Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2006, 51, 21-41 Imagination and the imaginary Warren Colman, London “Abstract: This paper argues that real imagination depends on the capacity to acknow- ledge the absence of what is imagined from the world of material actuality. This leads con to a view of symbol formation as the operation of the transcendent function between the opposites of presence and absence, ‘The imaginary’ is contrasted with this asa defensive misuse of imagination that attempts to deny ‘negation’ where negation is defined as all those aspects of the world that constitute a check ta the omnipotence of fantasy—e.g., absence, loss, difference, othemess ete. Parallels are drawn with theoreti- cal antecedents in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis, with particular attention to papers published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology (JAP) in the 1960s on the relation between active imagination, transference and ego development. A clinical ‘example is given to show the use of the imaginary as a means of warding off the unbearable pain of Oedipal disappointment. Key words: absence, imagination, fantasy, illusion, imaginary, negation, loss, symbolic, transcendent function, narcissism, Introduction The ability to imagine, to symbolize and to play is a necessity of all successful analytic work, Jung described this ability as the transcendent function—the emergence of symbolic imagination out of the conflict between conscious and unconscious (Jung 1916). But this ability cannot be taken for granted; it is dependent on the development of an ego that is sufficiently differentiated to be able to engage with the unconscious as an equal partner. Jung certainly speci fied that this was a condition for the practice of active imagination, but due to his lack of interest in developmental psychology, he did not pursue the quest- ion of how such ego capacity might be acquired. This issue was investigated in the pages of the JAP by Fordham and others in the London group, especially in the 1960s and, more recently, has been taken up by Bovensiepen (2002). Bovensiepen suggests that the process of developing a symbolic space develops ‘out of the matrix of early maternal care, particularly through the mother's reverie which he equates with symbolic attitude. With more disturbed patients who lack this foundation, he shows how the analysand’s inability to symbolize can be bridged by the analyst's own reverie within the container-contained conretrryootisrertar © 1006, The Sciey of Anal! Pachology abled by Bake abi es» Cain Ra Onrd Xs 2D, K ao Main ee Male MA 624.0,22 Warren Colman relationship (ibid., p. 243). This leads to the promotion of a symbolic attitude in the patient through the internalization of what Bion calls the container! contained apparatus. In this paper I want to look at a slightly different clinical issue that, crudely speaking, could be described as the difference between patients who can’t sym- bolize and those who won't symbolize. The patients I am referring to have more ego capacity in some areas but use what imaginative capacity they have to defend against aspects of reality concerned with absence and loss that are felt to be intolerable. This blocks their capacity for real imagination and sym- bolic funetion since these require an acknowledgement of the gap between what is imagined and what is actually present in the material world. A symbol cannot be a symbol of something unless it represents something other than itself. Therefore the thing that is symbolized must be absent from the symbol. Similarly, imagination can only be recognized as distinct from material actual- ity by the absence of its contents from the external world. ‘Those who are unable to make any distinction between imagination and actuality are more or less psychotic and deluded. They live in a world of prim- ary non-differentiation where there is no sense of absence or separation and therefore no possibility of reality-testing. In the psychotic state there is no awareness of what I call ‘negation’—iee., all those aspects of external reality concerned with separation, absence and loss which ‘negate’ our fantasies and thereby act as some kind of rcality-check. Unlike the psychotic, the patients 1 have in mind do know about negation but they wish to deny it. If itis not too convoluted, I might describe this as the difference between an absence of nega- tion and a defensive negation of negation. When negation is abolished in this way, imagination is reduced to what I call ‘the imaginary’—ic., imaginary fan- tasies which lack the substance and depth of real imagination. Unlike either real imagination or psychotic delusion, the imaginary uses fantasy as a way of defending against all those aspects of reality concerned with absence and loss. It is fantasy used with the ulterior motive of denying negation. ‘Therefore its ‘meaning lies in its defensive purpose, not in any apparently symbolic imagery that may inform its content. Patients in the grip of the imaginary often cling to their fantasies with maniacal force since to give them up would expose them to unbearably painful experiences of absence or loss that may amount to fear of annihilation. Like Narcissus, their archetypal antecedent, they would often rather die than give up the enchantment of their illusions. Asa result, both the internal world and the external world are impoverished and lack a sense of reality, since reality without absence and loss is no reality at all. Defining reality in this way reveals the fallacy of regarding only what is external as real, as Freud did, claiming that what is internal and subjective is also unreal’. I suggest that it is not externality that defines reality but the Whats unreal, merely a presentation and subjective, is only internal; what is reali also there owtside’(Preud 1925. p. 238)Imagination and the imaginary 23 inclusion of a sense of absence and negation. Thus symbolic imagination isreal because, unlike the imaginary, it depends on the distinction between presence and absence. Through the transcendent function, the opposites of presence and absence are transcended in the ereation of the symbol. This strengthens the ego by creating a sense of meaning that enables us to bear and even embrace absence and loss, notwithstanding the pain involved. By con- trast, ‘the imaginary’ weakens the ego by its insistence that only what is pleasurable is acceptable, not what is true. Whereas true imagination has a reality of its own that enhances our being in the world, the imaginary is a ‘misuse of imagination for the purpose of denying everything that opposes the subject’s desire. This includes the realities of separation, absence, loss, differ- cence, otherness, limitation, gaps of all and every kind and, ultimately, death and annihilation. I use the term ‘negation’ to summarize all these experiences, in the sense that they constitute the negation of subjective fantasy where all wishes may be satisfied without limit or end, Imagination becomes imaginary fantasy to the extent that it denies the difference between what is imagined and what is physically present—it asserts that an imagined object is the same as an object that is physically present in the material world. An example of this is a patient of mine who had dreamed of being a writer since her early teens. Despite the fact that she had not actually written anything, she insisted that she was a writer. For her, an imaginary identity in her mind was identical with an actual one in the world. This is rather like Humpty Dumpty’s claim in Alice in Wonder- land that a thing is true because I say itis. The effect of this is to replace what is real with what is imaginary and to deny everything in reality that contradicts it ‘Theoretical antecedents I ‘The imaginary in Lacan and Corbin ‘The use of the terms ‘imaginary’ and ‘symbolic’ inevitably evoke Lacan's model of