ABSTRACT
The shock of being left by Father is one image of a shock that has no beginning or end. Shock runs through the psyche and molds life and character. The traditional portrayal of secondary process doing the binding work, while primary process aims at discharge, is exaggerated and misleading. Primary process does work too. It begins the processing of affects, particularly catastrophic affective impacts. Catastrophic affective globs undergo processes of transformation, via condensation and displacement and so on, and enter dream work. A traditional psychoanalytic view is that the analyst acts as a model for the observing ego, which somehow stimulates growth of the patient’s ego through identification with that of the analyst. The analyst’s processing of the patient’s impact is multidimensional and conveys many messages. S. Freud’s fantasy that the infant hallucinates a breast when it is absent suggests how hallucination satisfies needs and drives, closes gaps, and covers deficits.
