"I have been compelled, in my investigations into the structure of the unconscious, to make a conceptual distinction between soul and psyche. By psyche I understand the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious. By soul, on the other hand, I understand a clearly demarcated functional complex that can best be described as a 'personality'." (CW 6, par. 797)C.G. Jung (1921) Psychological Types, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 6, par. 797, Princeton, NJ: Bollingen - Princeton University Press
Friday, March 9, 2012
C.G. Jung on the Distinction Between Psyche and Soul
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Judith Mitriani - Defensive Organizations
"Defensive organizations have been widely investigated, theorized about, and clinically illustrated, especially in the Kleinian literature, since Riviere's (1936) seminal paper on the negative therapeutic reaction. Rosenfeld (1964) described defensive organizations as structured, organized patterns of manic defenses, relied upon to ward off anxieties of a paranoid-schizoid and depressive nature. He observed that defenses such as omnipotence, grandiosity, denial, splitting, and projective identification, as well as the feeling of triumph over a diminished and denigrated object and dominance over the helpless, needy and dependent baby-self — when maintained throughout infancy and childhood without mitigation — may become a well-organized, rigid, and stable aspect of the personality.
This defensive organization, when idealized, often blocks the establishment of and substitutes for those good internalized objects which might otherwise protect and support the nascent self while continuing to foster its growth and development. Ultimately, the impressionable baby-self comes under the control of the defensive organization which employs seduction, "terror, persecution and dread" (Meltzer, 1968), or "the threat of insanity" (Money-Kyrle, 1969).
Rosenfeld (1971) further developed his ideas, titrating out from the concept of narcissism the notion of negative narcissism and its probable relationship to the negative therapeutic reaction. Both Rosenfeld (1971) and Meltzer (1968) conceptualized this character structure as a Mafia or gang: a covert and collusive network of renegade malignant objects in hierarchical organization, which provide the infantile self with a reliable source of protection from madness, psychic pain, and anxiety in return for absolute obedience, loyalty, and constant acts of tribute.
In analysis we can detect the existence of these structures as it becomes apparent that the patient cannot bear or is afraid of being dependent upon and having feelings of affection for or gratitude toward the analyst. In fact, these patients often experience negative therapeutic reactions just as the relationship with the analyst begins to deepen and productive work momentarily proceeds. Thus, when tangible gains are achieved by the analytic couple and the patient might otherwise feel some relief from his psychic pain and anxiety, it is as if the "gang leader" — in an attempt to assert its hegemony — rears its ugly head and brings it all down with doubts, somatic symptoms, guilt, and threats of death and destruction.
During these episodes, we often hear our patients complaining that the analysis is worthless or, even worse, noxious. However, what may appear as an attempt to denigrate the analyst's work and worth may well be intended as an act of appeasement toward some inner force that cannot bear the development of this fruitful alliance between analyst and analysand — since such a new alliance threatens to provide an alternate means of living and coping with and within relationships while rendering the old regime obsolete." (pp. 12-13)
Judith Mitrani (2007). Fear of Breakdown, the Compulsion to Repeat, and the Defensive Organization: in Psychoanalysis and in Patrick Suskind's The Pigeon. Fort Da, Vol. 13, pp. 7-25
This defensive organization, when idealized, often blocks the establishment of and substitutes for those good internalized objects which might otherwise protect and support the nascent self while continuing to foster its growth and development. Ultimately, the impressionable baby-self comes under the control of the defensive organization which employs seduction, "terror, persecution and dread" (Meltzer, 1968), or "the threat of insanity" (Money-Kyrle, 1969).
Rosenfeld (1971) further developed his ideas, titrating out from the concept of narcissism the notion of negative narcissism and its probable relationship to the negative therapeutic reaction. Both Rosenfeld (1971) and Meltzer (1968) conceptualized this character structure as a Mafia or gang: a covert and collusive network of renegade malignant objects in hierarchical organization, which provide the infantile self with a reliable source of protection from madness, psychic pain, and anxiety in return for absolute obedience, loyalty, and constant acts of tribute.
In analysis we can detect the existence of these structures as it becomes apparent that the patient cannot bear or is afraid of being dependent upon and having feelings of affection for or gratitude toward the analyst. In fact, these patients often experience negative therapeutic reactions just as the relationship with the analyst begins to deepen and productive work momentarily proceeds. Thus, when tangible gains are achieved by the analytic couple and the patient might otherwise feel some relief from his psychic pain and anxiety, it is as if the "gang leader" — in an attempt to assert its hegemony — rears its ugly head and brings it all down with doubts, somatic symptoms, guilt, and threats of death and destruction.