the three psychic realms of the real, the imaginary and the symbolic (Klages 2001). There are certainly some similarities, particularly in the import- ance that Lacan gives to the experience of absence and lack in the creation of the symbolic. However, I have arrived at these ideas quite separately out of my ‘own vertex of Jung, Winnicott and the post-Kleinians and there are also major differences. For example, in Lacan's model, the imaginary is a universal and necessary element in psychic development through which an internal image of the ego is created. I reserve the concept of ‘the imaginary’ for a particular way of defending against absence and lack which arises only when absence and loss become intolerable through inadequate containment of such painful experi- ences. Lacan uses the term ‘real’ to describe the original state of being where there is as yet no awareness of lack or absence. To my mind, it is confusing to24 Warren Colman think of this as ‘real’ since, as T have suggested, without a sense of absence, a crucial aspect of reality is missing, resulting in psychotic delusion, A sense of reality is dependent on the capacity to bring together absence and presence in a symbolic whole object. Finally, Lacan equates the symbolic with language ‘whereas my view of symbolization is primarily Jungian, emphasizing symbolic imagery that arises out of the conflict of opposites through the transcendent function. For example, I share Lacan’s interest in the game of fort/da played by Freud’s little nephew (Freud, 1920) but I sce it more in terms of the struggle to negotiate the opposites of presence (da) and absence (fort) than in terms of the importance of language per se. The term ‘imaginary’ has also been used in a Jungian context by Henri Corbin (1972) in his distinction between the imaginal and the imaginary. This is much closer to the kind of distinction I am making, although Corbin’s emphasis on the spiritual and archetypal reality of the imaginal sets a rather high standard, relegating much that I would regard as real imagination to the realm of a derogated, fictional imaginary. While not all imagination has the visionary quality of Corbin’s ‘mundus imaginalis, in my view, the important thing is whether it is properly distinguished from the material world. How ever, I would agree with Corbin’s critique of the modern (and post-modern) ‘civilization of images’ in that media imagery in particular contributes to a cumulative erosion of the distinction between actuality and imagination, resulting in the impoverishment of both realms. Fantasying (Winnicott) Closer antecedents of my conception of the imaginary are to be found in 1s discussion of fantasying’ and Steiner's concept of psychic retreats. Winnicott distinguishes between fantasying on the one hand, and dreaming and living on the other. Dreaming, playing and living all issue in creative activity whereas, as Winnicott states: Fantasying intecferes with action and with life in the real or external world, but much more soit interferes with dream and with the personal or inner peychic reality, the living core of the individual personality (Winnicott 2972, p. 37) This is because fantasying requires the maintenance of a dissociated state in which omnipotence is retained in a defensive way, ‘absorbing energy but not contributing-in either to dreaming or to living’ (ibid., p. 31). Winnicott distin- guishes between the healthy omnipotence of infantile dependence and this kind of omnipotence which ‘belongs to hopelessness about dependence’ (ibid., p. 35n.). He also points out that fantasy cannot be interpreted in the way that dreaming (or playing) can be: fantasying is only what it appears to be—it has no symbolic content (ibid., pp. 39-40).Imagination and the imaginary 25 Psychic retreats and psychic illusion (Steiner and Britton) Although the aetiology is different, Winnicott is clearly describing an example ‘of what, some twenty years later, Steiner called a psychic retreat. Steiner describes psychic retreats as an avoidance of contact with realty. The retreat then serves as an area of the mind where reality does not have to be faced, where phantasy and omnipotence can exist unchecked and where anything is permitted, (Steiner 19 Here Steiner is describing very much the same phenomenon that I describe as, ‘the imaginary’. However, where Steiner sees pathological organizations of the personality as a complex measure designed to deal with the problem of internal destructiveness, I place more emphasis on the problem of absence and negation—ice., on the way that the child negotiates these aspects of relating to the world. This implics a more interactive view of development whereas Steiner’s model would seem to be rooted in an instinct-based metapsychology. The idea of psychic retreats is also used by Britton in his discussion of the difference between psychic illusion and psychic reality (Britton 1998)—a dis- tinction that corresponds to the distinction I make between the imaginary and real imagination. Britton argues that Freud’s view of literature as sublimated wish-fulfilment is inadequate because it does not take account of the distin: tion between the truth-seeking and truth-evading functions that fiction can have (ibid., p, x09). Thus, Britton regards truth-evading fiction as derived from ‘obsessive manipulation of space and time in order to eliminate the dan- ger of gaps appearing in the external world...Some of this mental gap-filling is accomplished by auto-erotically based phantasy’ {ibid., pp. 111-12, ital. added). Britton relates this kind of activity to Freud’s notion of a psychic ‘reservation’ set aside for wish-fulfiling phantasy and also to Steiner's idea of psychic retreats. Unfortunately, Britton equates Winnicott’s notion of transitional space with psychie retreats, an error also made by Steiner. Winnicott’s paper on fantasying makes it clear that he was well aware of the phenomena discussed by Steiner and Britton but regarded them as quite distinct from transitional space. Fantasying takes place in what Winnicott regarded as the ‘subjective area’ whereas transitional phenomena take place between subject and ‘object—they are both and neither. For Winnicott, this intermediate area is the place where creative living takes place and is the origin of all cultural activity [As a coniunctio between subject and object on the one hand and the presence and absence of the object on the other, transitional phenomena indicate the action of the transcendent fanction and chime in closely with my understand- ing of the conditions for real imagination. Perhaps it was misleading for Winnicott to describe transitional phenomena in terms of ‘illusion’ in so far as the dictionary definition of ‘illusion’ has mainly to do with deception and26 Warren Colman delusion*, It is apparent though that Winnicott had in mind some kind of primary imaginative activity that takes place in relation to the actual mother, showing that imagination is not merely ‘in the head’, but is intrinsically bound up with our interrelation with the world. ‘Although the imaginary might be described as ‘illusion’ in the sense of ‘deceptive delusion’, one of my reasons for preferring the term ‘imaginary’ is in order to distinguish it from Winnicott’s use of ‘illusion’ in the positive sense of ‘creative illusion’, something that leads on to symbol formation and a creative relation to reality. In this sense, illusions belong to the realm of real imagination that uses ‘pretending’ as a way of expressing a symbolic reality. Creative illusions enhance reality whereas the imaginary diminishes it; by attempting to deny the existence of any reality beyond itself, the imaginary attempts to be the only reality Jung's theory of neurosis It is intriguing, though, to find the idea of illusion as deception in Jung’s the- ory of neurosis, especially considering that was one of the factors in the break from Freud. At that time, Freud was scornful of Jung’s view that neurosis was due to a turning away from the life-task in the present since it seemed to attack Freud’s conviction of the significance of infantile sexuality. Nowadays, it is possible to see that Jung was driving at the same sort of issues that have been taken up by psychoanalysts such as Winnicott, Steiner, Britton and also Symington in his theory of narcissism as a ‘turning away from the life-giver (Symington 1993). In his 1912 American lectures, Jung gave a telling allegory of neurosis in the story of a mountain climber who shrinks back from the heights out of ‘sheer funk’. Rather than acknowledging the reality of his fear, he ‘prefers to deceive himself. In so doing ‘he represses his correct insight and tries to force his subjective illusion on reality’ (Jung 1912, paras. 