ABSTRACT
The author locates the problem of psychic survival at the crossroads of two drive economic paths: the direct discharge through primal phantasies projected into the external world; and the lifelong task of psychic representation of elementary drive phenomena, providing an intrapsychic solution to the drive-conflict inevitable in life. Following the latter path leads to a consolidation of the psychic organisation and by the same token the integration of fundamental ambivalence in facing loss and temporal limitation on individual life. However, this integration is a vulnerable constellation, based on primary identification creating a metaphorical space within which an individual can differentiate his or her life experience in temporal and spatial dimensions. The memories of the past, the full intensity of the present, and anticipation of the future will be based on this vulnerable constellation, which is inherently susceptible to psychic trauma. The author also analyses the unconscious preconditions for the psychoanalysis to survive in the future. The crux of the issue is the transparency of psychoanalytic thinking, forming a counterpoint to the disintegrating tendencies arising from an individual’s traumatic past.