During these episodes, we often hear our patients complaining that the analysis is worthless or, even worse, noxious. However, what may appear as an attempt to denigrate the analyst's work and worth may well be intended as an act of appeasement toward some inner force that cannot bear the development of this fruitful alliance between analyst and analysand — since such a new alliance threatens to provide an alternate means of living and coping with and within relationships while rendering the old regime obsolete." (pp. 12-13)
Judith Mitrani (2007). Fear of Breakdown, the Compulsion to Repeat, and the Defensive Organization: in Psychoanalysis and in Patrick Suskind's The Pigeon. Fort Da, Vol. 13, pp. 7-25
Friday, March 2, 2012
Nathan Schwartz-Salant on the Correspondence Between Carl Jung's 'Participation Mystique' and Melanie Klein's 'Projective Identification'
"In 1946 Melanie Klein published ‘Notes on some schizoid mechanisms’ (19), in which she coined the term projective identification. Klein's paper employed the mother/infant object-relation and outlined a conception of parts of one person being put into and identified with another person. In the same year, 1946, Jung published the ‘The psychology of the transference’ (13), in which he used the arcane symbolism of alchemy to explore the same phenomenology as Klein. Klein's paper, as Donald Meltzer has noted, had an ‘electrifying impact [upon] the analysts who were closely working with her’ Meltzer (22, p. 20). Jung's hardly had such an impact. For most Jungians, let alone analysts of other schools of thought, his alchemical model often seems too abstract for ‘here and now’ clinical practice. Yet inherent in Jung's study of the transference lies an approach to the phenomenology of projective identification which richly elaborates the findings of Klein and other psychoanalysts, as well as deepening our understanding and widening the possibilities for clinical usage. Jung's work also helps delineate the limitations of employing the concept of projective identification.
Klein describes how: "The phantasied onslaughts on the mother follow two main lines: one is the predominantly oral impulse to suck dry, bite up, scoop out and rob the mother's body of its good contents … The other line of attack derives from the anal and urethral impulses and implies expelling dangerous substances (excrements) out of the self and on to the mother or, as I would rather call it, into the mother. These excrements and bad parts of the self are meant not only to injure but also to control and to take possession of the object. In so far as the mother comes to contain the bad parts of the self, she is not felt to be a separate individual but is felt to be the bad self ... Much of the hatred against parts of the self is now directed against the mother. This leads to a particular form of aggression which establishes the prototype of an aggressive object-relation. I suggest for this process the term ‘projective identification’ " (KLEIN 19, p. 8).
Klein further described how both good and bad parts of the self can be projected. When this is excessive, she says, the ego becomes weakened and impoverished (Ibid. p. 9), cannot assimilate internal objects, and feels ruled by them (Ibid. p. 11). In a further elaboration of these principles, James Grotstein has emphasised that projective identification is imagination (GROTSTEIN 10, p. 124). Projective identification, he writes, is a ‘mental mechanism whereby the self experiences the unconscious phantasy of translocating itself, or aspects of itself, into an object for exploratory or defensive purposes’ (Ibid. p. 123).
Rosemary Gordon has observed that Jung's usage of the term unconscious identity, psychic infection, participation mystique, induction, and the process he called feeling-into are synonyms for projective identification (9, p. 128). Jung's definition of feeling-into highlights its imaginal nature. It is a kind of perception process … it conveys, through the agency of feeling, an essential psychic content into the object; whereby the object is introjected. This content, by virtue of its intimate relation with the subject, assimilates the object to the subject, and so links it up with the subject that the latter senses himself … in the object. The subject … does not feel himself into the object, but the object felt into appears rather as though it were animated and expressing itself of its own accord. This peculiarity depends upon the fact that the projection transfers an unconscious content into the object, whence also the feeling-into process is termed transference in analytical psychology (JUNG, 11, p. 290, in the translation by H. G. Baynes (1923), pp. 359-60).