380-81). Jung describes this as preference for an infantile mode of adaptation. I think it could just as well be described as a preference for the imaginary or as a narcis- sistic defence. “There is a further analogy between the imaginary and Jung’s notion of ‘the provisional life’ that he described as ‘those who....have not formed a connect- ion with this world; they are suspended in the air; they are neurotic, living the provisional life’ (lung 2932, pp. 28-9). This idea of the provisional life was taken up by Baynes (1950) and is associated with the puer aeturnus by both von Franz (1970) and Edinger (1960) who discusses its association with the unlimited qualities of immortality, universality, omnipotence and omniscience. Edinger sces these qualities as indicative of an undifferentiated ego-self iden- tity. This would suggest that what appears to be ‘ego-self identity” is actually a 7 cg. The fact or condition of being deceived or eluded by appearances; a deception a delusion; (an instance of) misapprehension of the tue state of affairs’ (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary).Imagination and the imaginary 27 highly defensive avoidance of limitation—that is, an imaginary state that denies the existence of negation. To paraphrase Jung, such people have not formed a connection with this world because they are still tying to force their subjective illusion on reality. ‘Theoretical antecedents Il I now want to place these ideas in the specific context of the debate about the role of active imagination in Jungian analysis that frequently cropped up in the JAP during the 1960s and, as I mentioned earlier, has recently been revived by Bovensiepen. In reviewing these papers in the context of the Jour nal of Analytical Psychology’s 50" anniversary celebrations, I was struck by the strength, vitality and endurance of the foundations that this earlier work laid down for subsequent generations of Jungian analysts to build on. Their exploration of the connections between symbolic functioning, ego develop- ment and the transference are highly relevant to the ideas I am proposing here and offer striking anticipations of many of Bovensiepen’s more recent conclusions. Pre-conditions for active imagination As carly as 1958, Fordham was pointing out that the difficulties that bring ‘many people to analysis are just what make them unable to use active imagi nation, Since active imagination usually takes place in isolation, it depends ‘on the capacity to be alone, which implies the capacity to bear absence. This in turn depends on a sufficiently developed ego rooted in good early experi- ences with the mother, Since many people come into analysis because they have not had such good experiences and cannot bear their isolation, Fordham coneluded in his dry way that ‘it not surprising that active imagina- tion is not common amongst patients who come to analysis’ (Fordham 1958, p78) In a later paper, published in the JAP in 1967, Fordham described in detail the experiences that had led him to revise his early use of active imagination and pay more attention to transference and infantile experience. He refers to eight cases, all of whom had apparently made good use of active imagination, But it turned out that in all these cases, a powerful delusional transference towards him lay hidden behind the cover of the active imagination. Effectively, he discovered that the appearance of active imagination was false or, as I ‘would say, imaginary, since it was being used in a defensive way The problem to which Fordham and his colleagues addressed themselves was how to square the major importance of active imagination and symbolic ‘meaning in Jung’s work with the reality of the kind of patients that confronted them, This was clearly one of the factors that led to an inereasing emphasis on ego development on the one hand and the transference on the other.28 Warren Colman Ego-weakness and imagination (Plaut) Of particular relevance to my theme is Plaut’s 1966 paper, ‘Reflections on not being able to imagine’, Plaut argues that imagination depends on a capacity for trust that is closely related to ego-strength. Exciting instinctual experiences need to be linked up to the ego through good maternal care. Although we may now be in a position to more closely define ‘good maternal care’ through ideas such as Bion’s reverie and containment or, more recently, Fonagy’s concept of reflective function (2001) and Schore’s account of the development of the right brain (1994, 2003), the basic idea remains valid. Plaut suggests that where bod- ily excitement is not mediated by good maternal care, the ego feels too weak to be able to trust the fantasies emerging from the unconscious and so they cannot be developed into creative imagination. laut makes a distinction here between fantasy and imagination that is similar to, but not identical with, my distinction between imagination and the imaginary. “The imaginary’ refers specifically to the use of fantasy as a defence against imag- ination, Plaut’s definition of fantasy is the same as Freud’s—ie,, frustrated wish- falilments, but such fantasies are not necessarily defensive even if they are escapist. Ir is quite possible to engage in typical wish-fulfiling activities such as day dreaming and masturbatory fantasy in full awareness of their unreality—ie, the essential difference between fantasy and material actuality is preserved. Itis only ‘when this difference is obliterated that fantasy becomes destructive, undermining ‘the capacity for imagination as well as the relation to material actuality laut describes one such case in terms of ‘an inability to trust imagination’. This was a woman who consciously rejected her strong Oedipal transference fantasies as ‘useless’ and causing nothing but unhappiness. But as Plaut points out: ier misconstructions constituted a special form of resistance: by nor allowing the fanta- sies to become imagination (through linkage with the conscious part of her ego) she could stay in her inner world of wish flllent paying, however, the price of soca isolation. (Plaut 1966, p. 133) I would add that the reason the patient regarded her fantasies as ‘useless’ was because she refused to accept that they might have a different nature and func: tion than the physical sexual fulfilment they imagined, Her rejection of them was due to her refusal to accept that the imaginal world might be different and separate from the physical world. In this way she could avoid the experience of Oedipal loss, as Plaut says, by staying in her inner world of wish-fulfilment. ‘The same situation pertains in a hysterical eroticized transference which, super- ficially would appear to be the opposite—where one patient denies that her fan- tasies have any significance, the other insists on their overriding importance. Yer the underlying attitude is the same: the belief that there is, or should be no difference between wishing and having—the gap between them is to be obliter- ated. Both situations are equally imaginary.Imagination and the imaginary 29 Transference and creative illusion Where