ABSTRACT
When a nodal moment occurs during a regression, it is a first step in the direction of the upward slope and of Progressive Symbolization. Nodal moments highlight paradoxical transformations at work. Nodal moments have the contour of a triangular challenge. The negative covariations that marked the nodal moment implicate different psychic experiences depending upon what the patient was concerned with during a given session. The empirical observations have affirmed that a nodal moment can be reliably identified and that it reflects shifts in cognitive-linguistic functioning. The segmentation analysis enabled us to affirm our most general clinical proposition that during a regressive phase a nodal moment is evoked, having a distinct mental structure and creating a reversal from the preceding context. The nodal moment corresponds to the classical view of Oedipal triangulation emphasized by Kernberg: the analyst is chosen as the organizer of psychic conflict, and in this way, effects an alteration in the analytic relationship.
