THE PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD » Dreams

From Eruption to Frontier to Aevum…

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:16:55 +0000

Be it in terms of the settling into the depressive position, the resolution of the Oedipus complex, the attainment of ego integration, the cure, or what not, when psychoanalysis prescribes a so-called “healthy” goal for the libido’s development, it also posits the desirability of the point at which the libido’s vicissitudes will have finally come …

Intelligibility – Ownership

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:27:04 +0000

If the found object must begin as animated and vital and only later can it move on to become irrelevant and inanimate, an object properly speaking and, hence, potentially a possession, then property and its corresponding experience of privacy may not be entirely childish but instead the effects of a process of concretisation and a …

Work – 3

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:31:35 +0000

it seems to me that the roots of the psychoanalytic distinction between work and play can be traced back to Freud’s two principles of mental functioning (reality and pleasure) that regulate the workings of, respectively, the conscious and the unconscious. Work is presumably part of a cluster that includes reality, survival, and efficiency while play …

Work

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:37:13 +0000

Freud grounded psychoanalysis in terms of a collaborative uncovering of the unconscious as dynamic and over-determined. That such uncovering occurs in a fraction of the time “psychoanalysis” occupies or that it necessitates much preparation does not deny it its status as the core and defining element of the practice; if anything, it reinforces it as …

Of Revisions and Caricatures

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:49:51 +0000

Freud argued in Totem and Taboo that the efects of secondary revision are not exclusive to the dream-work; they are in fact evidenced in any realm of thought that requires unity and intelligibility as markers of its systematic aspirations. Freud writes: The secondary revision of the product of the dream-work is an admirable example of …

Oedipus — A Directorial Note

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:15:48 +0000

Aristotle argued that tragedy’s audience is treated to an experience of emotional stimulation rather than historical education. While in many respects unavoidably imitative, tragedy’s highest value and pleasure lie in its ability to occasion the excitement and catharsis of its audience’s fear and pity (Poetics, 1449b/25 and 1452b/30). Firmly planted in his culture, Aristotle was …

Oedipus — Take Two

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:36:09 +0000

Look out for the noble and upright king who, because of his pierced ankles, has to hobble his way across the stage. Make sure not to miss our hero’s hyperboles for everything about his words and deeds is in line with the basic structure of humour as exaggerated non-sense. Note the sympathy you feel for …

Falling Back Onto

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:27:21 +0000

Before preceding any further, another note on the translation is in order. Most critical and most misleading in the English rendering is the translation of “se rabattre sur” as “to fall back onto.” The learned footnote on page 10 of the English text lists the various meanings of the verb “rabattre” and evokes, whether intentionally …

Breaking Down

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 03:18:53 +0000

In the context of a connective synthesis, a machine or a chain of associations works only when it breaks down. It works by breaking down, continually, by having the flow it produces interrupted and consumed by another that is inevitably produced by it. “Breaking down” in the French original is actually “detraquée.” The word suggests …

Leopard Dreams

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:26:50 +0000

In his essay on Plato from The Logic of Sense (253-66), Deleuze invites us to think identity and sameness not as the logical ground from which difference ensues but as “the manifest content” of “a condensation of coexistences and a simultaneity of events” (262). Deleuze’s Freudian dream terminology here need neither confuse nor mislead us. …