Plaut looked at how imagination was dependent on ego development, Davidson's 1966 paper on ‘Transference as a form of active imagination’, showed how the lack of a sufficiently strong ego could be compensated for through the development of the transference. In almost identical terms to Bovensiepen, she argues that in such cases it is the analyst herself who has to have the attitude of active imagination. She describes the analytic situation as a means of developing the ego's relation to the internal world of unconscious fantasy through the experi- cence of the transference. ‘The transference situation is an ‘unconscious drama’ enacted by the patient with the analyst (Davidson 1966, pp. 191-92). Davidson describes the case of a 9 year old gir! who enacted a sustained fantasy of making the analyst jealous about her imaginary relations with the Beatles. This gitl, though, was able to know that in her play she was pretending. As another child said to Davidson, ‘It’s pretending, but it’s reaP. In other words, the reality of imag- inative play is predicated on the knowledge of its pretence. Its knowing the differ- ence between real and pretend that makes the pretend play real. This is not as, paradoxical as it sounds once we recognize that the word ‘real’ is being used in two different senses here. The imaginal reality of pretend, to use Corbin’s (1972) phrase, is something different from the material reality with which itis contrasted Bovensiepen seems to be describing a more profound difficulty than David- son since he refers to a patient who wanted to destroy his analytic function and ‘force me to match him perfectly’ (Bovensicpen 2002, p. 244). This was a child who could not tolerate the space between himself and the analyst, experiencing it as a gap that must be closed by perfect sameness. However, Marion Milner (1955) seems to describe a similar situation in her seminal paper on “The role of illasion in symbol formation’ where she nevertheless refers to transference as ‘a creative illusion’. Milner describes a child patient who ‘so often treated me as totally his own to do what he liked with, as though I were dirt, his dirt, or as a tool, an extension of his own hand’ (ibid., p. 93). Yet, despite this, Milner discovered that by entering into the patient’s world and allowing his ‘illusion of ‘omnipotence’, she could become for him a bridge between the inner and outer world. Crucially, her patient had to face the pain of realizing that there was a discrepancy between the objective quality of his messes, that is, how they looked to other people, and his subjective evaluation of them as actually being the same as the god-like experiences. libid,, p. x07) The influence of Milnes paper i implicit ip Davidson's paper but explicit in another paper theme published two years later with the tile “Transference a5 a creative ilision’ (Cannon 1968). All three refer back to Winniot's des thatthe mother's presentation ofthe hreas at the jut the moment when the infant wishes for it (ue, fantasizes i} creates the omnipotent illusion of having created the breast (Winnicoter945, 1958}. The idea is that this experience needs to be relved and worked through in the raneference30 Warren Colman I would describe this discrepancy as an example of the way that subjective reality is negated by the objective world—in this case, when the other's experi- ence does not conform to the child’s fantasy. Such negation does not destroy the subjective but requires its transformation into symbolic or imaginal reality. ‘The difficulty for many patients is that they have been met with too much negation, of to put it the other way around, not enough recognition of their internal strivings. It is often the feeling that the external world is trying to destroy their subjective reality that leads patients to try to obliterate the world by retreating to the imaginary. Milner suggests that the discrepancy between subjective and objective can be overcome but that this requires work. ‘If the lovely stuff is to convey the lovely feelings, there must be work done on the material’ (ibid., p. 108). In this way, subjective fantasy may be transformed into creative imagination, whether through art, religion, science or analysis. ‘This is the work of symbol formation carried out between the opposites of subjective and objective. It could also be described as the work of the tran- scendent function that brings into being a third area that Winnicott calls transitional space, the psychic space of imagination, and which is also closely connected to, if not identical with Corbin’s delineation of the mun- dus imaginalis. However, where Jung mainly speaks of the internal opposi- tion between conscious and unconscious, Milner and Winnicott refer to the opposites of subjective and objective areas of experience, Jung's account implies a much more developed ego since he regards the conscious mind as being able to represent ‘objective’ perception in opposition to the ‘subjec tive’ fantasies emerging from the unconscious. Nevertheless, I think that these are all ways of describing the coming into being of the psychic space of imagination and show that this work can only be done if the gap between what is subjectively imagined (or wished) and what is objectively perceived can be tolerated. This is true of any creative endeavour since it involves tolerating the gap between the imagined goal and the actual achievement Few, if any, works of art succeed in realizing their creator's original vision; works of science are always provisional and require further revision and often eventual renunciation. This is part of the pain that creative work entails which, as Hanna Segal says, distinguishes art from play (Segal 1991, pp. 108-9) ‘When the gap between imagination and its realization is felt to be intoler- able, narcissistic defences are instituted to deny it, as in the case of my patient who attempted to claim that being a writer was somehow separable from any actual act of writing. The possibility of a bridge between inner and outer is then short-circuited since the outer world is either denied or perceived solely in terms of the inner world. In analysis, this ereates an essentially defensive transference in which the patient attempts to dragoon the analyst into the imaginary fantasy and/or to obliterate their analytic function. This situation requires firm and consistent interpretation from a position outside the imaginary world in which the patient is livingImagination and the imaginary 31 Somehow the patient has to be made aware that the analyst exists in their ‘own right and has their own mind. Until this happens, the patient cannot make use of what the analyst has to offer—a capacity for reverie that will help them bear the pain of negation they have so far found unthinkable. In such cases, itis not helpful to attempt to enter into the patient’s fantasies since, as Winnicott says, fantasying does not promote creative living but prevents it cal ia ‘This was the case with my patient, Celia, who formed a very powerful idealiz- ing transference carly in her analysis, She wished only to be able to live in a state of blissful union with an analyst felt to be an extraordinary, magical and almost god-like being. Initially, this had very much the quality of the kind of archetypal transference that the analyst needs to incarnate, as advocated by Plaut (1956, 1969). I understood her to be regressing to an early illusion of infantile omnipotence in which she felt herself to be fused with an omnipotent object that perfectly satisfied her deepest desires. It seemed to be a healthy regression to dependence (a la Winnicott) and a reculer pour mieux sauter (la Jung}—going back the better to leap forwards. After some time, though, the quality of her relation to me began to subtly change. The transference took on a more insistent, clinging and desperate quality as if it was no longer so much a case of being in