Jung's statement refers to positive aspects of projective identification which lead to aesthetic awareness (JUNG 11, par. 486), empathy, and a deep imaginal searching out of processes in the object. When he says, ‘The subject … does not feel himself into the object,’ he refers to a subject who already has an ego-self differentiation. But in other instances of projective identification the subject, or at least certain ego functions of the subject, as Klein emphasised, do project into the object, and this can lead to a state of confusion and to a weakening of consciousness that allows for emotional flooding by unconscious processes. In extreme instances a relationship dominated by projective identification can trigger psychotic episodes. As a result of the way the image of the self can hide in objects through projective identification, the subject has the unconscious phantasy of being invisible (GROTSTEIN 10, p. 130). This can become extreme, leading to a sense of a ‘loss of soul’ and a terror that the self can never be found.
Negative aspects of projective identification, such as confusion, identity loss or panic often appear dominant. However, projective identification also has the power, as Gordon has explained, to break down inner psychic boundaries, as well as those between a person and the object world (9, p. 145). This breakdown of structures is essential to any qualitative personality change.
Jung often stressed negative features of what Klein called projective identification. His goal in therapy, as stated in his commentary to The Secret of the Golden Flower, is the dissolution of those fusion states between subject and object, states he called participation mystique (JUNG 18, pars. 65-66). But this goal then appears questionable when Jung himself explains that once the self becomes the centre of personality, participation mystique is done away with and ‘results in a personality that suffers only in the lower storeys, as it were, but in its upper storey is singularly detached from painful as well as from joyful happenings’ (Ibid., par. 67). It would appear from this statement that one cannot totally do away with the process of projective identification except to banish it to the body, hardly a desirable state, and one that can lead only to mind-body splitting.
In these remarks Jung was centring upon what he called the ‘compulsion and impossible responsibility’ (Ibid., par. 78) that can accompany interactions dominated by participation mystique. Thus he emphasised the role of the self in breaking the compulsive tie between subject and object, the negative form of projective identification. In his study of the ‘Visions of Zosimos’ Jung struck a different tone and regarded participation mystique as underlying alchemical projections which ‘are a special instance of the mode of thinking typified by the idea of the microcosm’ (JUNG 16, par. 123). Generally, Jung was aware of the potentially creative and destructive aspects of participation mystique, and thus of the phenomenology of projective identification. He was influenced by both possibilities in his analysis of the alchemical imagery of the Rosarium Philosophorum, his Ariadne thread through the complexities of the transference (JUNG 13, par. 401)....
‘The psychology of the transference’, Jung's main statement on the transference, is centrally concerned with the phenomenology of projective identification. There he addressed unconscious processes that ‘have an inductive effect on the unconscious of [the] doctor’ (Ibid., par. 363). This theme repeats itself in variations throughout his study (Ibid., pars. 364, 365, 367). Jung described the phenomenology of projective identification as activating the unconscious and the archetypal transference..." (pp. 39-42)
Nathan Schwartz-Salant (1988). Archetypal Foundations of Projective Identification. Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 33, pp. 39-64
Klein describes how: "The phantasied onslaughts on the mother follow two main lines: one is the predominantly oral impulse to suck dry, bite up, scoop out and rob the mother's body of its good contents … The other line of attack derives from the anal and urethral impulses and implies expelling dangerous substances (excrements) out of the self and on to the mother or, as I would rather call it, into the mother. These excrements and bad parts of the self are meant not only to injure but also to control and to take possession of the object. In so far as the mother comes to contain the bad parts of the self, she is not felt to be a separate individual but is felt to be the bad self ... Much of the hatred against parts of the self is now directed against the mother. This leads to a particular form of aggression which establishes the prototype of an aggressive object-relation. I suggest for this process the term ‘projective identification’ " (KLEIN 19, p. 8).
Klein further described how both good and bad parts of the self can be projected. When this is excessive, she says, the ego becomes weakened and impoverished (Ibid. p. 9), cannot assimilate internal objects, and feels ruled by them (Ibid. p. 11). In a further elaboration of these principles, James Grotstein has emphasised that projective identification is imagination (GROTSTEIN 10, p. 124). Projective identification, he writes, is a ‘mental mechanism whereby the self experiences the unconscious phantasy of translocating itself, or aspects of itself, into an object for exploratory or defensive purposes’ (Ibid. p. 123).
