NACHTRÄGLICHKEIT: THEORETICAL AND CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Freud’s early observation that certain memories had greater traumatic power upon recollection than they had when they were originally registered, led to his formulation of one of his most complex and non-linear conceptualizations of Nachträglichkeit.

On both sides of the Atlantic, after a period of ‘concept latency’ until 1950’s, the Freudian Nachträglichkkeit underwent further elaboration, refinement and transformation of still growing complexity. It has become one of the basic concepts of a theory of thinking including temporality, causality, memory, trauma, representations, affects, sexuality and erotogenic sensuality.

The class will follow the outline of the most recent global exposition of the concept in the evolutionary perspective of the IPA’s Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis:

https://www.ipa.world/IPA/en/Encyclopedic_Dictionary/English/Home.aspx

After reviewing the development of the concept in Freud’s thought, according to primarily two models – the so called ‘Emma Model’ (1895) and later ‘Wolfman Model’ (1917), the class will explore the Nachträglichkeit in French psychoanalysis, British Object Relations theories, and various North American and Latin American perspectives. The relevant contemporary inter-disciplinary studies, including areas of neuroscience and art, will be also considered.

Specifically:

In Europe, French psychoanalysis was in the forefront of the concept’s revival. Lacan coined the term après-coup to emphasize that the operation of après-coup is never over; that it draws towards an after-effect. Contemporary French analytic authors further broaden the concept, as they refine and retain the spiral circular dynamic of emergence-disappearance-return. They pay a particular attention to the impact of the process of après-coup on the traumatic regressive economy of the drives, and to its goal concerning the elaboration of desire, thought, and the whole mental functioning.

In contrast to French psychoanalysis, where archaic elements and primal repression are constructed against regressive attraction, for contemporary British Object Relation theorists, following Klein and Bion the primitive anguish is already there. Within the context of contemporary British authors, it is the work of psychoanalysis to combat and transform such fragmentary and disorganizing feelings of terror.

Latin American analysts focus on both Nachträglichkeit as an operation of temporality, and as a means of constructing significance. The focus is on the laws of the primary process, causality, the logic of the unconscious, sexuality, repression, and repetition.

In North America, Nachträglichkeit is seen by many as the birth of the developmental model in psychoanalysis which, in a complex manner, includes the nonlinearity of unconscious contents and processes. Some view Nachträglichkeit as a pre-cursor of the concept of ‘developmental transformation’, which, within the interplay of various editions of trauma and unconscious fantasy throughout life, includes the bi-directionality of regression and progression, the dialectics of the underlying force seeking symbolization as well as repression and repetition.

In still other strands of North American thinking, psychoanalysis itself can be viewed broadly as the study of the Nachträglichkeit of early-life events, through multiple realities inherent in the psychoanalytic setting, which (re)construct symbolic bridges between the unassimilated traumatic events and their re-signification and transformation into representable experiences, process which can facilitate creation of qualitatively new subjectivities and expansion of meanings, spanning across generations.

Overall, in the contemporary North American exposition, the two temporal vectors of Nachträglichkeit of deferment and retroactive re-transcription/re-signification are seen as complementary and as corresponding to dialectics of both (multi) deterministic as well as hermeneutic reconstructive and constructive psychoanalytic process.

Among contemporary inter-disciplinary references, contemporary neuroscience emphasizes memory, in all its varied forms, as a living system that reconfigures itself through the medium of the psychoanalytic dialogue. In this reconfiguring operation, both neurobiology and psychoanalysis endorse the active dynamism and living character of memory. In this context relevant to Nachträglichkeit, psychopathology becomes a disturbance of reconfiguration of memory; and psychoanalysis fosters the construction and integration of new experiences and overturns the peremptory urge to repeat rigid and disturbed imprints that compromise the very structure of memory and integrity of the ego, and the dynamic fluidity of the overall psychic structure.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this course, its participants will be able to:

• Discuss multiple definitions of the concept Nachträglichkeit.
• Discuss how Nachträglichkeit relates to dynamic concepts of memory.
• Discuss how Nachträglichkeit relates to psychic causality.
• Discuss how Nachträglichkeit relates to temporality.
• Discuss how Nachträglichkeit relates to sexuality.
• Discuss how Nachträglichkeit relates to various dimensions of trauma.
• Discuss how Nachträglichkeit relates to multiple aspects and theories of development.
• Discuss the evolution of the concept in Freud’s thought, as it pertains to various stages of his theory development (1895, 1900, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1926, 1937).
• Compare Nachträglichkeit in French Psychoanalysis to Nachträglichkeit in British Object Relations Theory.
• Compare Nachträglichkeit in various strands of North American psychoanalytic theory (Contemporary Freudian, Object Relations, Intersubjective and Relational perspectives).
• Compare various Latin American perspectives with those of North America and Europe.
• Analyze the relationship between psychoanalytic concept of  Nachträglichkeit and  various types of memory in the Contemporary Neuroscientific studies.
• Utilize Nachträglichkeit in the clinical therapeutic work, to further the effectiveness of working with traumatized patients.
• Apply the theoretical knowledge of Nachträglichkeit to increase effectiveness with various diagnostic categories of patients, by understanding and identifying how it manifests itself in clinical process in dreams, transferences and enactments across the broad (neurotic, borderline, narcissistic) spectrum of patients.

INSTRUCTOR’S BIO:

REGISTRATION AND FEES:

Tuition: $250/course (can be paid in 2 installments)
Registration fee: $25/course (waived for ORI’s candidates in training)

Please Note: If CEs are requested — there is an additional fee of $25 (can be paid on the day of the conference or in advance).
If you are requesting the CEs, please register as a licensed practitioner and pay the “regular” fee for attending this educational event.

SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIPS are available for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for retired or disabled practitioners, or need-based or/and those who live outside of the USA.

You can request scholarship using this form