a state of oneness as needing to maintain that state despite evidence to the contrary. With much hindsight, it has become possible to see that Celia had suffered a premature separation in her infancy and had compensated for this by a life-long tendency to live through others, thus losing touch with her own emotional depth. It was this that now increasingly came to be repeated in the transference so that the illusion of oneness gradually lost the quality that had initially been of such enormous value to her and became a sort of imaginary version of itself. The illusion of oneness could only be maintained by massive projective identifica tion which was more in the service of avoiding the pain of separateness than a creative effort to develop her own personality by reintegrating the projections. Her distressed and sometimes violent reactions to ruptures in her state of seamless union could then be understood, not as a repetition of infantile dis tress about abandonment but as a rage against the features of reality that disturbed the imaginary illusion. It was, of course, simply not possible for me to provide the conditions that would maintain such an illusion any more than a theatre director could completely imitate the reality to which his actors gesture: there has to be a willing suspension of disbelief. Thus all the daily realities of analysis such as minor disturbances in the environment, ending of sessions, bills and breaks were experienced as assaults on the imaginary situ- ation she was struggling to maintain. There was no ‘as if’ here, no sense of ‘it's pretend but it’s real’. Rather there was a desperate unconscious need that it must be real—anything that indicated that it might exist in the realm ofB Warren Colman imagination rather than material actuality was felt to be a serious threat to an illusion that Celia felt unable to give up. So no matter how carefully I put to her the inevitability of disillusionment and the necessity of mourning, such interpretations were experienced as a cruel, heartless attack on my part and violently rejected. ‘The maintenance of this imaginary state of mind was extremely damaging to Celia’s ability to think and indeed she complained of feeling very muddled in her mind and unable to understand or retain much of what happened in the analysis. The imaginary fantasy of oneness required that all kinds of distinc- tions had to be blurred in order to maintain a quality of seamlessness without separateness or division. One of the ways she would do this was by talking in a way that presumed I knew what was in her mind. She would make vague references to things she may or may not have mentioned before, often saying ‘that dream’ or ‘that film’ or ‘that place’ as if I would automatically know which dream, film or place she had in mind, Eventually, I felt that it was necessary to actively intervene to demonstrate this blurring which was also affecting my own ability to think with her. On the table in my consulting room there was a wooden dolphin that Celia persist- ently referred to as ‘that fish’, There had been a lot of imagery concerned with fish in the early part of her analysis that, in view of its numinous quality, I had interpreted in terms of its archetypal symbolism, suggesting that she saw in me an archetypal projection of a god-like self, for example. However, her refer- ences to the ‘fish’ on the table lacked this numinous quality but seemed more artificial, more like something she wanted it to be rather than what it actually was. One day, when she was talking about ‘that fish’, I picked up the dolphin and, showing it to her, pointed out that it was not a fish, it was a dolphin. I suggested that in her need to sce it as being what she wanted it to be, she had lost the capacity to see it as it was and in this way, she had lost her sense of reality and, in a sense, had lost her mind. At first she said that she thought that dolphins were fish, but the next day she admitted that she knew really that they were mammals, thus demonstrating the way quite basic cognitive distinc: tions became eroded by her adhesion to the imaginary. She spoke with resent- ment and scorn about what she saw as my pedantic need to have everything sharply focused, all worked out and put neatly in its place. I interpreted her fear of being wounded by the sharp edges of things when they are separate and distinct but that the blurring of these distinctions attacked her capacity to have a mind that is capable of thinking. This not only diminished her relation to external reality by making her dolphin-analyst into the fish-analyst of her fantasy but also vitiated her own creative imagination, since the potentially symbolic image of the fish was conflated with the material actuality of the dol- phin, This made her feel that only I could be creative while she could not. In this way she collapsed an imaginative and potentially symbolic relation to the analysis into a delusional and imaginary one which then had to be ferociously maintained against all odds.Imagination and the imaginary 33 Interpretations of this kind challenged the defensive nature of her idealized fantasies and brought out intense feclings of Oedipal jealousy and rage and excruciatingly painful feelings of being excluded from my world. She acknow- edged that it was her need to experience such feelings that had brought her into analysis but she repeatedly reverted to trying to deal with them in the way she had done all her lifo—by denying that they still existed. Each emotional outburst was followed by unconvincing, protestations that she now understood that she was separate from me, it was all an illusion and that she would be able to give it up now and relate to the analysis in what she believed to be a more mature way—or at least, the way I apparently wanted. Although I never believed these assertions, Celia would be completely taken in by her own denial which was actually just as imaginary as the longings she was pretending not to have. For it became apparent that these denials served as a cover for a quite different state of mind in which she would, as it were, appropriate elements of the real me to fur- nish a secret space in her mind, There she could indulge sequestered fantasies of being at one with me in what was apparently some form of erotic union that was left deliberately unspecified. In this state of mind, she was able to uncon- sciously believe that we were lovers, hence her injured and outraged reaction to evidence of other women in my life or the fact that I didn’t tell her where I was going or what I was doing when I was not with her. Celia was very reluetant to bring these fantasies into the analysis. She was right in thinking that my aim was to make these fantasies conscious but this ‘was not, as she believed, so that she could then give them up but so that they might be transformed into a more genuine kind of imagination. She felt that even if her fantasies were illusory they were the essence of her and her way of being related to others. Yet this seemed to me to be precisely the problem: it meant that her way of relating was fundamentally one of narcissistic illusion, ‘The analytic problem was how to separate the essential wheat from the illusory chaff ‘The short answer to this question is that the patient needs to mourn. But, of course, this is easier said than done, not least because the whole purpose of the imaginary is to prevent the realization of the inevitable pain of loss. It there- fore prevents the process of mourning by means of which the lost object in the world is transformed into an internal object in the imagination. The reality of loss is resisted with an exaggerated clinging to the pleasure principle. For example, Celia would object to the idea that she was separate from me on the grounds that she didn’t like it. I have found other patients to be equally explicit about their refusal to acknowledge the ‘facts of