Rosemary Gordon has observed that Jung's usage of the term unconscious identity, psychic infection, participation mystique, induction, and the process he called feeling-into are synonyms for projective identification (9, p. 128). Jung's definition of feeling-into highlights its imaginal nature. It is a kind of perception process … it conveys, through the agency of feeling, an essential psychic content into the object; whereby the object is introjected. This content, by virtue of its intimate relation with the subject, assimilates the object to the subject, and so links it up with the subject that the latter senses himself … in the object. The subject … does not feel himself into the object, but the object felt into appears rather as though it were animated and expressing itself of its own accord. This peculiarity depends upon the fact that the projection transfers an unconscious content into the object, whence also the feeling-into process is termed transference in analytical psychology (JUNG, 11, p. 290, in the translation by H. G. Baynes (1923), pp. 359-60).
Jung's statement refers to positive aspects of projective identification which lead to aesthetic awareness (JUNG 11, par. 486), empathy, and a deep imaginal searching out of processes in the object. When he says, ‘The subject … does not feel himself into the object,’ he refers to a subject who already has an ego-self differentiation. But in other instances of projective identification the subject, or at least certain ego functions of the subject, as Klein emphasised, do project into the object, and this can lead to a state of confusion and to a weakening of consciousness that allows for emotional flooding by unconscious processes. In extreme instances a relationship dominated by projective identification can trigger psychotic episodes. As a result of the way the image of the self can hide in objects through projective identification, the subject has the unconscious phantasy of being invisible (GROTSTEIN 10, p. 130). This can become extreme, leading to a sense of a ‘loss of soul’ and a terror that the self can never be found.
Negative aspects of projective identification, such as confusion, identity loss or panic often appear dominant. However, projective identification also has the power, as Gordon has explained, to break down inner psychic boundaries, as well as those between a person and the object world (9, p. 145). This breakdown of structures is essential to any qualitative personality change.
Jung often stressed negative features of what Klein called projective identification. His goal in therapy, as stated in his commentary to The Secret of the Golden Flower, is the dissolution of those fusion states between subject and object, states he called participation mystique (JUNG 18, pars. 65-66). But this goal then appears questionable when Jung himself explains that once the self becomes the centre of personality, participation mystique is done away with and ‘results in a personality that suffers only in the lower storeys, as it were, but in its upper storey is singularly detached from painful as well as from joyful happenings’ (Ibid., par. 67). It would appear from this statement that one cannot totally do away with the process of projective identification except to banish it to the body, hardly a desirable state, and one that can lead only to mind-body splitting.
In these remarks Jung was centring upon what he called the ‘compulsion and impossible responsibility’ (Ibid., par. 78) that can accompany interactions dominated by participation mystique. Thus he emphasised the role of the self in breaking the compulsive tie between subject and object, the negative form of projective identification. In his study of the ‘Visions of Zosimos’ Jung struck a different tone and regarded participation mystique as underlying alchemical projections which ‘are a special instance of the mode of thinking typified by the idea of the microcosm’ (JUNG 16, par. 123). Generally, Jung was aware of the potentially creative and destructive aspects of participation mystique, and thus of the phenomenology of projective identification. He was influenced by both possibilities in his analysis of the alchemical imagery of the Rosarium Philosophorum, his Ariadne thread through the complexities of the transference (JUNG 13, par. 401)....
‘The psychology of the transference’, Jung's main statement on the transference, is centrally concerned with the phenomenology of projective identification. There he addressed unconscious processes that ‘have an inductive effect on the unconscious of [the] doctor’ (Ibid., par. 363). This theme repeats itself in variations throughout his study (Ibid., pars. 364, 365, 367). Jung described the phenomenology of projective identification as activating the unconscious and the archetypal transference..." (pp. 39-42)
Nathan Schwartz-Salant (1988). Archetypal Foundations of Projective Identification. Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 33, pp. 39-64
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Beutel & Huber - Can Neuroimaging Contribute to Understanding Analytic Change?
