Faculty Bibliography

The case of a four-year-old boy with a postural symptom that resolved rapidly in the course of play therapy is presented. Various unconscious fantasies appeared to underlie the symptom. In particular, this case illustrates a young child's sophisticated capacity to abstract a complex relational feature from a set of unconscious fantasies that then became the basis of his symptom. The structure of the boy's symptom is relevant to (1) the question of what constitutes a symptom, (2) the relationship between concept development and symptom formation, and (3) the status of certain primary process mechanisms as they relate to concept development. Proposals are presented to help situate the contributions of psychoanalytic theory with respect to the domain of cognitive psychology, and to illustrate the unique contributions of each domain toward their mutual enrichment

The author argues that unconscious fantasy, properly defined, necessarily represents the three-dimensional intersection of wishful thinking (fantasy), veridical perception of the environment (reality), and the naive cognition of childhood. It is proposed that, although attachment theory developed out of the intent to capture the unalloyed reality of dyadic experience, that experience is inextricably entangled with the other two components, wishes and naive cognition, and furthermore, that the behavior of children in the attachment paradigm can only be accounted for by positing the existence of underlying unconscious fantasies. In making these arguments, the author also addresses the development of unconscious fantasies and their relationship to compromise formations and trauma

This paper describes the two-and-a-half year analysis of a five year old boy, Nick. Apart from the intrinsic interest that most child analytic cases hold, there are two especially noteworthy features of this analysis. First, Nick underwent an extensive psychological evaluation at the hands of the treating analyst some months before the treatment began. Thus, the case provides data about how that prior relationship affected the analytic process that evolved. Second, Nick initiated a project with the analyst that he named 'the littlest balls ever factory.' This project continued throughout the treatment, representing a variety of complex meanings. Although the genital and specifically testicular allusions in the name of this project seem obvious, the analyst came to understand that the project represented an equally important ego function: i.e., the enactment of an obsessional defensive process that allowed more dangerous and forbidden fantasies to emerge (A. Freud, 1936). This project represents a cautionary tale about not jumping to obvious conclusions. Nevertheless, the analyst was left with more questions than answers about the function of this all-important game to the patient