life’ (Money-Kyrle 1968). They know but they refuse to know (Steiner 1993, p. 91ff.) ‘Celia attempted to maintain a split in which the fantasy that we were lovers was kept apart from the fact that we were not. Yer itis only when the two can be brought together and the difference between what is wished for in fantasy and what is realizable in material reality can be accepted and mourned that imaginary fantasy can be transformed into real imagination, that is, the kind34 Warren Colman of fantasy that is held in the mind together with the full consciousness of its negation in the external world. The psychic reality of the internal world is thus dependent on the acknowledgement of it not being the external world. Celia’s unrealistic efforts to cut off her fantasies short-circuited this process in a way that seemed like a repetition of her childhood experience with a mother who, although kind, was unable to acknowledge strong feelings of any kind. Celia could find no understanding for her passionate nature and had developed a sort of imaginary ego that functioned, like her mother, by denying that such passions existed. To come upon the full force of infantile passion in mid-life is not unlike having a childhood illness as an adult: what may be mild and short-lived in a child can be severe and even life-threatening in an adult. It is here that the analyst's reverie can come into play. In the imaginary state, the patient eschews the analyst's separate mind and therefore cannot make use of their reverie. This makes it necessary to firmly confront the patient with 1 analyst’s real existence, but, once this is acknowledged, it then becomes pos: sible for the analyst to convey their own inner conviction that experiencing the pain of absence, loss and other forms of negation is not merely bearable but positively valuable. In this way, the analyst mediates the transcendent function betwen subjective wishes and objective facts. Celia recognized this in what she called my rock-like adherence to the truth Despite her angry rejection of unpalatable truths, there was another aspect of Celia, deeply and courageously committed to her analysis, that would some- times find a conscious voice. Rather like Odysseus being tied to the mast, she would then urge me to keep telling her the truth even while she plaintively and desperately yearned to merge into the siren-song of her sequestered fantasies. ‘Through repeated emotional storms of this kind she was eventually able to find a solid core of truth on which to build her sense of reality. She could then begin to mourn the impossibility of Oedipal satisfaction without having to deny the reality of her Oedipal longings Eventually it became possible for Gelia to imagine her sexual fantasies about me without having to keep them split off from the external relationship with me where they could not be fulfilled. It was less shameful to let me know about them because she understood that I understood that she was imagining rather than expressing literal wishes. It was noticeable that these fantasies then became more substantial and indeed more explicitly erotic, Yet alongside this, there also emerged the plangent quality of inescapable loss, a characteristic resonance of the imaginal world. Discussion Oedipal illusions Celia’s difficulty was an example of what Britton (1989, 1998) calls an Ocdi- pal illusion—a way of disavowing the reality of the parental intercourse andImagination and the imaginary 35 maintaining an illusion that Oedipal wishes can be fulfilled. I want to place such illusions in the broader context of narcissistic defences against negation of which the disappointment of Oedipal longings is only an example, albeit a significant one. The achievement of what Britton calls triangular space, the capacity to observe a relationship from which one is excluded, requires the capacity to bear the negation of one’s own presence. Since we cannot be part of it, the image of the primal seene is an image that includes absenee by defini- tion. If this cannot be tolerated, imaginary illusions may become both a defence and a kind of retaliation: the world that would exclude and obliterate the self is obliterated by fantasies from which absence and negation are excluded. When what is present and actual is split in this way from its nega- tion by absence, we lose our sense of reality and become unable to fully imag. ine, impoverishing our relation to both inner and outer reality. The world is imagined as an eternal presence in fantasy but is simultaneously feared as an infinite absence in actuality. Narcissism and defences of the self ‘This inability to tolerate absence and negation and the splitting of ‘what is’ from ‘what is not’ provides an additional way of conceptualizing narcissism. In the narcissistic position, patients assert that their own view of the world és the world. That is, they deny the difference between what they imagine and what may actually be the case. Reality-testing is suspended or obliterated. ‘There is an awareness of the absence of the imaginary object in material reality but itis felt to be so frightening and so painful that it has to be powerfully defended against. By the same token, it becomes impossibly unbearable to imagine an absent object or an object (such as the primal scene) from which one is absent. In these terms, the turning away from the actual object that is characteristic of narcissism is a turning away from the unbearable frustration and absence that I have called negation. Yet without negation, there is no check on fantasy and so it assumes omnipotent and omniscient proportions. There is no need for any real knowledge or action since to imagine is felt to be equivalent to doing and knowing. The narcissistic person therefore comes to invest their sense of belief and actuality in what they imagine rather than what is actual and their relation to actuality—truth—becomes fearful and hostile since it threatens them with the return of the absence that the imaginary attempts to ward off. ‘The absence that negates desire may take various forms, depending on the level of development involved. In addition to the more depressive anxieties involving the loss of the object, including the kind of Oedipal loss in my clini- cal example, there are the more primitive anxieties of the paranoid-schizoid position that concern fears of annihilation and nameless dread. ‘Thus the imaginary may be a defence against various forms of disappointment but the36 Warren Colman inability to bear disappointment and loss may, in turn, be based in earlier dif ficulties: the quest for some kind of perfection that is typical of narcissistic fan- tasy may be a desperate attempt to imagine a world that excludes the terror of the ‘gap’, where the gap is felt to be a kind of black hole, a void of non-exist- ence into which the patient might fall. ‘Analysis of the imaginary nature of the patient's fantasies is therefore felt to be a direct threat to their psychic survival: it threatens them with exposure to the original terror and unbearable pain that their investment in the imaginary defends them against. The analyst’s insistence on exploring the reality of the situation between patient and analyst is felt to be an assault on the essential core of the patient's being, T think this accounts for the sometimes quite extreme hatred of analytic understanding that such patients display. This sort of phenomenon was vividly described in Fordham’s classic paper ‘Defences of the self’, first published in the JAP in x974. In this situation it is important for the analyst to hang on to his or her understanding that the patient's hatred of what analysis represents is exactly the problem for which they need the analyst’s help. In Kleinian thinking, the enormously powerful tenacity with which the patient’s apparent hatred of truth is maintained in such situations is seen as evidence for the existence of an innate