ABSTRACT
This chapter examines just one basic sensorimotor distinction, the distinction between respiratory fullness and emptiness. Prometheus stole fire from heaven to give it to the human race. In revenge, the gods of Olympus sent Pandora, a woman of striking beauty, charm, seductive speech, and manual skill, whom they had created after the image of goddesses and adorned with every gift and every guile, to be the wife of his brother Epimetheus. A detailed, but unfortunately very old, review of the research of psychoanalysts and specialists in psychosomatic medicine on respiratory disorders can be found in an article by Jacques-Alfred Gendrot and Paul-Claude Racamier entitled “Fonction respiratoire et oralite.” They show that an inability to breathe out is related to an interiorised bad object: “The asthmatic is condemned to be unable to expel what he has taken in aggressively”. In all cases of respiratory retention, they point out an urge to remain full and a terror of emptying out.
