Psychic Retreats
This type of primitive defense involves mobilizing a sense of invincibility and unlimited power to fend off internal and external threats, leading to the development of pathological organization of the personality.
What is omnipotence?
A partner using this identification may feel they know the other completely, better even than the partner knows themselves.
What is intrusive identification?
True or False: Reaching the depressive position as a goal in life, but giving it up is essential for new growth.
True.
Which of these statements is NOT true regarding a psychotic organization of the personality?
a. the individual is overwhelmed with fears of fragmentation and annihilation
b. the delusional system compounds anxieties by its often frightening and irrational content
c. the analyst can often hold (via projection) the sane part of the personality
d. depressive feelings may be threatening if they challenge the dominance of the psychotic organization
B, "more commonly, a complex delusional system is created which relieves anxiety by the imposition of an arbitrary and often cruel order on the previously chaotic state....the psychotic organization protects the patient from the terrors of psychotic fragmentation, and for a while may lead to an equilibrium in which the patient can cope, albeit at the cost of grave disability"
This term describes the early stage in couple therapy when the couple may project intense hopes or fears onto the therapist, viewing them as either a potential savior or a threatening outsider.
What is "early transference"?
Britton describes this common journey: the post-depressive position involving fragmented belief and moral ambiguity which then leads to intellectual coherence and moral certainty, denoted by what sign?
a. Ps(n+1)
b. D(path)
c. D(n+1)
d. Ps -1
D(path)
In describing features of a retreat formed around narcissism, Meltzer highlighted the protective illusion of providing safety that the destructive part of the personality seductively offers, while Rosenfeld brought into sharp focus for the analytic community which KEY aspect commonly found in a narcissistic personality organization (NPO)?
What is idealization of the destructive parts of self?
When working with a couple in the assessment phase, the therapist should pay attention to the concrete material in the session along with this.
The emotional experience of being in the room with the couple.
Britton’s model posits the movement from the depressive position to this position.
What is a post-depressive paranoid-schizoid position? PS(n+1).
The work of mourning is difficult. A final result of the successful process of mourning entails recognizing the separateness between self and object and letting go of the object even though one is convinced that loss is unsurvivable. This is the result of a successful process of mourning.
Parts of the self previously ascribed to the object are returned to the ego
When addressing narcissistic traits in couples, this therapeutic intervention focuses on helping the partners develop what critical capacity, essential for mutual recognition and emotional exchange?
What is the capacity for mentalization or empathic attunement?
Q. Bion thought it was important to stay in the experience of fragments and incoherence long enough for THIS to emerge.... which would configure the other fragmented facts by their relationship to it, which ultimately produced a shape which led to meaning.
What is a selected fact?
In this form of pathological organization a breakdown in splitting occurs, in which the good and bad are fragments and are blended into a confusing mixture internally (which Steiner compared to salami). What chief element is often found and serves as the glue for this amalgam of good and bad parts, AND, which provides secondary gratification?
What is perversion? It is often of a masochistic variety, being a victim, being humiliated, etc. and is very often not changed by insight.
In couples therapy, this term describes the challenge of maintaining a relationship where one partner’s self-involvement limits the other’s capacity to express their own needs and feelings.
What is the struggle for psychic space?
"Yesterday's depressive position becomes tomorrow's defensive organization" describes what important aspect of Klein's Ps/D theory?
Leaving the security of the depressive position coherence for a new round of fragmented persecuting uncertainties is necessary for development.
OR
In a world of flux, an attempt to stand still produces a retreat.