destructive drive that is fundamentally hostile to object relating. However, I agree with Fordham’s view that the force of the patient’s destructiveness can be understood in terms of what they feel to be a defence of their own existence. If there is a drive, it is a psychic survival drive rather than a death drive, notwithstanding how destructive it can become. Fordham draws a biological analogy with the immune system that attacks anything which is ‘not-self, This can also be understood as a hatred of negation itself—it is an attack on everything that is not, on the very condition of ‘not-ness’ since what is not is felt to be a direct threat to what is, namely the infant's own existence. At this early stage, negation, especially in the form of the absent mother, threatens the infant with non-existence, Infants and young children can be helped to bear the pain of absence by what Winnicott calls ‘localized spoiling’, that is by maternal care that is parti- cularly responsive to this form of suffering (Winnicott 1967, pp. 114-15). For some children, the absence may be too great, for others the ‘localized spoiling” may be not enough or too much. Some parents may be unable to bear the pain of separation, loss and negation themselves and either over-protect their chil- dren or deny the extent of their suffering. In this way, the parents may them selves use or at least encourage imaginary solutions to life’s inevitable difficulties. Many children implicitly sense that their parents are unable to bear their pain, as seems to have been the case with Celia, and learn to comply in one way or another. In short, I suspect that children learn the imaginary from their parents’ own methods of defending against the pain of absence and loss. These children are neither psychotic nor particularly traumatized, hence Fordham’s conclusion that a bad startin life is insufficient to account for theImagination and the imaginary 37 syndrome he describes in ‘Defences of the self”. However, they do suffer from 2 particular kind of ego weakness: it is not so much the excitement of instine~ tual urges per se that they cannot bear, as Plaut suggested, as the overwhelm- ing emotional impact of what happens when these urges are frustrated. It is then that they may turn away from negation, using imagination to provide imaginary solutions rather than being able to incorporate the negation and thereby develop symbolic solutions that require us to make something real out ‘of what we imagine (ercative work). This view of developmental deficiencies indicates the particular areas where the patient may need, not only the ana- lyst’s reverie, but also the encouragement provided by their firm insistence that the truth is worth knowing, no matter how painful Negation, the transcendent function and symbolization I suggest that it is this intolerance for negation that prevents or interferes with the operation of the transcendent function and the development of symbolic functioning. Without negation, the conflict of opposites on which the tran- seendent funetion depends eannot operate. It is out of the pain of the contrast between the presence of the object in imagination and its absence in material reality that the symbol can emerge—an imaginal form that partakes of both presence and absence. For the symbol, unlike an imaginary object, depends on the distinction between the symbolic object and what it represents—i.c., the distinction between symbol and symbolized. This may be thought of as the absence of the symbolized in the presence of the symbol. Even in the case of transubstantiation, where the bread and the wine are believed to be the body and blood of Christ, there is no expectation that the bread should look like flesh or the wine taste like blood. The symbol both is and is not the object it represents. Similarly, in the development of transitional phenomena, which Winnicott (1953 pp. 7-8) saw as precursors of symbols and Fordham (1977) suggested ight be a possible root of active imagination, the transitional object is felt to evoke the mother in her absence. If anxiety about abandonment is so great that the transitional object is used to deny the gap between the wished-for presence of the mother and her physical absence, it becomes a fetish and the route to symbolization is foreclosed, In order to lead on to symbolic function ing, the infant has to be able to relate to a transitional object that both is and is not the mother. This is related to the question that must not be asked: ‘Did you conceive of this or was it presented to you from without?” (Winnicott 1953, P. 14). In other words, is it an object in the material world or an object of imagination? Symbols exist in the gap between what is and what is not. When we imagine in a symbolic way, there is always a background of absence and negation: the symbol points towards what it represents without being what it represents. [ suggest that itis this that allows the objects of imagination to feel real and that38 Warren Colman our sense of reality is based in a coniunctio between inner and outer, present and absent and ultimately, being and non-being, ‘As Britton suggests, using the language of projection and introjection, this coniunctio gives innet experience substance and external perceptions signifi- cance (Britton 1998, p. 60). By contrast, the insistence that the objects of imagination should be equivalent to the objects of material actuality destroys the reality of imagination and blocks symbolic functioning. Without a back- ground of negation, there is no symbol and without symbolic representation there is no sense of being grounded in reality. ‘The hatred of absence and negation is not only the result of ego weakness but also further inhibits the development of ego functioning. The preference for imaginary solutions leads to the development of an imaginary ego. Celia showed the persistence of this way of being in her attempted recourse to an imaginary resolution of her difficulties, pretending that she no longer had fantasies about rme and that she could perfectly well be separate from me. This imaginary self image was the legacy of a lifetime of self-abdication, pretending that she didn’t mind when she was left, passed over or excluded when the reality was that she minded desperately. As long as this pretence was maintained, she was unable to develop the ego strength to bear the absence and exclusion that tormented her. Yet only by acknowledging the impossibility of her desire, its negation in actual ity, could the opposites of wish and fact be transcended. Then it would become possible to find satisfaction not only in physical actuality but also in the creative reality of imagination that Jung called the symbolic life. "TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT Get article soutient que la vraie imagination dépend de la capacité de reconnaitre absence de ce qui est imaging du monde de I'actualité matérielle. Ceci améne a une conception de la formation du symbole comme éant une opération de la fonction transcendante entre les opposée présence et absence. Les fantaisies sont différenciées de cela comme étant une utilisation défensive de imagination qui tente de denier la néga- tion, la négation étant définie comme tous ces aspects du monde qui mettent en échec la ‘toute puissance des images—a savoir I'absence, la perce, la différence, V'altérité etc. Des paralléles sont faits avec des antécédents théoriques de la psychologie analytique et de la psychanalyse, avec une attention particuliére pour les articles publiés dans le Journal of Analytical Psychology dans les années 60 sur la relation entre imagination active, le transfert et le développement du moi, Un cas clinique illustre I'utlsation de Ia capacité Pimaginer pour supprimer la douleur insupportable de la déception oedipienne, In dieser Arbeit wird die These aufgestelle, dass die wirkliche Imagination auf der Fahi- _akeit Deruht, die