Conclusion: "If we do not limit psychoanalysis to the domain of latent or manifest meaning, but consider it a general model of mind-more specifically, a model of mental disorders and psychotherapeutic treatment-then there are unique opportunities to study psychodynamic hypotheses and change processes (Kandel, 1998, 1999). The functioning of structures strongly affected by adverse experiences early in development (e.g., the limbic system) has become accessible to neuroimaging, opening new avenues for the study of psychoanalytic hypotheses and models. Some basic psychoanalytic tenets have been substantiated by recent neuroscience findings (e.g., the developmental impact of early experiences, unconscious processing). On the other hand, we cannot bypass neurobiological findings on biological vulnerability factors for mental disorders that may increase the vulnerability to adverse experiences in childhood or later life (Hariri et al., 2002). We are also alerted to potential biological changes resulting from adverse experiences (e.g., memory functioning in PTSD). As exemplified by the recent surge in mentalizing and related constructs, studying the neurobiology of psychoanalytic concepts may help in the formulation and testing of the psychodynamic concepts of psychic function. Given the growing discontent with atheoretical, descriptive diagnoses (e.g., major depression), neurobiological findings may help to refine diagnoses according to more functional categories, having implications for the current discussion on "disease-specific treatments." Functional characteristics of subgroups of patients beyond descriptive diagnostic criteria (e.g., levels of emotional processing as proposed by Lane & Schwartz, 1987; Moriguchi et al., 2006) may have an effect on treatment response to certain types of psychotherapy (e.g., psychoanalysis, psychodynamic psychotherapy, or a combination with psychotropic medication). While psychoanalytic concepts have been frequently assimilated and modified by various disciplines (e.g., psychology, psychiatry, neurosciences, humanities), psychoanalysis has moved into an academic outsider position in many fields. Increasingly, psychoanalysts have been advocating a reconnection with academic development (Bornstein, 2005). Among the entry points, neuroscience is but one, albeit an important and promising one." (p. 14)
Manfred Beutel and Michael Huber (2008). Functional Neuroimaging—Can It Contribute to Our Understanding of Processes of Change?. Neuro-Psychoanalysis, Vol. 10, pp. 5-16
Manfred Beutel and Michael Huber (2008). Functional Neuroimaging—Can It Contribute to Our Understanding of Processes of Change?. Neuro-Psychoanalysis, Vol. 10, pp. 5-16
Friday, February 24, 2012
Martin Schmidt on Psychic Skin
"Psychoanalytic practice and theory is fundamentally concerned with boundaries and containment. This requires the establishment of semi-permeable, flexible membranes that can create space, hold and control the passage of that which goes in and out. The consulting room and its furniture, the building that it is in, the person of the analyst, the words we choose, the silence, the transference and the analytic hour itself, all provide a kind of metaphorical ‘skin’ for the analysis.
Freud states that ‘the ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations, chiefly from those springing from the surface of the body’ (1927, p. 26). In her seminal paper, Esther Bick (1968) argues that in its most primitive form, the parts of the personality are held together by the skin functioning as a boundary. Just as the Psychic skin: psychotic defences, borderline process and delusions psychological functions of nourishment, reassurance and comfort are dependent upon the introjection of the warm and receptive breast, so too the mental function of containment is dependent upon the introjection of an external object capable of providing a ‘skin-container’ function. Without the incorporation of this containing function, the concept of a space within the self cannot arise and consequently introjection itself (i.e. the psychological construction of objects in an internal space) is impaired. Unrestrained projective identification ensues and all the confusions of identity associated with it.
Following in Bick’s footsteps, Joan Symington (1985) describes how the baby lives in constant fear of its psychic skin being breached and spilling out into ‘unintegrated states’. If the mother is able to contain the baby’s distress, the psychic skin is strengthened. If, however, the mother fails or is absent, then the infant has to resort to its own means of holding itself together. She has observed a number of ways in which the baby attempts to do this: by focusing its attention on a source of light, sound, touch or smell; by engaging in repetitive movement and by muscular tightening/clenching. Adult equivalents of these primitive omnipotent defences include pacing the floor, continuous talking, self-stroking, watching television, plugging into headphones and compulsive exercise. The perpetuation of these survival mechanisms may lead to the development of what Bick calls a ‘second muscular skin’, based on robustness and muscularity, rather than identification with a containing object. If unmodified, this can become a defensive-offensive armour which we see in schizophrenia.
Didier Anzieu (op.cit.) developed these ideas and formulated the concept of a ‘skin ego’, a bodily pre-ego, a mental image based on the infant’s experience of the skin which it uses to support the functions of the ego. He argues that as every psychical activity is anaclitically dependent upon biological/physical functions, the functions of the ego mirror the functions of the skin: a container/sac for retaining thoughts, affects and good experiences accumulated through feeding, touch and bathing in words, an interface which protects against penetration and a means of communication with the outside world.
