SAMIKSA Journal of The Indian Psychoanalytical Society On the Psychoanalytic Idea of Time CHARLES HANLY The Psychoanalytic Legacy of Anna Freud ANNE-MARIE SANDLER Some Thoughts on Attention FRED M. CEVIN Death Drive, Negative Narcissism, Disobjectalising Function ANDRE GREEN Transference-Countertransference Enactment in Successful Clinical Psychoanalysis OWEN RENIK The True God and the False God NEVILLE SYMINGTON • The Black Hole : Terror and Dread in Confusional Psychosis MANEK-PHIROZ BHARUCHA Evolution of the Concept of Anxiety in Psychoanalysis BANi PAIN • Book Reviews VOLUME 51 1997 ANNUAL J SAMIKSA CONTENTS JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN PSYCHOANALYTICAL SOCIETY Journal of On the Psychoanalytic Idea of Time Samiksa is published annually. The annual subscription payable in advance is Rs.150/ The Indian by Charles Hanly 1 - (Rupees One Hundred and Fifty) for inland subscribers and U.S.$ 30.00 (Thirty) for Psychoanalytical overseas subscribers. Subscription should be sent to Indian Psychoanalytical Society, Society 14, Parsibagan Lane, Calcutta-700 009, India. Drafts should be made payable to "Indian The Psychoanalytic Legacy of Psychoanalytical Society". Anna Freud by Anne-Marie Sandier 11 Volume 51, 1997 MANUSCRIPTS Some Thoughts on Attention Manuscripts of articles should be sent directly to the Editor and must be in English, by Fred M. Levin 23 All editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor, Samiksa, Indian Editor Psychoanalytical Society, 14, Parsibagan Lane, Calcutta-700 009, India. Death Drive, Negative Narcissism, Hironmoy Ghosal Contributors are requested to submit four clear copies — must be typewritten on bond Disobjectalising Function paper with at least 1 V2 inch margin on all four sides. All parts must be "double by Andre Green 31 spaced" including references, footnotes and extracts. Footnotes are to be numbered Jt. 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Varsha Bhansali Reviewers : References in the text should be given by quoting the journal, volume number, and Moinak Biswas, Mallika Akbar, Dr. Gouranga Banerji, inclusive page numbers. 14, Parsibagan Lane Dr. M.M. Trivedi References in the text should be given by quoting the Authors' name followed by the Calcutta - 700 009 year of publication in parenthesis. It should be arranged in alphabetical order following standard rule, e.g. ON THE PSYCHOANALYTIC IDEA OF TIME Charles Hanly Psychoanalysis shares an underlying episteinology (theory of knowledge) with the natural and human sciences. A psychoanalytic concept of time must be consistent with what physics has to teach us about its nature. Therefore, psychoanalysts, when thinking about time, must take into account the concept of time and of temporality found in contemporary physics as articulated by Hawking. Freud grounded the human psyche in the human body and, hence, in physical time. However, Freud's hypothesis of an archaic inheritance, based on acquired species memories, was potentially a breach of natural time. But psychoanalytic theory, including the universality of the Oedipus complex can survive the abandonment of Freud's Lamarkianism. I have also argued that Freud's flirtation with Kant's sub- jective idealist concept of time is not logically or conceptually required by anything essential to Freud's discoveries. More importantly, it can be shown that Freud's attribution of timelessness to unconscious psychic contents and processes does not imply any breach in natural time. Detailed considerations of psychoanalytic data are developed to analyse the meaning of Freud's attribution of timelessness to the unconscious. I conclude with psychoanalyticaily informed philosophical reflections on time as one measure of the fmitude of human existence. Philosophically there are two basic questions time, "What then is time? If no one asks me, about time. One is ontological: what is the I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asks, nature of time? One is epistemological: how I know not" (p. 262). do we know what the nature of time is? The Philosophy, by itself, cannot answer ques- order of these questions already has philosophi- tions about the nature of time. Philosophy must cal implications. The order in which I have rely on the natural sciences to shed light on posed the questions is realist in the way in time, space, substance, natural history and which natural science or Aristotle is realist. other aspects of reality. Thus, Augustine's As Aristotle said, "That nature exists who can question can now be answered in so for as doubt". The reverse order is idealist in the physics has been able to shed light on the fashion of Descartes, Hume or Kant. The nature of time. Hawking (1988) describes time, knowability of nature is cast in doubt and according to relativity theory, as a dynamic philosophy turns the mind inward upon itself property of the universe which is influenced to seek the conditions for knowledge. by proximity to mass and by velocity and 1 have chosen the realist ordering of the which in conjunction with space influences questions because Freud premised psychoa- the way in which bodies move and forces act nalysis on scientific realism which remains the in nature. "Space and time are now dynamic dominant school of philosophical thought in quantities: when a body moves, or a force acts, the English speaking world. Augustine (397) it affects the curvature of space and time — succinctly posed the problem of the nature of and in turn the structure of space-time affects Charles M.T. Hanly, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Toronto Psychoana- lytic Institute; Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Univetsity of Toronto. SAMIKSA CHARLES HANLY ON THE PSYCHOANALYTIC IDEA OF TIME the way in which bodies move and forces act" It is not difficult for psychoanalysis to lo- (Hawking, 1988, p.33). Newton's absolute time cate man's psychic life within the physical been transmitted genetically. The central hy- esis of modern genetics had left no room in which allowed for unique fixing of .simultane- time of nature revealed to us by physics pothesis of Totem and Taboo, which Freud evolutionary theory for such an inheritance. ous events because he assumed that time is Shakespeare's evocation of the ages of the (1913) called a scientific myth, is an attempted The elements of Freud's archaic heritage are unaffected by the movement of bodies and the individual life by Jaques in Ax You Like It is reconstruction of the events that resulted in unquestionably acquired characteristics. All at- action of forces in nature. Newton's concept one to which Freud would have taken no ex- the formation of homo sapiens. The crucial tempts in biology to demonstrate the of time has been replaced in relativity theory ception. reconstructed event is the first parricide which, inheritance of acquired characteristics have by a simultaneity that is relative to the loca- according to the myth, brought about the trans- failed. Modern Freudians have abandoned the "All the world's a stage, tion and motion of the instruments used in its formation of pre-human hordes into the earliest hypothesis but not without consequences for identification. The acceleration of a body, And all the men and women merely play- totemic humans and which, Freud hypoth- psychoanalytic theory. ere; esized, is unconsciously remembered in the whether it be an atom or a living organism, The hypothesis that the Oedipus complex life of each individual where it takes the form alters the rate at which it ages by comparison They have their exits and their entrances; and the super-ego are an archaic heritage had of the instinctually originated Oedipus com- with identical bodies moving at lesser veloci- And one man in his time plays many parts, the advantage that it accounted for the univer- plex. The Oedipus complex and the formation ties because the rhythm, for example of the His acts being seven ages." (II, vii) sality of the Oedipus complex. The universality of the super-ego, consequent upon its resolu- heart slows down relative to the rhythms of of the Oedipus complex is important to psy- The individual psychic life, as Freud con- tion, were thought by Freud to be an archaic- the hearts of organisms moving at lesser ve- choanalytic theory because of the crucial role ceived of it, is finite and historical; its origins heritage.