Abweseneit des Imaginierten in der AuReren, materiellen Welt anzue- rkennen, Folglich kann die Symbolbildung zwischen den Gegensitzen von Anwesenheit tund Abwesenheit als Tatigkeit der transzendenten Funktion angesehen werden. ‘Das Imaginite’ wird demgegeniiber als defensiver Missbrauch der Imagination dargestells,Imagination and the imaginary 39 mit dem versucht wird, die Negation zu leugnen. Hier wird die Negation definiet als all jene Aspekte der Welt, welche die Omnipotenz. der Fantasie cindimmen ~ 2.B. Abwesenheit, Verlust, Unterschied, Anderssein, etc. Es werden Parallelen za theoretis- chen Vorliufern in Analytischer Psychologie und Psychoanalyse gezogen, mit besonde- rer Beriicksichtigung der Arbeiten, die in den 1960emn im Journal ‘of Analytical Psychology zu den Zusammenhingen zwischen Aktiver Imagination, Ubertragung und Ich-Entwicklung publiziert wurden, Anband eines klinischen Fallbeispels wird gezeigt, wie dat Imaginére benutet wird, um die unertraglichen Schmerzen der édipalen Enttauschung abzuwehren, Questo lavoro suggerisce che limmaginazione reale dipende dalla capacith di rendersi conto dell'assenza di cid che si immagina dal mondo della realta materiale. Cid porta ad indagare sulla formazione dei simboli come operazione di funzione traseendente tra sli opposti di presenza e assenza. ‘L'immaginario’ & in contrasto con questo come ‘misura difensiva del immaginazione che tenta di negare ‘la negazione’ laddove la nega- ione si identifica in tutti quegli aspetti del mondo che costituiscono uno scacco all'onnipotenza della fantasia ~ ad esempio, assenza, perdita, diversiti, altruismo, ec. Vengono fatti dei paralleli con precedenti teoretici della psicologia analitica e della pricoanalis, con particolare artenzione ai lavori pubblicati nel Journal of Analytical Peychology negli anni ‘6o sulla relazione tra immaginazione attiva, transfert e sviluppo dell'To, Viene proposto un esempio clinico per illustrare Puso dellimmaginazione come mezzo per contrastare l'insopportabile pena della delustone edipica, Exe articulo argumenta que la verdadera imaginacién depende de la capacidad para reconocer la ausencia de aquello que se imagina del mundo de larealizacién material Eso conduce ana visidn dela formacin de simbolos como la operacin de la fancidn trascendente entre los opuestos de la presencia y Ia ausenca, Se conerasta ‘To imagina~ rio’ con esto como una manera defensiva de malusas I imaginacié que busca nega la “negaciéa’, la cual se define como todos aquellos aspectos del mundo que sefuerzan el, cardcter omnipotente de la fantasia, por ejemplo, a ausencia, la pérdda, la diferencia, Ja owedad, etcetera. El autor hace parallismos con los antecedentestedtivos ela psi cologia analitia y el psicoandisis, con particular atencién alos articules publicados en Ia revista Journal of Analytical Psychology en la década de los sesenta sobre la relacion cntee la imaginacién activa, la tansfereneiay cl desarrollo del ego. El autor da un ejem- plo clinico para mostrar cl uso de Ia imaginacién como un medio de defensa contea el insoportable dolor de la dessin edipica References Baynes, H. G, (2950). ‘The provisional life’. In Analytical Peychology and the English ‘Mind. London: Methuen, Bovensiepen, G. {2002]. ‘Symbolic attitude and reverie: problems of symbolization in children and adolescents’. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 47, 2, 241-57. Britton, R. (x989). “The missing link: parental sexuality in the Oedipus complex’. In R.Britton, M. Feldman & E. O'Shaughnessy’s The Oedipus Complex Today: Clinical Implications, ed. J, Steiner. London: Kasnac Books.40 Warren Conan — (1998). Belief and Imagination. Explorations in Psychoanalysis. London & New ‘York: Routledge. — (2005). Sex, Death and the Super-Ego. Experiences in Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac. Cannon, A, (1968), ‘Transference as a creative illusion’, Journal of Analytical Psychol- ‘ogy. 13, 2, 95-108. Reprinted in Technique i Jungian Analysis. Library of Analyti- cal Paychology, 2, 161-77. London: Heinemann, 1974 Corbin, H. (2972). ‘Mundus Imaginalis or the imaginary and the imaginal’. Spring, 29. Davidson, D. (1966). “Transference as a form of active imagination’. Journal of Analy ical Psychology, 11, 2, 135-46. Reprinted in Technique in Jungian Analysis, Library ‘of Analyvical Psychology, 2, 188-99. London: Heinemann, £974 inger, E. (1960). ‘The ego-self paradox’. Journal of Analytical Peychology, 5, 2, 318 Fonagy, P. (2003). Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis. New York: Other Press. Freud, 8. (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. SE 20, 3-66. ‘r925). ‘Negation’, SE 19, 235-42 Fordham, M. (1958). ‘Problems of active imagination’. In The Objective Psyche. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. — (1967). ‘Active imagination — deintegration or disintegration’. Journal of Analyt- cal Psychology, 12, 1, 51-65. — (1974), ‘Deiences of the self. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 19, 2, 192-99. Reprinted in Explorations into the Self. London: Academic Press, £985. 1977). ‘A possible root of active imagination’. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 22, 4, 327-32. Reprinted in Explorations into the Self. London: Academic Press, 1985. Jung, C. G. (1912). “The theory of psychoanalysis’. CW 4 (1536). “The transcendent function’. CW 8. — [1932). The Peychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar Given im 1932 by C. G. Jung, ed. Son Shamdasani. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996/Bollingen Series XCIX, Klages, M, (oor), Jacques Lacan. http:iwww.colorado.edwEnglishENGLaor2 Klages/1997lacan html Milner, M. (2955). ‘The role of illusion in symbol formation’. In New Directions in Psycho-Analysis, eds. M. Klein, P. Heimann & R. Money-Kytle, $2108. Money-Kyrle, R. (1968). ‘Cognitive development’ International Journal of Psycho. ‘Analysis, 49, 4, 691-8. Reprinted in The Collected Papers of Roger Money-Kyrle. Perthshire: Canie Press, 1978. Plaus, A. (x956). ‘The transference in analytical psychology’. In Technique in Jungian ‘Analysis. Library of Analytical Psychology, 2, 152-77. London: Academic Press, 1974. —— (1966). ‘Reflections on not being able to imagine’. Journal of Analytical Psych ology, 11, 2, 113-33. Reprinted in Analytical Psychology: A Modern Science. Library of Analytical Psychology, 1, 127-49. London: Academic Press, 1980. — (2965). ‘Comment: on not incarnating the archetype’. Journal of Analytical Psy- chology, 15, 1, 88 Schore, A. (2994). Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self. The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, — (2003). "The development of the right brain’. In Emotional Development in Ps choanalysis, Attachment Theory and Neuroscience. Hove & New York: Brunner- Routledge. Segal, H. (1991). Dream, Phantasy and Art. London: Routledge. Steiner, J. (1993) Psychic Retreats. Pathological Organisations in Psychotic, Neurotic and Borderline Patients, London: Routledge. Symington, N. (1993). Narcissism: A New Theory. London: Karnac Books.Imagination and the imaginary 4 Von Franz, M. (x970}. Puer Aeternus, Santa Monica, CA: Sigo Press, 2 edition, 298. Winnicott, D, W, (1945). ‘Primitive emotional development’. In Collected Papers: Through Paediatrics to Psycho-Analysis. London: Tavistock, £958 1953}. Transitional objects and transitional phenomena’. In Playing and Reality London: Penguin Books, 2974 — (2958). Psychoses and child care’. In Collected Papers: Through Paediatrics to Psycho-Analysis. London: Tavistock, 1958 — 11967). “The location of cultural experience’. In Playing and Reality. London: Penguin Books, 1974 — (2971). ‘Dreaming, fantasying, living’ In Playing and Reality. London: Penguin Books, 1974Copyright of Journal of Analytical Psychology is the property of Blackwell Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, downlead, or email articles for individual use.