up, a
support, a “ chock-breaker “ etc... is the major need.
We may invoke here the notions introduced by Michael BALINT of “(Primary Love)” (36) and “Basic
Fault” (37), or even Edmund BERGLER’s “Basic neurosis” (oral) (38) in order to understand the problem
in question:
the need to cling on (m+), the need for an exclusive love (h+), the rage (e-) due to frustration and the
projection (p-) as the most economical defense, called into play in any situation of an extreme despondency
(Hilflösigkeit).
Distress is just what menaces the subject if the supporting object, named so well by SZONDI “Haltobjekt” is
going to dissapear. (39)
“Reversal into opposite” refers most of all to the thymic reversal of mood (euphoria versus depression, m
versus d) but more fundamental is the Reversal of love in hate. In any case, this is suggested by the
framework of FREUD’s article (“Pulsions et destins...”). The defence by hate dominates the most
rudimentary psychological function of the psyche, which is characterizated by a weak autonomy and a weak
differenciation of the ego.
The second positions correspond, according to the meaning we give to our translation of “Wendung gegen..”,
as a “turning” of the libido to a "location” in the subject’s own person, that is to the " narcissistical” turn-
about, as FREUD described it in “An Introduction to Narcissism” (“Pour introduire le narcissisme”,1914), a
turning which LACAN has idealised in his “mirror stage” (1937).
The subject adopts a conservative auto-erotical position (d-), strongly marked by anal retentionism,
infatuated at the same time with his own double- a reflected image - reproduced in the primal seduction
scene (s-); he remains fixed to this scene, attempts to reproduce it despite the interdictions which try to
hinder him.
He shows off to and against everything (Geltungsdrang), is compulsively pushed to make a show of himself
(hy+: “Sich-zur-Schau-Stellen”) presenting himself as a “personage” (k+), in the Latin meaning of the Latin
“Persona” which means “mask”. This specific mask has the role to perpetuate the image of a glorious body,
as an object quite sufficient for himself and at the same time as the missing object - the “phallus”- for the
other.
The hieratical “positions” of the catatonic, although they have become rare nowadays (while they had been
very frequent before), perfectly illustrate the subject’s compulsion to show himself as his own statue (k+).
The emphasis put on the bodily narcissism, still protected against castration, one find as the core of
melancholy, and of perversions (especially masochist and fetishist ones).
This is also true for the specific character features as far as they are based on a traumatical-scar, but also, to
a certain extent, for sublimation, in so far as it it has the intention to create objects of which the perfection is
assumed to be in tune with the original perfection of the specular imago. (l’imago spéculaire)
The third positions have to do with
repression, on condition to understand it as an operation to negativate the narcissistical specular imago- by
definition imaginary- and totally to turn away from everything which is imaginary, by investing especially
the material reality (d+), by directing the libido in the direction of domination of the external objects by the
ego (s+).

16
Keeping under control the erotic emotions by rejecting any kind of sentimentalism judged to be ridiculous
(hy-) and largely favouring the perception of external reality which becomes the standard of the entire reality
(k-): (Facts of life) This position might be qualified equally as realistic, lawfull, rational or “fatalistic”.
It is the position which we call neurotic-normal, which prevails totally in the latency period and which,
afterwards, because of a certain regression (the turning from m- to m+) is characteristic for the general
population. Because this is the general disposition accepted by the mass-media, it is enough to start the T.V
to get an idea what it is about.
The fourth positions have connection with sublimation, as it involves
a kind of detachment from the environment (m-), a desexualization with a “transference of passion” (h-), a
kind of need for “reparation”, as correctly seen by Melanie KLEIN (e+) and the transposition of primary
narcissism upon the - secondary narcissistic agency - of the egoideal (p+).
Sublimation as it is proved so frequently in the clinic, is close to psychosis, in so far as the desexualization
and the withdrawal of objectlibido involves always risks to end in the abyss (void) of psychosis, which from
this point of vieuw may be defined according to Michel FOUCAULT, as an “absence of the creative
activity”. (absence d'oeuvre") (40)
We suggested calculating the proportions of the four types of drive positions. This would allow to form an
idea of their quantitative distribution, to “asses” the prevalence of each of them and to make, based on this,
an original typology even taking in account the idea of the fate of the drive.
According to whether one or another of the first, second etc drive positions is relatively prevailing to the
other ones, we can describe several cases of simple figures corresponding to clinic descriptions, easy to
identify and and structurally organised in a relatively sharp and highly differentiated way from one another:
The ideally well-balanced table, where all the positions are in equal proportions:
(1234)

