ABSTRACT
Psychic genera are unconscious, dynamic and evolving productions arising from the encounter between unconscious ideas and real experiences. Psychic genera are formed in moments of resonance between the unconscious and the external world, moments when intuition is predominant. Fruitful meanings then well up that become attached to other groups of already existent unconscious ideas – which Bollas calls psychic “matrixes” – and acquire a new form. A patient who had been in treatment for three years reported that the evening before he had watched a very interesting documentary on the British Crown Jewels. The theme of the crown jewels and family jewels, which had first appeared to be anecdotic was gradually enriched by various signifiers whose polysemy made it possible to work on the patient's central conflicts at this moment in the analysis. It was possible to begin to elaborate the passive resistance that was playing such an important role in his life.
