Joseph Newirth’s
book puts forward a creative image of the mind where psychoanalysis does not
succumb to conscious and rational thought processes, but instead, shows how
rationality is creatively kept alive through the unconscious. This book
reconstructs the notions of subjectivity, and the relation between reality and
fantasy, by presenting a formalized neo-Kleinian approach that focuses on the
generative unconscious, and integrates both concepts derived from relational
psychoanalysis and the work of Klein, Winnicott, Matte Blanco, and Lacan.

Joseph Newirth’s
book can be divided into three parts. The first part (Chapters 1 to 3) sets the
theoretical stage for a change of focus of psychoanalysis from that of conflict
to the creation of meaning. The second part (Chapters 4 to 7) develops Newirth’s
clinical approach expanding the Kleinian concept of paranoid position and the
implications of a neo-Kleinian theory of mind for clinical technique. The third
and final part (Chapters 8 to 10) shows how subjectivity is a function of the
development of the generative unconscious and how failures in the development
of subjectivity are a function of pathology of consciousness and inability to
use symbolic processes.

The first chapters
of the book begin by explaining how the epistemological shift undergone in
psychoanalysis allowed showing that creating meaning and the subject’s
developing capacity to create meaning is the most significant aspect of
therapeutic experience. Chapter 1 shows how the Kleinian approach allows the
development of a neo-Kleinian psychoanalytic practice where the task of the
analyst is to facilitate the transformation of the concrete experiences of the
paranoid-schizoid mode into the symbolic experience of the depressive mode
where unconscious fantasy enlivens experience and relationships. Then, Chapter
2 shows how the need to understand and treat contemporary patients, the "hollow
men," with their experience of meaningless, demands a revision of the
notion of personhood to one that focuses on the structures of subjectivity, on
how experience and meaning are generated rather than on the structure of ego or
the self. Finally, Chapter 3, deals with the paradox of personal responsibility
and concludes that it is important for the analysis to facilitate the
development of the three dimensions of psychic reality: those of agency and
personal responsibility; the capacity to use multiple modes of organizing and
generating experience; and the development of omnipotence and the capacity for
merger.

The second part,
where the clinical approach is presented, points out what issues need expanding
and reformulation in order to facilitate the development of the three dimension
of psychic reality identified earlier. Accordingly this part covers a wide
range of concepts from psychoanalysis starting with projection, identification
and enactment (Chapter 4), the role of Power in psychoanalysis (Chapter 5), the
capacity to think symbolically and to create meaning (Chapter 6), and Winnicott’s
concept of transitional experience and Bion’s concept of reverie (Chapter 7).

In the last part
of this book, Newirth argues against the analytic injunction of making the
unconscious conscious and presents an argument for making consciousness
unconscious. First, Newirth shows how the neo-Kleinian model he proposes views
the unconscious as an expanding structure of mind, a set of functions that
generate the powerful forces and modes of thought traditionally associated with
the unconscious and that act both as the center of psychopathology and as a
source of energy, hope and creativity. Then, Newirth illustrates (Chapter 9)
the way in which many patients are imposed in the asymmetrical world of
external reality and have not developed the symmetrical symbolic capacities
necessary for the integration of unconscious experience; they are unable to
make believe, to play, to have pleasure and joy, and to have a creative and
passionate commitment to life. Finally, Newirth is able to conclude that from a
neo-Kleinian perspective, the concepts of subject, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity
are not located in the external world of science, but reside in the generative
unconscious, where meanings are created through symmetrical logic and the
symbolic processes of the depressive position.

Newirth not only
gives a short version of the history of psychoanalysis pointing out how his
neo-Kleinian approach differs from previous psychoanalytic approaches but, in
addition, all his theoretical reflections are given with clinical illustrations
that appear at the end of each chapter, testifying that this book is the result
of years of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis practice.

When one starts to
read the book, its material seems dense, and the flow requires paying careful
attention to the many references of the history of psychoanalysis. However, at
the end of the book one feels a comfortable familiarity with many of the names
of psychoanalysis, and one also feels more comfortable with one’s own
unconscious, discovering the bit of therapist and the bit of patient in each
one of us. Thus, Newirth’s book makes us capable of dealing with the little bit
of hollowness that touches all of us.

© 2004 Dina Mendonça

Dina Mendonça is a Postdoctoral
Fellow of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, at the Instituto
de Filosofia da Linguagem in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Working in a research program on "Pragmatic
Analysis of Emotion." This research, of Deweyan inspiration, aims at
elaborating a critical interpretation of the philosophy of emotions clarifying:
on the one hand, (1) the different methodological approaches to emotions; on
the other hand, (2) the topics that surround reflection upon emotion. Among
other things, the project aims at the production of a commented bibliography
and a research database on philosophy of emotion.

Categories: Psychoanalysis