The extremely unbalanced tables

a ( I > 2 > 3> 4 )

Where the extreme dependence to the environmental objects causes easily swinging of mood and toubles of
behavior (thymo-psychopaties).

b (1 2 3 4 )
Where the narcissistic claim is extreme, leading either to perverse behavior or lack of all respect for limits,
especially the sexual ones; violent intrusion being the rule. It is the case of hysterical “madness”.

-Page 23 of the original-

c(1234)
Where legalism, realism and rationality are constantly invoked, causing the classic picture of obsessional
“character neurosis”;

(1234)
Where we meet the typical schizoid position, as one can see, especially in adolescence, in “hang upp”,
“flipping out” and in the case of many patients with mental anorexia.
--------------------------------------------------------------

The most frequent neurotico-normal picture including the following positions: ( 1 2 3 4 )

Characteristic for “adapted” persons, in the meaning of having a common socialization, which means:
Combining acceptance of moral interdictions (hy-), respect for reality (k-), active cathexis of the
environmental objects in their material, concrete dimension (d+ s+), affective dependence in respect to the
supporting objects (m+), a strong need to be loved (h+), an intolerance to frustration with a tendance to rage
(e-) and a prevalence of collective ideals (p-) for personal developmental ideals, in the spiritual or moral
meaning of the term.

(1 2 3 4 )

17
Characteristic of persons who sublimate and where the desexualisation (h- s-) together with a retreat from
the world (d- m-) are compensated by the narcissistic need to create (k+ p+) and the passionate exaltation of
the affects (e+hy+)
c) (123 4)

A conjucture less common of obsessional persons where the isolation between thought and affects has as a
consequence to "mentalise" all problems. Especially those which have to do with reality control ((k±), with
the possession of objects (s±), with the investments of objects (s±), and in general of objects (d±) and the
expressions of affects (hy±).

End of page 23 in the french original

The end of Part 1, Cours de Szondi.

NOTES:
35) The French translation of “Wendung gegen...” in “Retournement contre...”, which got the approval of
Jean Laplanche and J. B. Pontalis, is not very accurate, as “Gegen”, in German, has two meanings:
“against”(“contre”) and “counterpart” (“vis-à-vis de”). Reffering to “Wendung”, we can’t reasonably
translate this word in “turning” (“retournement”), the latter evoking a little too much the reversal of sadism
in masochism. “Wendung” involves, first of all, the concept of “detour” (“tour”), that is bent (“virage”), way
round (“detour”) and reverting to (“reviriment”), more than “turning” (“retournement”).

Therefore, FREUD’s “Wendung gegen...” means “to return upon the one’s own self” (“retourner vers soi-
meme”). There is no idea of auto-agression, rather one of “detour” (“tourner”) libido upon the subject’s own
self, which is the essence of narcissism. What FREUD indicates as a second possible drive fate is, no doubt,
the one of narcissism, the more so as “Pulsions et destins des pulsion” (1915) is written in the final part of
“Pour introduire le narcissisme” (1914).

“Madness is just the absence of creative work (oeuvre), the obstinate presence of this absence. It is this
central void experienced and measured in all its dimensions which never ends... If we were instead to meet a
work of art, there would not be madness. Nevertheless madness is contemporary with a work of art because
it at inaugurates the moment of truth, shows its essence.” (puisqu'elle inaugure le temps de sa vérité) _

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