ABSTRACT
The progression of Chloe’s psychotherapy, and the neuropsychoanalysis movement created by Mark Solms in the 1990s, shed light on a dimension so far overlooked by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, namely that the psychic work is strongly supported by, and interconnected with, the neuronal networks. In the economic dimension of psychic functioning, the patient’s libido, mobilised by the somatic problems, is freed of this rescuing cathexis, and the patient regains more and more vital energy as the libido returns. As can be seen with some of the patients whose clinical examination and/or therapeutic progression, the first stage is to rebuild the unity of psychosomatic life. In this stage, because of the psychic regression caused by the illness, the psychosomatician psychotherapist adopts an empathic and warm standpoint towards his patient, and, in parallel with the essential medical treatments, he gradually strengthens the patient’s ego so that this agency can recathect the various domains of life.
