ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic process always takes place in the space demarcated by its therapeutic action, on the one hand, and its developmental effects, on the other. It may be represented as a work of transformation taking place within a psychical space that is constantly reworked and expanded. The analysand’s structure, in addition to determining the mechanisms of his psychic life and the way in which he establishes relationships and apprehends his conflicts, also provides indications for diagnosis. Topographical regression brings the primary and secondary levels of psychic functioning into contact, thus enabling the anxieties and defence mechanisms relating to identity suffering and narcissistic pain—arising from primary links to the object—to transpire within the analytic field. The intensity of the psychic suffering brought about by the integrating movements of their ego awakens “resistances against the uncovering of resistances”, and a free-floating destructiveness permeating the mental apparatus and attacking it from within.