This skin ego provides a kind of ‘narcissistic envelope’ to protect the psyche. Anzieu imagines that there is a primitive fantasy of a skin common to mother and baby which is followed by a flayed skin (with separation) and then the establishment of a skin of one’s own. At this point, I would like to clarify my own use of the term ‘psychic skin’. There is a tendency in psychoanalysis to use metaphor to describe psychological functions/capacities in terms of body parts; e.g., Symington says the ‘optimal containing object’ is the nipple in the mouth and Bick directly equates psychic skin to physical skin. However, as Warren Colman points out, there is a danger in exaggerating the physical source of the metaphor: ‘The process of reduction back to the physical body has the effect of imbuing the physical body with meaning that it did not necessarily have before’ (Colman 2005, p 653).
I am using the term ‘psychic skin’ as a metaphor for an abstract psychological capacity, namely, the containing and protective function of the psyche. This is informed by the infant’s actual experience of its own physical skin and the actions of its parents (e.g., their touch); also by the integration of their feeling/thinking containing function (which processes and makes bearable the infant’s anxieties) and other archetypal factors which I will aim to describe." (pp. 23-25)
Martin Schmidt (2012) Psychic skin: psychotic defences, borderline process and delusions. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2012, Vol. 57, pp. 21–39
Freud states that ‘the ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations, chiefly from those springing from the surface of the body’ (1927, p. 26). In her seminal paper, Esther Bick (1968) argues that in its most primitive form, the parts of the personality are held together by the skin functioning as a boundary. Just as the Psychic skin: psychotic defences, borderline process and delusions psychological functions of nourishment, reassurance and comfort are dependent upon the introjection of the warm and receptive breast, so too the mental function of containment is dependent upon the introjection of an external object capable of providing a ‘skin-container’ function. Without the incorporation of this containing function, the concept of a space within the self cannot arise and consequently introjection itself (i.e. the psychological construction of objects in an internal space) is impaired. Unrestrained projective identification ensues and all the confusions of identity associated with it.
Following in Bick’s footsteps, Joan Symington (1985) describes how the baby lives in constant fear of its psychic skin being breached and spilling out into ‘unintegrated states’. If the mother is able to contain the baby’s distress, the psychic skin is strengthened. If, however, the mother fails or is absent, then the infant has to resort to its own means of holding itself together. She has observed a number of ways in which the baby attempts to do this: by focusing its attention on a source of light, sound, touch or smell; by engaging in repetitive movement and by muscular tightening/clenching. Adult equivalents of these primitive omnipotent defences include pacing the floor, continuous talking, self-stroking, watching television, plugging into headphones and compulsive exercise. The perpetuation of these survival mechanisms may lead to the development of what Bick calls a ‘second muscular skin’, based on robustness and muscularity, rather than identification with a containing object. If unmodified, this can become a defensive-offensive armour which we see in schizophrenia.
Didier Anzieu (op.cit.) developed these ideas and formulated the concept of a ‘skin ego’, a bodily pre-ego, a mental image based on the infant’s experience of the skin which it uses to support the functions of the ego. He argues that as every psychical activity is anaclitically dependent upon biological/physical functions, the functions of the ego mirror the functions of the skin: a container/sac for retaining thoughts, affects and good experiences accumulated through feeding, touch and bathing in words, an interface which protects against penetration and a means of communication with the outside world.
This skin ego provides a kind of ‘narcissistic envelope’ to protect the psyche. Anzieu imagines that there is a primitive fantasy of a skin common to mother and baby which is followed by a flayed skin (with separation) and then the establishment of a skin of one’s own. At this point, I would like to clarify my own use of the term ‘psychic skin’. There is a tendency in psychoanalysis to use metaphor to describe psychological functions/capacities in terms of body parts; e.g., Symington says the ‘optimal containing object’ is the nipple in the mouth and Bick directly equates psychic skin to physical skin. However, as Warren Colman points out, there is a danger in exaggerating the physical source of the metaphor: ‘The process of reduction back to the physical body has the effect of imbuing the physical body with meaning that it did not necessarily have before’ (Colman 2005, p 653).
I am using the term ‘psychic skin’ as a metaphor for an abstract psychological capacity, namely, the containing and protective function of the psyche. This is informed by the infant’s actual experience of its own physical skin and the actions of its parents (e.g., their touch); also by the integration of their feeling/thinking containing function (which processes and makes bearable the infant’s anxieties) and other archetypal factors which I will aim to describe." (pp. 23-25)
Martin Schmidt (2012) Psychic skin: psychotic defences, borderline process and delusions. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2012, Vol. 57, pp. 21–39
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